On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:20:41 -0800, Bruce L Bergman wrote:

If you keep the lot all together, and find something that you
/really/ want to ID (I.E. the assay costs are far less than going out
and buying the metal new) find a junkyard with one of those nifty
X-ray Spectrometer (IIRC) metal ID guns.

Ahhh...I have a cousin who runs a scrapyard. I should see what toys he
has.

You just put a 12-pack of chilled (or a fifth at room temp) potent
potables in the back seat of the gun owner's car as "payment", place a
small sample in the jaws, and press the button. You might not be able
to ID it to a precise compound if it was true mystery metal, but you
DO have a clue what it most likely is.

I use liquid barter regularly. Every couple of weeks I drop off sodas
for the computer site support guys in the building where I work, because
they've helped me out more than a couple of times, and because I used to
do that and nobody appreciated our group until they needed us.

The gun gives you the component mix of carbon, manganese, lead, etc.
A hardness tester tells whether it's tool steel or spaghetti. Spark
testing would be another confirmation of carbon content. That, and
the old paperwork and vendor color chart would confirm what you have.

And once I've got a couple of them ID'd, I'll know which vendor's code
it is. Again this relies on it all being from the same vendor, but
knowing where they came from, (cutoffs from a hydraulic controls
manufacturer), it's likely that they stuck with one vendor.

Seems like a sharpie and actual numbers wouldn't be a bad approach?

Hell NO!!! Die stamps and a ball-peen hammer would be best, as long
as you don't plan to use every mm of it... Or paint marker. And if
it's hardened metal that would ding your die stamps, you can use paint
marker and a vibratory etcher as backup.

Makes sense. Woudn't have thought of the die stamps.

Sharpie fades and weathers off way too easily - when I want to mark
a power panel "permanently" I use a LaCo-Markal paint marker like the
junkyards use - the LaCo looks like a regular marker with a valve tip,
the junkyards buy the little squeeze bottle with a big ball-point tip.

Yup, got a yellow and a white. Learned that one from an old-fart I used
to work for (no disrespect involved, that was his title as he told me).

Real paint that will hold up outdoors in the sun for 20 years and
still be readable (like the address a roof air conditioner belongs to,
or the unit number in large installs) - and if some bozo paints over
it you can still read the bump in the paint and reapply on top.

Ah, my racks are inside but, never know when they'll get wet I suppose.
Paint pen it is then.