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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Stefan Diedericks on August 11, 2010 at 1:09

An extract from Wikipedea:

"Mild and low carbon steel
Mild steel is the most common form of steel because its price is relatively low while it provides material properties that are acceptable for many applications. Low carbon steel contains approximately 0.05–0.15% carbon and mild steel contains 0.16–0.29% carbon, therefore it is neither brittle nor ductile. Mild steel has a relatively low tensile strength, but it is cheap and malleable; surface hardness can be increased through carburizing.

It is often used when large quantities of steel are needed, for example as structural steel. The density of mild steel is approximately 7.85 g/cm3 (0.284 lb/in3) and the Young's modulus is 210,000 MPa (30,000,000 psi).

Low carbon steels suffer from yield-point runout where the material has two yield points. The first yield point (or upper yield point) is higher than the second and the yield drops dramatically after the upper yield point. If a low carbon steel is only stressed to some point between the upper and lower yield point then the surface may develop Lüder bands."

KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by CaptJeff Saylor on August 11, 2010 at 17:58

well the mystery is over, i got an email from my heat treater, and he can NOT get that steel to harden. so that means that is deffinityis mild steel and that also confirms that you can not heat treat it.

a costly lesson learned, oh well. now i know