Re: spring steel launch rod?

Try rec.motorcycles. It's a morass of OT crap, mostly political, with next to no motorcycle content.

They must all be out RIDING MOTORCYCLES.
At rmr we seem to have armchair rocketeers like Teeling spamming the group with off-topic crap.
Jerry

For the other end of the spectrum, try comp.arch.fpga
There is a bit of clash between the Xilinx and Altera personnel, but it's quite active, high on technical content, and very low on noise.
The down side is that nobody there wants to talk rockets. Not much fun at all!
Dwayne Surdu-Miller SAROS #1
--------------------------------------------- EldredP wrote:

I'm just countering your fraudulent BS.

On numerous occasions I have begged you to cite a single example of my "BS". But you fail.
Maybe it is your postings that are BS.

Are you "legal" with the DOT? you have always maintained that you were legal. That's BS
you claimed you were legal, even after the DOT fined you.
Are you "legal" now? What's the name of your ATF agent?
Who is your current DOT contact?

I don't know about the other contacts, but I do DOT for free; special, just for "BIG FINE"..(:-)

The two are simply application and quality designations for given alloys. The terms don't tell you the chemistry or mechanical properties, they only suggest quality and condition needed for a typical application. This is why I personally hate using these types of terms. I want to know what the chemistry and heat treat condition is, not the type of steel.
That said...
Springs need to have very high yield strengths. Chemistries and heat treating techniques are employed to achieve the needed properties. Thus, steel alloys used for springs have a significant amount of elements that increase hardenability such as carbon, silicon and manganese. The disadvantage is that they are brittle. (Ever seen a broken spring?)
Music wire needs very high tensile strengths and a small amount of corrosion resistance. Thus, steel alloys used for music wire have elements like chromium and nickel. The quality of the steel also extremely important because it is very demanding to draw a steel alloy to the sizes used for musical instruments. The steel alloy needs to be very clean, having absolutely no inclusions or other defects from melting/pouring/casting at the steel mill.
Both of the materials need to have resistance to fatigue. Neither one is "better" for launch rods. Neither one is "stiffer".