Longer pieces on specific materials, forms and processes. The two dated notes at the foot of this list were published on this site in its earlier life and are preserved at their original addresses; the rest are reference pages written for this edition.
Independent reference. This is an independent, non-commercial reference on metal forms, grades and mill processes. It sells nothing, quotes nothing and takes no orders, and it is not affiliated with any metal supplier, distributor or mill. See about this reference.
Material families
- Hot rolled steel — why it has mill scale and rounded corners, which grades you meet in stock, and where the tolerances sit.
- Cold finished steel — cold drawn versus turned-ground-and-polished, the C1018 / 1045 / 4140 ladder, and the residual stress problem that catches people moving up from hot rolled.
- Stainless steel — how the passive layer works, 304 against 316 against 430, and why a magnet is not a grade test.
- Aluminium — the alloy series, what the T-temper suffix changes, galvanic contact, and why aluminium designs get their stiffness from geometry.
- Tool steel — air, oil and water hardening compared, drill rod against ground flat stock, and the two habits that prevent most heat-treatment failures.
- Brass and copper alloys — free-cutting C360, formable C260, and the dezincification failure mode.
Forms
- Sheet and plate — where sheet becomes plate, why a gauge number means different thicknesses in different metals, and what each cutting method leaves behind.
- Aluminium sheet — choosing between 3003, 5052 and 6061 by what the part has to do, plus finishes and bend limits.
- Stainless steel sheet — the 2B, No. 4 and No. 8 finishes, gauge conversion, and iron contamination.
- Stainless steel tubing — tube against pipe, the ornamental/structural/mechanical/sanitary categories, and an ordering checklist.
- Stainless steel rod — round bar conditions, threaded rod, and how to stop stainless threads galling.
- Stock forms line card — the one-page summary of every form covered here.
Process and application
- What a metal service centre does — breaking bulk, and what sawing, shearing, punching, braking and burning can and cannot hold.
- Uses of metals — flat bar into fencing and strapping, DOM tube into roll cages, beam into building frames, angle into trailers and bracing.
- Form catalogue — the full index of stock shapes by material family.
Dated technical notes
- DOM Tubing Benefits — 24 August 2012. How drawn-over-mandrel tube is made and why it is preferred to seamless for concentricity.
- Free-Machining Metals: Benefits — 24 August 2012. Why sulphur, phosphorus and lead additions speed machining by 30–40%, and why the same additions make the material hard to weld.
Further reading elsewhere
This site deliberately stops at orientation. For the grade-by-grade metallurgy of modern steels, the open technical library on advanced high-strength steel grades goes considerably deeper than anything here, and the governing ASTM, SAE and ASME documents remain the only authority for a specification.