[TheForge] kobe steel scandal

[Dave Smucker]

Terry,  You can't spark test aluminum (at home) and most of the items in the Kobe Steel scandal are aluminum or copper.  Kobe Steel is Japan's largest aluminum producer.  Most of these products were for cars or aircraft - not a good thing because we don't want airplanes to fall out of the sky and the testing requirements are very tough.  Kobe Steel has a history of making very very high quality material.

For steel you are more likely to get "second or third" grade products sold as first quality product because the worldwide steel industry does sell "seconds". (For years there has been a gray market in steel products)   The aluminum industry doesn't sell seconds - as least they didn't through my retirement in 2000.

When Alcoa purchased the state own aluminum industry in Italy in the mid 90's we found that they had faked  PT lab test data on items they sold.  We fired the plant manager and the head of QA and all of the material was recalled.  It does happen but controls should be tough.

Dave Smucker
Brasstown, NC



-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of terry l. ridder
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2017 2:46 PM
To: theforge e-mail list
Subject: [TheForge] kobe steel scandal

hello

Japan's Kobe Steel Scandal is affecting more firms.
the data fabrication scandal concerning falsifying the data on products.

Last week, Kobe admitted falsifying quality data on some of its products for up to a decade.

there are two questions being asked.

who checks the checkers?

how do you check that what was delivered was what you paid for?

sure there are some basic and simple tests blacksmiths can perform.

a subjective one would be the spark test. what type of sparks are produced by a sample.

magnetic test is the sample magnetic

the density test.
place the sample in a container with water and measure its volumn next weigh it then calculate the density. is it within the range expected?


with additional equipment a hardness test could be performed.


not many companies have mass spectrographs.

just how detailed and in depth does testing have to be?


for blacksmiths and metalworkers it is a question of how do we know that we received what we paid for.



--
terry l. ridder ><>
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