🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Heavy, odd U-shaped item

[cudamark]

I found this yesterday and was about to throw it out, but, curiosity got the best of me and I figured I'd post it here. Initially, I thought it was just a wedge of steel or iron, maybe even a broken off end of a wrench....until I put a magnet to it and found it didn't attract at all. No evidence that it was attached to anything once either. I hit an edge with a file and was barely able to scratch the crust off of it. Hard white metal underneath. Is this just some sort of industrial wedge? It seems to be somewhat crudely cast, not machined, but, with the corrosion, who knows? I see a few marks cast into it. One might be a number....8, 9, 6... What heavy, hard, non-ferrous metal will corrode like that?

 

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[GoldieLocks]

Sounds like it was used as a weight. Early lifting exercise machine adjustable weight from a set?

 

[cudamark]

Sounds like it was used as a weight. Early lifting exercise machine adjustable weight from a set?

What would hold it in place? Aren't those just chrome plated steel normally? This metal is unknown to me. It's not soft like lead, brass, or copper. It corroded bad, so, not any kind of stainless that I'm aware of. Some weird alloy whose purpose escapes me.

 

[ticndig]

material is most likely pot metal it looks like a shim or spacer of some type.

 

[cudamark]

All the pot metal I've found in the past would oxidize like aluminum and didn't weigh anywhere near the weight of this thing.

 

[alloy_II]

I found this yesterday and was about to throw it out, but, curiosity got the best of me and I figured I'd post it here. Initially, I thought it was just a wedge of steel or iron, maybe even a broken off end of a wrench....until I put a magnet to it and found it didn't attract at all. No evidence that it was attached to anything once either. I hit an edge with a file and was barely able to scratch the crust off of it. Hard white metal underneath. Is this just some sort of industrial wedge? It seems to be somewhat crudely cast, not machined, but, with the corrosion, who knows? I see a few marks cast into it. One might be a number....8, 9, 6... What heavy, hard, non-ferrous metal will corrode like that?

Before you toss it do a spark test.

 

[cudamark]

Is that test done with bench grinder? The only one on your list that looks like a possible match is the austenitic manganese steel. The rest look to be ferrous, or stainless, and this piece doesn't seem to be either of those. Are there other possibilities?

 

[alloy_II]

Is that test done with bench grinder? The only one on your list that looks like a possible match is the austenitic manganese steel. The rest look to be ferrous, or stainless, and this piece doesn't seem to be either of those. Are there other possibilities?

Long ago I had cut up a small ball mill used to pulverize limestone, loaded 2.5 tons of the balls onto my truck then when i arrived at the scrap yard they would not buy the load.

The magnet wouldn't lift the manganese balls, they let me offload them as fill to be pounded into the soft spots..