1144 Miracle Steel

BENDER (geez...)

Spill chucker????

Machines like 12L14, but without the lead exposure. Maybe better.

I was making some rotating assemblies for my prototype wire fender yesterday and I was stunned (reminded) with how fast I could turn it. Unfortunately it only appears to be available in round and hex. I looked. I found some Chinese companies years ago when I looked that claimed to have it in other forms, but ordering a container of steel from China is beyond my means, even if if it was legit.

The biggest issue with 1144 is it tends to hot short when welded. At

After struggling with every other steel (except 1018 which is far easier than some would have you believe) using some 1144 yesterday was a dream. I also made the handles for the rotating assembly from 1/4 inch 1144 round. It manages simple forging, (smashing the ends to retain them in the assembly) just fine as well, but I did all my squishing from a dull to medium red, but not cherry red.

Makes me wish Iggy was still selling those large round drops on eBay cheap.

That "stessproof" stuff is fantastic material. Hard, strong, free-machining yet tough.Makes excellent shafts and axles. The secret to the stuff is apparently it's high suphur content. Post machining flame hardening makes it extremely wear resistant.

Small orders of any metal tends to be expensive. Amazon and eBay are not horrible, but they aren't as many good deals as there used to be on those platforms. They do tend to be a little safer, but you can still get burned. With the platform being the payment middleman you usually won't get burned for more than purchase price, but I caution, I did have my eBay account hacked once. Fortunately I caught it same day, notified eBay and flagged every fraudulent transaction. I caught it because my credit card company notified me. eBay DID NOT notify all the sellers who got burned. A couple of them shipped expensive items to a mail stop in Chicago. I've never been outside of O'Hara airport on a cross connection so it wasn't me. LOL.

For 1144 stressproof you may find full sticks at a reasonable price at a local metal yard. One of my local metal yards will sell half sticks at the same price per foot as full sticks, but any further processing they charge for. They suck for aluminum pricing (they buy it the same place I do), but they are fairly competitive on steel.

The 1144 I was turning the other day I bought from McMaster Carr. It wasn't about price. It was because I could have it next business day. I ordered it on a Saturday afternoon after my local metal yard was closed for the day. I have been told if you are buying a quantity of an item from McMaster you can request a competitive quote, but I've never tried.

I didn't see any 1144 available from Midwest, but its worth mentioning they have improved their processing time and shipment time. I can't recommend them except on price (for the things they have) and often only in quantity, but I no longer recommend against them. I would note their freight estimator only shows truck freight, but if you put items in the shopping cart and step through the process to shipping it shows alternative shipping methods for items small/light enough to go common carrier. That being said, I am ten days out without a shipping notice on some 5052 plate I ordered from them to make some trim tabs for a boat. They do tend to be faster on uncut pieces, but then its usually to long to go by common carrier.

Small orders of any metal tends to be expensive. Amazon and eBay are not horrible, but they aren't as many good deals as there used to be on those platforms. They do tend to be a little safer, but you can still get burned. With the platform being the payment middleman you usually won't get burned for more than purchase price, but I caution, I did have my eBay account hacked once. Fortunately I caught it same day, notified eBay and flagged every fraudulent transaction. I caught it because my credit card company notified me. eBay DID NOT notify all the sellers who got burned. A couple of them shipped expensive items to a mail stop in Chicago. I've never been outside of O'Hara airport on a cross connection so it wasn't me. LOL.

For 1144 stressproof you may find full sticks at a reasonable price at a local metal yard. One of my local metal yards will sell half sticks at the same price per foot as full sticks, but any further processing they charge for. They suck for aluminum pricing (they buy it the same place I do), but they are fairly competitive on steel.

The 1144 I was turning the other day I bought from McMaster Carr. It wasn't about price. It was because I could have it next business day. I ordered it on a Saturday afternoon after my local metal yard was closed for the day. I have been told if you are buying a quantity of an item from McMaster you can request a competitive quote, but I've never tried.

I didn't see any 1144 available from Midwest, but its worth mentioning they have improved their processing time and shipment time. I can't recommend them except on price (for the things they have) and often only in quantity, but I no longer recommend against them. I would note their freight estimator only shows truck freight, but if you put items in the shopping cart and step through the process to shipping it shows alternative shipping methods for items small/light enough to go common carrier. That being said, I am ten days out without a shipping notice on some 5052 plate I ordered from them to make some trim tabs for a boat. They do tend to be faster on uncut pieces, but then its usually to long to go by common carrier.

That being said, I am ten days out without a shipping notice

Speak of the devil. I just got shipping notice on my plate.

Just about all grades were resulphurised in my first job at a Sheffield (UK) alloy steelmaker over 4 decades ago. The market niche made that so.

I then worked in a steelworks which made more expensive steels for very high-end purposes and sometimes we double-slagged to very low sulphur - first the "basic" (chemically) slag under oxidising conditions, then clear the liquid steel bath in the furnace, raking it out when you couldn't pour-off more slag without metal loss, then make a new basic slag but with carbon in it and keep the conditions "reducing" (chemically). Which shifts the sulphur. Necessary for the likes of ball-bearing / rolling-bearing steels - but you'll be seeing the expense implications. When you are on an aeroplane on take-off - I think the principles of physics mean all the thrust pushing you back in your seat must be transmitted through the bearings at that high engine revs (?). We sweated buckets to get that effect. These days of very high performance refractories you can have a ladle furnace with a tightly fitting cap, have a small arc just to counter conductive heat loss, and cheaply refine to very low sulphur levels that is what is called for.

Back to resulphurised... For machinability... I think it was "got away with" because the parts were forged - which curved the "grain" of the steel around the shapes. [transverse strength is much lower than longitudinal strength - half or less - so in forging must avoid "breaking the grain"] Customers - well biggest was Ford Motor Co. "our" billets ("crude" round-cornered squares) went to drop-forgers, most in the Midlands are Birmingham. All these parts for car engines, etc., needed machining and that's where the resulphurised came in - I think it made machining vastly cheaper. I've never see machinability tests, I admit... As I knew it 4 decades ago.

For welded steels, weld contraction makes for high through-thickness stresses, so those steels need very low sulphur and other impurities to achieve that - transverse and in particular through-thickness tensiles close to the longitudinal tensile strength. So that was a different world.

Back again to resulphurised steels - a very common grade in my first job was C-Cr-Mo, typically the UK equivalent to 4140 steel. Good enough for a lot of small engine parts (it doesn't through-thickness harden as well as when you start adding nickel - getting to typically 4340 steel) - but for smaller parts which in cross-section you could wrap your fingers around in the palm of your hand it does the job, cheaper).

Most of the time things like screw-threads - which "cut the grain" - the number of threads (the length and number of turns of the thread) give you plenty of strength through large area taking the load across the cut grain where strength will be half or less the longitudinal strength.

Hope that's helpful.

Best wishes, Rich Smith