Chinese steel?

[gordon stephenson]

Been meaning to post these for a while, As i get the horseshoe direct from being removed, I usually soak them in a sulphuric acid bath over night, They usually emerge quite clean and the embedded crap in the nail groove softened for easy scraping out, But lately quite a few have come out of the bath looking like this.
The acid loves to eat crap and scale, I can only imagine that these shoes were made from metal that had slag and other impurities included,

 

[p0689109]

About sums up "you get for what you pay" where Chinese goods are concerned.

 

[WorkshopChris]

That's worrying i know absolutely nothing about horses or the shoes they wear, but what else could be made from the same materials. I presume they looked relatively normal before they went in the tank.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Yes, Shoes looked OK before the sulphuric bath, Of course i don't know where they were manufactured, but we can all have our suspicions.

 

[Robotstar5]

Have the Farriers or horse owners noticed any difference with fitting or wear rate?

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I can't speak for shoes, but at my last spot they got some el cheapo Chinese steel in for some architectural work. It welded like crap, the 8mm channel we got was twisted, and was neither 90* or the same dimension all the way along. There was a 15 mm I beam that was bent. It wasn't fit for the scrap

 

[gordon stephenson]

Robotstar5, Don't know any details, My daughter lives in Blackburn (100 miles from me) When the farrier comes to her place he drops off whatever he has in his truck from that days shoeing, I'm going to look after her place in June for a couple of weeks, If the farrier comes while I'm there will ask him.
One of those "moth eaten" shoes had the name Equilibrium stamped on the under side.

 

[Brad93]

Not Chinese. They're malayasians. And yeah they are a quarter of the price of a strommie

 

[Brad93]

Equilibrium's are mustad shoes. You'd expect them to be quite good.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Just been down to the garage to check, Its the shoe with all the dimples that is marked Equilibrium, There again they may not be genuine, everything is getting faked these days,

 

[W4yne]

That's the reason parts of the Forth road bridge has started to disintegrate! inferior cheap Chinese steel. The worrying thing is, the new bridge they are building next to this one is made totally! from the same cheap material.

 

[colnerov]

Hi, I notice on the shoe on the right where the wear is that the steel appears better. Is that because it has been sort of forged by the impact of the horse walking?

Colin

 

[ronan]

I bought steel for a job there last year, it was chinese mild steel and to me who has been working with steel for many years, it seemed dirty and brittle, more like iron in a lot of ways. When i cut some with the grinder the cut wan't bright and clean, but dull and dirty. It was also brittle.

I used it anyway, as it didn't make much difference to the job, but if it were stressed i would certainly be worried about it.

 

[dannyp]

had quite a few bits of steel in work that havent welded well, hit them with the normal settings and the weld has cracked straight down the centerline a few times. to get a decent weld seems to need less power and resort to a multi run

 

[gordon stephenson]

A fair number of the shoes come out of the acid bath looking like the one on the left with erosion slag etc running in the direction of the shoe shape, Cant imagine how the one with the divots was made, Looks like somebody had been drilling on it but I can assure you that they have not, Be interested to see what TechnicaLs opinion is.

 

[Kent]

That's the reason parts of the Forth road bridge has started to disintegrate! inferior cheap Chinese steel. The worrying thing is, the new bridge they are building next to this one is made totally! from the same cheap material.

Was the Forth road bridge really built with cheap Chinese steel? I should have thought it pre- dated the Chinese steel exporting it here?

 

[penfold]

FRB is coming apart because it's 50 years old and carrying 50% more traffic over design capacity

A fair number of the shoes come out of the acid bath looking like the one on the left with erosion slag etc running in the direction of the shoe shape, Cant imagine how the one with the divots was made, Looks like somebody had been drilling on it but I can assure you that they have not, Be interested to see what TechnicaLs opinion is.

When you pickled it did the divots dissolve or fall out whole?

 

[gordon stephenson]

The divots were just as the photo coming out of the bath, Just found another and will post tomorrow, Im reckoning its mill scale, `if i use the bath to remove scale from new hot rolled metal it dissolves the scale a treat,Leaving the metal untouched,
Is it possible that the shoes are made from a type of wrought iron and not steel?

 

[Brad93]

The divots were just as the photo coming out of the bath, Just found another and will post tomorrow, Im reckoning its mill scale, `if i use the bath to remove scale from new hot rolled metal it dissolves the scale a treat,Leaving the metal untouched,
Is it possible that the shoes are made from a type of wrought iron and not steel?

Forging the metal more evenly destributes the carbon content through the steel. as these are machine mades they could be from anywhere ven from a brand like Mustad. Machine made Shoes are only altered before fitting, not really hammered about enough to introduce that kind of difference.

 

[penfold]

Just carp steel then; the croppings off the top of the ingots have pipes and slag inclusions in them which might produce something like this.