What do you recon this metal is?

A

Absinthe

Well-Known Member
Not to be "that guy" but...

My son does HVAC work. He was cleaning out his work van into our trash and I snatched a panel cover and these two strips of 0.032 steel. He said it comes between things in coils or something. It has been sitting in the shop for a long time and I am cleaning up so I noticed it and what was left of the panel cover. I got to wondering if it might work out well for making patterns on. Then I thought, could it work as liner material? It is definitely not galvanized. It is magnetically attractive.

Any ideas what it might be? Anything I could do with it? If I can have lots of it for free it would be cool if I could make liners at least.
 
Mystery metal,, ask your son as he should be familiar with the steels he uses.. Galvanized metal can be magnetic as the base metal they cover is mild steel
 
vlegski said:
Mystery metal,, ask your son as he should be familiar with the steels he uses.. Galvanized metal can be magnetic as the base metal they cover is mild steel
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He doesn't know. I can normally see the pattern of galvanized. I am just assuming it is strips of what you might use to build ducting. But it is just packing materials or something weird that comes when they buy a new coil.
 
Why do you think anyone on this forum will be able to identify a chunk of scrap metal you found somewhere? There's lots of ways to grossly categorize metal, none of which are definitive enough for knife making.
 
MTBob said:
Why do you think anyone on this forum will be able to identify a chunk of scrap metal you found somewhere? There's lots of ways to grossly categorize metal, none of which are definitive enough for knife making.
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I don't. However, someone else might have seen the same thing from the same situation.

Sometimes the wrong answers can be more entertaining than the right ones anyway.

As for knife making lots of things can be used as liners.even plastics, right. Some of which perhaps should be avoided, but I assume there would be a test of some unknown material.
 
billyO said:
I noticed you were careful enough to add 'normally' which is different than 'always'. As such, I'd be leery about putting this in my forge.
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If it were galvanized it could be easily enough removed. But I wasn't thinking of it as hardenable any way. I would consider for patterns, but thinking about maybe liners. Though if it is stainless I would be afraid I wouldn't be able to solder to it.
 
True enough. But those aren't the wrong answers I am talking about. Not that I can't get one of those kind of answers in any situation. This is the internet, after all. For every question asked there will be at least 1 RTFM, 1 Offended person, 1 correction of spelling or terminology, and 1 safety police response. One is never guaranteed to get a correct answer.

Recommendations like spark testing and hardening testing are good things. Perhaps there is a way to test for magnetic ss. Or an actual test that would reveal Zn.

I do know that I can test with copper sulfate, magnet, sparks. I am not sure how to test for sacrificial Zn in galvanized.
 
Okay, the advice I get for galvanized is

1. Taste it. Galvanized should taste chalky (not sure I like this, but chemists have been tasting things for a long time. Perhaps much to their demise. Sniffing things has not worked in their favor too well either. :) But they are still valid tests.

3. 3:1 salt solution on a rag placed on the sample wait 24 hours for the presence of rust. Lack thereof suggests galvanized, though I am not sure SS wouldn't survive such a test.
 
Never been called Safety police before.. sorry you took it that way. But then it ur life have fun and Good luck in you hunt for the Correct answers.
 
As for SS you can sand a spot down to remove any coating/oxidation.
Then rub it with copper sulfate solution. If it turns purple that would indicate manganese.

As for the magnet thing I believe SS without nickel will still be magnetic. The description I was getting about nickel containing SS involved the term austentizing and I went down a strange internet rabbit hole and never got much further.

So that's what you found on my own so far. So I felt I should share. In any event they will still be fine for patterns, I assume. Still a question if they would be decent liner material.
 
vlegski said:
Never been called Safety police before.. sorry you took it that way. But then it ur life have fun and Good luck in you hunt for the Correct answers.
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I wouldn't call you safety police, since you didn't really offer any constructive advice in that direction. You merely came across as assuming I didn't care about safety. :) No matter, all answers are appreciated.
 
Do whatever you like, but my recommendation is to avoid wasting time with mystery metal. The time and effort that it takes to make a good knife far outweighs the *potential* cost savings of using found materials, because the reality is that the found material will more often ruin the knife and you will have wasted the time and effort. Steel is the cheapest part of making a knife. Start with something known so that you can achieve a predictable outcome.

Let’s say you use this sheet metal for liners. Unless you have similar bar stock for the bolsters they won’t match seamlessly, especially if the liner material rusts and pops the bolsters off. If it’s galvanized and you heat it up and poison yourself, then you also didn’t save money. If it’s made of recycled soup cans and manhole covers (which is likely) then it’s trash and that’s why it was used as a slip sheet to protect valuable machinery. It’s probably raw stock for ductwork.

If none of this matters, then why ask the question in the first place? More specifically, why pose the question to people to whom it does matter quite a lot? I’m not trying to offend you, but this isn’t a forum for junk collectors and random metalwork. The answers you get here are going to be from the perspective of people who make extremely high quality and collectible knives. They are trying to help you to accomplish the same.
 
John Wilson said:
Do whatever you like, but my recommendation is to avoid wasting time with mystery metal. The time and effort that it takes to make a good knife far outweighs the *potential* cost savings of using found materials, because the reality is that the found material will more often ruin the knife and you will have wasted the time and effort. Steel is the cheapest part of making a knife. Start with something known so that you can achieve a predictable outcome.

Let’s say you use this sheet metal for liners. Unless you have similar bar stock for the bolsters they won’t match seamlessly, especially if the liner material rusts and pops the bolsters off. If it’s galvanized and you heat it up and poison yourself, then you also didn’t save money. If it’s made of recycled soup cans and manhole covers (which is likely) then it’s trash and that’s why it was used as a slip sheet to protect valuable machinery. It’s probably raw stock for ductwork.

If none of this matters, then why ask the question in the first place? More specifically, why pose the question to people to whom it does matter quite a lot? I’m not trying to offend you, but this isn’t a forum for junk collectors and random metalwork. The answers you get here are going to be from the perspective of people who make extremely high quality and collectible knives. They are trying to help you to accomplish the same.
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Thanks
 
Hard to tell from your picture, but those may very well be galvanized.

Maybe use them for pattern templates? Can they be used for liners? Maybe? I'd see how readily they rust first. Galvanic corrosion might be an issue down the road.
 
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