what are oil well sucker rods made of?

Josh Muller

Josh Muller

Joined
Jun 22, 2003
Messages
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i've been trying to find out what type of steel is used in oil well sucker rods for a while now and having a hard time finding an answer on the internet. plentily available, i was just wondering if the steel was of any usable quality,

thanks for any replies :)
 
Give it a quench test to see if it hardens, if it does it should work.
 
SethMurdoc said:
i've been trying to find out what type of steel is used in oil well sucker rods for a while now and having a hard time finding an answer on the internet. plentily available, i was just wondering if the steel was of any usable quality,

thanks for any replies :)
Click to expand...


Seth,

Having done the same search myself, your question grabbed my attention. Being "Oilfield Trash" for the last 35 years I have easy access to sucker rod. In addition to be a half-a--ed knifemaker I'm also interested in general blacksmithing and spurmaking. In searching for a suitable replacement for the legendary 'Model T axle' that all of the high priced antique handmade spurs are supposedly fashioned from ( Old Henry built a lot of Model Ts but I don't think he made that many) I did a search of the blacksmithing and welding forums and made a Word file of all of the relevent hits.

Basically, oilfield sucker rod is a medium carbon, fairly high tensile steel on the order of 4130 or 4340 ( similar to that used for axles or shafting) but some of it is made for severe service ( hi temp, crooked hole, extreme depth, etc.) and who knows what it is. The manufacturers aren't telling.

In this area (NE Colorado) the most commonly available size is 7/8" with some 3/4" but I have seen info listing sizes from 5/8" to 1 1/4 ".

Being readily available it gets used used for all kinds of things in the oilfield, an on-the-spot cheater bar made by heating one end with a rosebud and pounding it flat and allowing it to air cool is one. I've fabricated fullers and hot cuts from it. And list goes on. But for custom knifemaking there are better scrounged steels to choose from like coil and leaf springs or cable damascus.

If you are interested in the info e-mail me & I will forward it.

Tom Monroe
jtmonroe@bresnan.net
 
Tom,

Welcome to the Forums. I broke out in the patch in the D-J basin in 1968. May have seen you along the way somewhere.
 
Seth,
I use a lot of sucker rod for billet handles, blued guards and such. My steel information source tells me it's around .40 for carbon content.
Fred
 
A sucker rod is used to pump the oil out of the well. The rods are inside tubing (usually 2 7/8 or 3 1/2 in my neck of the woods) that goes down into the well. On the bottom of the tubing there is a pump barrel and inside is the pump. When you see pumping unit on the well bobbing up and down the pump is moving up and down also, bringing oil to surface and off to somewhere to be processed. One good thing about working in the patch (Kern River Field in California) is access to all kinds of metal stuff. I got the body of my forge in the scrap yard, some empty grease barrels to use a quench tank and some drill line off a rig (wire rope) to make cable damascus. Free ninety free baby. Best price there is. ;)

Here is one page that talks about actual composition.
http://www.norrisrods.com/products_sucker_rods_specs.asp
 
Sucker rod comes in grade N-80 (lowest grade and also color coded green for the machine shop) to P-110 (highest grade and color coded white). The deeper the well the higher the grade. 30' lengths. Low Hydrogen rod 1718 or higher is required to weld. I sure would like to know how to heat treat this stuff. A lot is made in Houston so you could find out if you called around to the oilfield machine shops in the area. Houma La, Elk City Ok & Wyoming high pressure gas fields.
 
jtmonroe said:
Basically, oilfield sucker rod is a medium carbon, fairly high tensile steel on the order of 4130 or 4340 ( similar to that used for axles or shafting) but some of it is made for severe service ( hi temp, crooked hole, extreme depth, etc.) and who knows what it is. The manufacturers aren't telling.
Click to expand...

I've forged sucker rod, and man is that stuff tough! I was also told that it was effectively 4130/40, but I tried to upset an end of a 1/2" round to form a ball, and it just wouldn't go -- it had some red hardness like you wouldn't believe! I've forged axles and such, which are effectively 4140/50, and the sucker rod I have is nothing of the sort.

Reading Barquester's post, I'm guessing I have a bunch of the high-spec, down-hole stuff...
 
Just make sure to shoot this thread in the head when you're done so it dies completely.

Couldn't you just take some to the recycling center and get a readout on the makeup of it with their metal analyzer? That is a relatively new, relatively affordable technology to come about since the thread died. I know of at least three places here in town that have the analyzers now.
 
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