Any ideas as to what banjo steel is?

[guncrank]

I recently went to look at a small turret lathe. Inside the building was a rack full of steel rods all about 3 feet in length. I asked the lathe owner if it was for sale and he said yes. I asked if he knew what alloy steel it was and he said it isn't stainless. Then he said "we called it banjo steel".

I am guessing it was a slang term. I did get to speak to the lathe operator and he too called it banjo steel. He told me that it was used as a form to roll vulcanized fiber sheets into specific sized tubes . There were many different sizes ie .605, .205, .280 etc. None were fractional that I remember.

So that is my question. Has anyone here ever heard of banjo steel?

 

[technocrat]

we talking
or



? (not to scale)

 

[boslab]

Stuff for chrome plate or nickel plate are often low phos steel apparently, so I’d guess 045 C <015 P 4-450 Mn
In fancy terms, bog standard steel ( unless it originates in China then it could conceivably be anything from tin arseholes for teddy bears to re rolled and drawn rebar .
They aren’t fussy.
I’ve not heard “ banjo” as a steel classification myself
And I made steel for 25 years, maybe different across the pond.
Mark

 

[???]

Spring steel, someone may have confused music wire with banjo etc. Try flexing a rod you will quickly tell if it's spring steel.

 

[HWooldridge]

Probably used to make banjo fittings and nobody in the shop knows the spec. Need to find the certificate of conformance.

 

[guncrank]

Spring steel, someone may have confused music wire with banjo etc. Try flexing a rod you will quickly tell if it's spring steel.

I too am thinking it is some sort of spring steel. I did not think about the music wire connection though. The lathe operator said that they used it because it would flex but return to original straightness. I said it sounds like some sort of spring steel and the lathe operator just shrugged and said "we called it banjo steel".

 

[GregSY]

I'm hoping that at no point did he compliment you on how pretty your mouth was....