British steel

[blenkie1]

What steel is actually made in this country. Just had a considerable amount of steel delivered and noticed that the tag that is sometimes fixed to the steel said Turkey! Cannot complain because of the price but its sad to see. It's just 50x50x3 box so nothing special. Did have to fold some cheap 10mm plate once and it was cracking at the edge of the fold. Recycled rubbish? It also worth noting that the Ark Royal is on its way to Turkey to be broken will we be buying it back along with mixed up washing machines?

 

[Welderpaul]

Not much.
We've had it from Russia, Poland, Turkey, and on the very very rare occasion; Sheffield. I understand a lot of channel, beam, column, flats, angles, plate etc are shipped in, but big tube and box is made over here because of the inefficiencies of getting it abroad (Shipping a lot of fresh air).

10mm plate will often crack when its folded.

 

[Hitch]

Deburr the edges before folding, usually prevents cracking on the ends

 

[BrokenBiker]

mu missus grandfather works for island steel in Newport and they make allsorts. Wont let me near the scrap bin though

 

[brightspark]

mu missus grandfather works for island steel in Newport and they make allsorts. Wont let me near the scrap bin though

get him to get it for u then

 

[the snooper]

What steel is actually made in this country. Just had a considerable amount of steel delivered and noticed that the tag that is sometimes fixed to the steel said Turkey! Cannot complain because of the price but its sad to see. It's just 50x50x3 box so nothing special. Did have to fold some cheap 10mm plate once and it was cracking at the edge of the fold. Recycled rubbish? It also worth noting that the Ark Royal is on its way to Turkey to be broken will we be buying it back along with mixed up washing machines?

I would have thought just about all steel would be recycled its big bussiness

 

[brightspark]

I would have thought just about all steel would be recycled its big bussiness

i might be wrong but i thought even new steel had so much scrap added

 

[Welderpaul]

I went round Magna last year - the fella said, as far as i remember, 'new steel' is made from 90+% of scrap with a few bits added that are lost when the old stuff is melted down.

 

[Rocketman]

Biggest crap steel and aluminium I have seen is from china - soft as ****, poor polishing ability and more likely to crack - allegedly they will say is it's the same specification as European/Japanese steel and aluminium but is it ********. You have to absolutely insist with Chinese toolmakers to use proper sourced tool steels like P20 and Aluminium in the range of alumec 79/89 (similar to 7075).

Funnily enough Chinese toolmakers aren't happy in general with making tools in aluminium. The plates are very expensive and generally speaking you are limited to laser welding which also limits you to very small welds. So if you **** up in usually you need to insert the tool but if witness lines aren't allowed it's a new plate. Tool grade aluminium like alumec 79/89 works well in developed high hour rate countries because the speed you can mill and polish the tool at out weighs the extra cost of high grade aluminium over say P20. Obviously even the 7075 equivalent aluminium isn't going to last as long for a injection mould tool compared to P20 steel - so it's really down to knowing how many shots the tool is required to do. 100000 moulding's off a ali tool is well within reach. Millions is a big no.

Japanese steels are very good BTW as you would expect.

So generally most of the steel/aluminium I come in contact with comes from Europe/Japan and maybe at a push USA.

Mod edit: watch the language please

 

[Rocketman]

I went round Magna last year - the fella said, as far as i remember, 'new steel' is made from 90+% of scrap with a few bits added that are lost when the old stuff is melted down.

True. At the end of the day it's doesn't matter what they use to make the steel as long as the final analysis is correct and in addition to that has the correct grain structure for a give thickness tied in with correct heat treatment.

 

[nickk]

i'm often asking the stockholders 'wheres this steel from' half the time they dont know/care ,maybe just want to sell you the stuff yet last time i drove thru the black country there's still a few mills/works.

 

[blenkie1]

We were folding the 10mm plate for tapered channel for above the cab on car transporters and was cracking a good 100mm along the fold not just on the edge it was just this one batch we got from a different supplier and had not happened before. Worried the manager enough to go back to the original supplier. I've never seen it but heard of box splitting right up the weld of the box but where it came from who knows. Its cheap stuff I suppose and its the pennies that matters to the customer. Was just thinking what is actually British made 100%. I know my brother has just brought a log burning stove and one of its claims is that they insist on using only British steel.

 

[Rocketman]

Blenkie you have Tata at Port Talbot making steel in huge quantities still. It's one of the largest sites producing steel in Europe.

Alcoa produce huge amounts of aluminium in this country too.

 

[daleyd]

There are still quite a few around Sheffield which still produce, though a lot of their stuff is more specialist. ( higher value, higher profit stuff)

As has already been said, tata at port talbot is still going, and there was rumours that Redcar was going to restart. Tata Shotton produces a lot of coated strip products.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

OT but I was told some of the best steel comes from Scotland ! It's salvaged off the WWI German fleet scuttled off Scapa Flow. Basically it was finest quality Japanese steel and has never seen radioactivity so valuable for that reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

Paul H

 

[nickk]

went past port talbot on tuesday-flame burning bright.also have a paragliding mate who works shifts on one of the furnaces says its busy.

 

[lchris21]

i work at port talbot, and we aim to make nearly 5 million tonnes of the stuff annually so somebody must be buying it !!!!

most of ours goes into making cars, washing machines, JCB's, bridges, tin cans and stuff. we've even started exporting the slabs by filling up the mineral carriers after they've dropped off their loads...........

if you drive past and the flame is burning then its either down for maintenance or problems.....all that gas is now captured and fueling the processes and boilers

 

[Mikey D]

I've collected a few loads of steel from Cardiff docks , I was quite surprised when I saw it was made in Turkey
This was box section various sizes up to about 50 mm shs etc . I've delivered to ASD metal services /klockner. In Northampton and B & M steels in nottingham .
Barclay and matheson did seem DIY friendly if that's help to anyone .

 

[norlander]

I think I posted this elsewhere on the forum-but as to the question how much scrap is recyled it might be of interest.

cooker to fridge.

Always remember my basics from my apprenticeship -the Bessemer Converter and iron ore, coke and limestone -but I only want to weld the stuff not make it-shut up boy-and stop looking at those girls through the window.

 

[lshigham]

A lot of our pipe comes from India, sad we hardly make any of our own nowadays.