Drill Rod ID

[Ed McDonnell]

I just got two pieces of drill rod I ordered. One is oil hardening and the other is water hardening. Sadly, they are both the same length / diameter and they have no identifying marks at all.

Enco said they have been having a problem with this (gee, maybe fix the problem!!!) and has credited my account and will ship replacements once they figure out what's going on in their warehouse. In the meantime, is there any way for the home player to figure out which is which?

One piece seems to have a tiny bit of bluing where it was cut. The other doesn't. Is that a clue? I believe that W1 has more carbon in it than O1. Would the piece with the bluing at the cut be more likely to be W1?

I'm going to try sparking them on a grinder and see if I can see a difference. If I can, then I can compare them to the known samples of W1 and O1 (if I ever get them). But without samples to compare to all I will know is that they are different....if they are different. Who knows what I got. Enco doesn't and neither do I.

All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Ed

 

[ironman123]

Ed I use O1 drill rod from ENCO all the time and cut with a bandsaw and never had any blue color. W1 I have never used. The spark test probably will tell. Good luck.

Ray

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Thanks Ray - Does your drill rod have a color code on it? One of my pieces might have the tiniest bit of red on the end. I had to look at it with a 10x loupe to see the faint trace of color.

Enco is shipping me replacement pieces that are color coded. I can compare sparks once I have those and see if I can tell anything.

Ed

 

[frank123]

Try hardening a piece of one using oil.

If it doesn't harden it is W1 since oil will not cool it as fast and harden it.

On small pieces this sometimes does not work well, but you should notice a difference in how the two harden in the same quench media (oil). O1 will harden much more than W1 in oil, O1 might crack in water.

 

[rherrell]

I get all my drill rod from Enco, the W1 is red and the O1 is yellow.