On the practical side, even if you knew exaxtly what each type was, you'd
still have your own learning curve with respect to the condition of your
lathe, the particular workholding technique, etc.

Good luck!

"xray" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 04:53:26 GMT, "Tom Gardner"
wrote:


"xray" wrote in message
. ..

I have some random steel rods I picked up locally. I'm not sure of the
material. Two of them have colors painted on one of the ends: red on one
and orange on the other. I'm wondering if these colors tell me what they
are?

[snip]
Thanks for any enlightenment you can share.

-Rex

I received over a ton of steel rounds of all different sizes. I deduced
that some was tool steel as the company made some dies for their
operations.
I stamped a code number on each round and sliced off a wafer and stamped
the
wafers with the same code. I heated each wafer red hot and dropped it
into
quenching oil. Then I could tell with a file what was cold-roll and what
was tool steel. Next I spark tested each tool steel wafer with a known
piece of O-1 and D-2. I feel pretty confident with categorizing each
piece.
I also knew there wouldn't be too many odd-balls. I only have 2 that I'm
not sure about exactly what they are but they hardened.

Do you need to know what the alloy actually is? Or will knowing general
properties do? Try turning a whack of each piece with HSS tools, you'll
know by the way it cuts and the finish it leaves. You can even tell by
the
smell of the cut. Don't even think about sending samples to a lab for
$4-600 a pop.


I was hoping the colors would give me a good idea, but I guess not. I'm
just starting to turn things -- got a lathe recently. The 12L14 is the
only steel I have that I am sure of. I think the orange colored piece is
supposed to be 1018. The red one seems to be harder when I knick it with
a file, I'm guessing something like 4140.

Being new to turning I don't have a good feel for how different steels
should feel while cutting. Part of wanting to know what I have was to
give me a feel for the differences.

I did think about grinding on them to see what the sparks look like. I
think I have references in a book or two about differences in sparks.

Oh well, I'm not going to make anything critical for a while or try to
harden steel, so I'll just have at it with what I have while I learn.
I'll order some pieces of some popular steels later for comparison.