when not to use mild steel ?

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I think it's largely down to habit that i can remember all of the imperial steel codes, yet the modern numbers seem confusing to remember, when theres a letter suffix attached it's much more catchy.

Clearly the suppliers are keeping it because it works. It might not necessarily tell me anything about the steel, but if i can remember a name then it does it's job.

Michael W

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

W and O are mostly North American designations.

In general terms:

O grades = oil hardening = gauge plate

W grades = water hardening = silver steel.

We ran a very detailed article on hardening W and O steels in MEW, which all applied to gauge plate and silver steel (one of my hardest ever edits as I had to translate every temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius and then check them all again).

American drill rod although being similar to silver steel lacks (manganese?) content that helps minimise distortion.

Neil

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

It looks to me that there isn't a modern equivalent of O1 or silver steel but they are still around due to their usefulness.

The high carbon content of silver steel is supposed to help it obtain sharp edges. O1 has tungston in it. Guage plate may have too but there seems to be some variation.

The W's from what I can find out should be plain carbon steels going up to rather high carbon levels.

Tubal Cain I think points out that carbon steel is harder than HSS as is file steel but only up to a certain temperature which means using very low cutting speeds.. Getting out his heat treatment book to check – he does. I think I've seen comments that sulphur can cause problems and this is the reason for some constituents of alloy steels. Might explain the clock refurbisher's problem.

John

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