Carbon steel is a popular material choice for metal spinning, offering specific qualities and advantages. The results of carbon steel metal spinning are extremely rigid parts and products that are often significantly sturdier than other materials and/or processes.
Material Specifics
Carbon steel is a steel alloy mainly made with carbon, typically ranging from 0.12 to 2%. Carbon steel differs from other steel alloys due to the fact that there is no minimum requirement for chromium, nickel, titanium, tungsten, molybdenum, and other elements. Sometimes the term carbon steel, or mild carbon steel, is used for steels that are not fully stainless steel.
Material Characteristics
The addition of carbon to iron (producing carbon steel) strengthens the metal; the more carbon present, the higher the strength of the resulting material. While increasing the carbon content makes it stronger, that will decrease the material’s weldability and ductility. Carbon steel can be classified as low-carbon steel, medium-carbon steel, and high-carbon steel.
The exact amount of carbon present will affect the unique characteristics of the resulting material. Carbon steel is known for its:
- Better strength than many other metals
- Cost-effectiveness
- High Durability and Recyclability
Metal Spinning and Carbon Steel
Carbon steel is an ideal-and very popular-choice for many metal spinning applications. Not only does it provide rigid parts, but these parts can quite easily be painted and/or coated. Both hot rolled steel and cold rolled steel can be used for metal spinning. Hot rolled steel is typically more malleable, while cold rolled steel is less flexible, but still able to be used in metal spinning processes.
In either case, metal spinning of carbon steel produces strong, uniform products at low costs. Helander can metal spin carbon steel parts up to 0.375 of an inch thick.