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world gathers for metal finishing
Q&As since 1989


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12L14 parts are not RoHS compliant?

I have designed T-NUT with 12L14, carbon steel. Everything is great. Product is in the market for many years. But this year our company has decided to pursue RoHS standard to our product line. I can not use 12L14 material any more. 1018- I guess not easy to machine. Any suggestion for using alternate material for 12L14?

Sam Tanna

2006

If available in your country S1214 is the same material without lead additions and slightly lower machinability rating.

Graham Dodd

2006

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ELV, RoHS And WEEE

Many North American machine shops are starting to get requests from their customers to certify their parts machined from steel to meet the requirements of the European Union's End of Life Vehicles (ELV), Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives. Each of these directives purports to ban lead, but each actually permits lead as an "alloying element" in steels up to 0.35 percent, according to the exemption statements and annexes. As long as the material certification shows 0.15 to 0.35 percent for lead, the steel parts are compliant with these directives.

John Dickinson

September 23, 2009