pickled steel

[Dave Patterson]

Discount Steel sells commercial grade hot rolled pickled and oiled 10 gauge steel sheet. Is pickled steel suitable for boat building and doesn't the process just remove the mill scale?

Thanks,
Dave Patterson

[Wynand N]

never used it. The oil can be a problem when it comes to painting....

My 2 cents worth

[Brent Swain]

Without sandblasting, you couldn't get anything to stick to it, which makes the pickling irrelevant.
Working on it would be kinda greasy.

[Dave Patterson]

Thanks for the info. I'll stay away from it.

Dave

Dont like to agree with the BS,

but leave it. Get a A grade weld primered, wheel abraded steel instead.

[pdwiley]

Originally Posted by Dave Patterson

Discount Steel sells commercial grade hot rolled pickled and oiled 10 gauge steel sheet. Is pickled steel suitable for boat building and doesn't the process just remove the mill scale?

Thanks,
Dave Patterson

If I could have gotten it, I would have used it. It was recommended to me. The person who recommended it has personally built more steel boats than Brent has tacked together and some of his built hulls are over 50 years old, still afloat.

Apparently the oil comes off with a good detergent scrub.

If you can get blasted & primed plate, do so because this is going to be the least hassle to use. If you can only get either hot rolled or pickled & oiled, take the pickled & oiled. It's going to be a lot less hassle, time & money getting the oil off than mill scale.

PDW

[Dave Patterson]

Thanks pdwiley. Discount steel lists there hot rolled mild sheet a being lightly oiled too so I assumed this was the way steel is commonly sold. The pickling is just hydrochloric acid I believe. I haven't found wheel abraded or preprimed sheet in the Mpls. MN area. The pickled is priced the same as the hot rolled... approx. $140 for a 4'x9' sheet of 10 gauge. Any other opinions would be appreciated. Great website!

Thanks again,
Dave

[pdwiley]

Originally Posted by Dave Patterson

Thanks pdwiley. Discount steel lists there hot rolled mild sheet a being lightly oiled too so I assumed this was the way steel is commonly sold. The pickling is just hydrochloric acid I believe. I haven't found wheel abraded or preprimed sheet in the Mpls. MN area. The pickled is priced the same as the hot rolled... approx. $140 for a 4'x9' sheet of 10 gauge. Any other opinions would be appreciated. Great website!

Thanks again,
Dave

I'd advise going and taking a look at it. If it's free of mill scale, and you can't get the primed plate, buy it in preference to straight hot-rolled. Sand/grit blasting is dirty, time consuming, expensive and outright forbidden in a lot of places. You've got to get the mill scale off or you're asking for paint failure and endless troubles. At worst with the pickled & oiled you might need to soda-blast it but this is MUCH more environmentally acceptable and a lot faster then getting hard mill scale off of hot-rolled plate. We've used the soda-blasting to remove epoxy paint off an aluminium hull when we decided to strip it back.

Most likely the oil will come off with a good detergent wash and if there's a VERY light rust-bloom afterwards, the 2 pack epoxy primers like Jotun Jotacote go over it without any problems. Better if there's nothing except clean steel of course.

I'm using hot-rolled plate but every sheet is going through an industrial blasting & priming process before I weld it to the hull. It's expensive but a lot cheaper then blasting & priming the entire hull when finished. I couldn't get pre-primed steel or pickled & oiled steel anywhere.

PDW