I like to refer to metal as material. There is always confusion regarding what to call the stuff. I have been working with it most of my life. So much so that I assume that everyone knows what I am talking about.

I am doing a little work on a pretty serious racing machine this week and while discussing the project, I let slip the word “sheet metal”. To me sheet metal is metal in sheet form. To most people sheet metal is the stuff you put on the shed roof. I had to explain my meaning. People may call it aluminum (and it is) or alloy (it is that also).

So, if you are shopping for metal it might look like this. (disclaimer, I didn’t fact check this and it’s 6:30 AM)
Metals:
Aluminum, Brass, Copper, Lead, Steel, etc on down the line listing all the primary metals in the alloy you are trying to get (90% of metals sold are mixed with other metals)

Then if you click on steel for example, you get alloys broken down into intended purpose.

Aircraft: (4130, 4140, 4340 etc.) basically high performance/expensive and heat treatable making it so hard it can’t be machined or worked at all or soft for manufacturing. Most are weldable but some are not.

Machining: 1214. 12L14. 1215 on up the line. Theses are alloys made for fast machining. also called “screw machine steel” though it isn’t good for bolts. “butter bolts” found at home pot and whalmart are made of 12L

Forming: Some of this had lead in this also. I didn’t mention it before but the “L” is your lead flag red flag. The car manufacturers use lead sheet for making car bodies. You can stretch it quite a bit. When I built your suit of armor, I used leaded sheet. That is why you don’t feel good after a battle. It doesn’t add to the weight though but makes it easier to pierce. This could also be 1010 with no lead. It’s just regular old steel.

Tooling: This stuff comes in pieces that are machined or ground to perfect dimensions all over. Many alloys can be hardened and are broken down into “air hardened” or “oil hardened” (which is basically heat treating for the end user) Telling you what you should do to your piece after you have machined it. This is what you make tools for cutting other metals with. It is very wear resistant and hard. You can get different alloys and end up with different properties depending on the final treatment also. It could be tough or hard.

Structural. This is an interesting category because it covers a lot of different “looking” pieces of metal. The basic genres would be hot or cold rolled. Hot rolled looks to have a rough finish that may be flaked off or cold rolled that has a very flat shape and sharp corners but not ground like tool steel.
The interesting thing about this stuff is bar stock (any rectangle shape) is really sheet stock (sheet metal) that is really narrow and thick. It’s a bit of a blur really. 1010, 1018, 1020 are typical alloys.

Hot roll is your basic angle iron and I beam stuff (1010)

Steel has by far the greatest diversity in it’s use although Bronze was the first metal humans used if I remember.

Wow, that took a long time. Here are some pics of stuff I did this week. I need to get to work. That isn’t new material.