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Hot Rolled Steel

Hot Rolled Steel

Product Description

Hot rolling is a metalworking process that occurs above the recrystallization temperature of the material. After the grains deform during processing, they recrystallize, which maintains an equiaxed microstructure and prevents the metal from work hardening. The starting material is usually large pieces of metal, like semi-finished casting products, such as slabs, blooms, and billets.

Some things to be aware of:

1) Hot Rolled Steel products are NOT a consistent blueish color. This is particularly true with hot rolled sheet, over the surface of which the color varies dramatically, more blue at the edges, more grey in the center of the sheet.

2) The shapes available in hot rolled steels are available in 12ft, 20ft, and sometimes 40ft lengths, ask us, we can tell you what is available..

3) The blue scale finish on hot rolled products is incidental to the process of producing the product, and so, is not controlled in any way. This gives rise to fairly strong inconsistencies in the finish, particularly in sheet and plate.

4) Again, the blue scale on the metal prevents any chemical coloring on the surface of the metal unless the scale is removed, exposing the bare metal beneath.

5) Most hot rolled products are very soft and bendable. This is really only noticeable in the smaller bar sizes, but it can affect the final product if you are relying on the product to take a lot of strain.
If you are looking for a stiffer product, use Cold Finished Steel.

6) Hot rolled plate is a very rough product, and should be treated as such.

7) All hot rolled products weld, bend, drill, and form very easily, and as well are the least expensive of the steels, giving rise to the least expensive finished product of any of the steels.

8) Nearly all metalwork involves welding or soldering the metal. How those welds are addressed is often the difference between a hack job and good craftsmanship. If hot rolled steel is welded, either the un-dressed welds are left as a part of the aesthetic, or they will have to be ground down by hand. Grinding and dressing the welds, of course, removes the blue scale at the weld zone while leaving the blue scale on the rest of the material. This aesthetic difference must be addressed at every weld. It is possible to return the color, but not the texture, of the blue scale at the ground weld joint where the metal has been exposed by heating up the joint red hot and allowing to cool.

9) A reminder – Pipe is specified by the inside diameter, Tubing is specified by the outside diameter.

10) Hot rolled steel stock products mostly have a rounded appearance at the corners and edges and relatively inexact dimensions, whereas cold finished steels are much smoother and more precise.

Hot Rolled Steel

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