Side Project Questions: What Steel?

Originally Posted by martin417

OK, I see what your problem is, and I have a solution that I guarantee will work. Go to your local psychiatric hospital, and have yourself committed to the suicide prevention ward. With a few years of intensive therapy, and probably lots of drugs, maybe a few electroshock treatments, I am confidant that they can expunge your death-wish. Otherwise, why not fling yourself in front of a train, it would be faster.

Yeah, it's an intense sport. We love it though... It's the rush of flying over the pavement, ripping out pendulum slides to control speed, and drifting around corners.

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

While I'm not inclined to recommend a specific steel, there are a couple thoughts I had:

1. These are going to be used on the road/street. If corrosion is going to be a possible problem, you may want to think stainless.

2. There are a HUGE range of heat treated steels, but generally what you are doing is hardening the steel. The harder the steel, the more brittle. Be careful if going for a heat treated variety. In an application like a longboard, I would imagine you would want the axle in a failure to bend, not shatter and break. (The point here being heat treated does not necessarily mean "better" or "stronger")

Those were just a couple quick thoughts I had.

-Brando

Hm. Good call on the stainless. I'll add that to my list of qualifications.

As for the hardened part, the board won't be dealing with sudden impact, just intense load for a sustained amount of time, with the load changing based on turns or straight lines.