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Sheet steel hardness

I have some drawn parts to make and have one drawing die done, the part looks like a top hat. I do have similar parts made by other manufacturers. I'm not sure what steel to use, cold-rolled, drawing or deep-drawing? I have successfully made some parts with the die but there will be more operations done on the part where we essentially turn part of it inside out. My question is one that my steel suppliers can't answer, the salesmen are nothing more than order-takers.

Would the different steels have different hardness that is standard? I haven't tested any of them yet, I just thought of it. But, if this is so, I could tell what steel the other manufacturer is using. Until recently, I'd never heard of Aluminum-Killed Steel (AK) or AKDQ (Aluminum Killed Draw Quality) I will track it all down and figure out the correct steel for the part but if anybody has any experience with drawn parts or the different grades of steel, I'd appreciate any advice, the price difference is very significant.

(Drawn parts are Black Magic!)

Reply to
Tom Gardner
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Tom Gardner wrote in rec.crafts.metalworking on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:56:41 -0500:

If you look in Mach. Handbook, you will find a list of steels and what they are used for. But Draw Quality sounds good.

Reply to
dan

You did say "steel". So, the lower in carbon content, the more ductile it will be. If you just go to the steel yard and ask for some sheet steel, you will quite likely get A36, which can have a carbon content as high as

0.29%. You want a LOT less carbon than that. Ask for 1010, 1008, or, better yet, 1006. The first "10" means "plain carbon steel", ie: mostly just iron and carbon. The second two numbers tell you how much carbon is in the iron. Ex: 1010 = plain carbon steel with 0.1% carbon 1008 = plain carbon steel with 0.08% carbon, etc..

Some places sell special steels that are used for making transformer laminations. I hear that this stuff is good for drawing, too.

One of the problems with finding these materials is that they are often sold by the ton, or even 10's of ton lots. But if you do find a place that sells it that way, beg them to give you the name of a few customers. They may well have sizable drops that you can get. A friend of mine did that and found the user had thousands of pounds of 4' X 4" drops to sell! I am blacksmith and I do some drawing and repousse' using steels such as this. My experience: once you get down to 1010, the ductility doesn't get much better by going to the 1008 or 1006. And workhardening is almost non-existant in all three.

Pete Stanaitis

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Tom Gardner wrote:

Reply to
spaco

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