Home > categories > Minerals & Metallurgy > Steel Coils > Ways to damage steel?
Question:

Ways to damage steel?

For example, (and this is weird) if I were wearing a steel collar and I needed some way to remove it, with limited supplies.Force is difficult because it would be around my neck.Chemical cominations are great- but they have to use VERY common products. And I'm not sure what to use.Other ideas?

Answer:

There are plenty of ways to damage/weaken steel... shear or tensile force, fatigue, temperature, corrosion, grinding, etc... there are even dozens of ways to do each of the things I just listed. But in the case you suggested, with the steel being very close to skin... a simple pair of bolt cutters would probably be the easiest.
Your best bet would be a grinding wheel attached to a small electric motor. Even if you slipped, your skin is too soft to be cut by the dull wheel. Steel, however, is easily cut. But perhaps you don't have access to electricity or pressurized air to run such a tool. In that case, a simple file would work well, though you'd be somewhat more likely to injure yourself. If you had no tools, but access to whatever chemicals you wanted, you could try a weak acid. This would take a long time, and require constant scrubbing to bring fresh acid into the pits in the metal, but it would eventually eat through the collar.

Share to: