Fucheng Tool Steel is a tool steel and mould steel source mill with its own melt shop. The works supplies distributors, stockholders, wholesalers and large-scale procurement buyers; it does not retail to tool rooms. This blog is written from the technical desk, where six technical support engineers read every first enquiry before anything is priced. It exists because the same questions arrive every week, and an answer written once is more useful than the same answer repeated in a hundred replies.
Most of those questions are technical, not commercial. They are about whether a grade name on a drawing matches one of the fourteen grades melted here, whether a section fits one of the three forging lines, whether the order should say annealed or pre-hardened, and what the document list looks like when the first batch ships. A stockholder who can answer these questions for a customer keeps the order moving. One who has to ask the mill and wait loses a day.
Why a tool steel source mill writes for distributors and stockholders
The distribution layer sits between the mill and the tool maker. A stockholder's sales engineer has to explain grade equivalents, delivery conditions and certificates to a customer without a melt shop or a laboratory next door. The mill sees the whole chain on one site: melting on two 15-tonne medium-frequency induction furnaces, electroslag remelting on ten furnaces, forging on three lines, annealing on eight car-bottom furnaces, and a quality department of 34 people that is independent of production and holds sole authority to release. This blog carries the same information the desk gives in enquiry replies, arranged by topic, so a distributor can pass it to their own customer without waiting for an email. The about us page describes the works.
What a tool steel enquiry looks like when it reaches the technical desk
An enquiry arrives with a grade name, a section, a quantity per size and sometimes a drawing. The technical desk maps the grade name to one of the fourteen grades across five families, checks the section against the forging lines (16 mm round up to 600 mm round, plate up to 1,200 mm wide), confirms whether the delivery condition should be annealed or pre-hardened, notes the machining allowance to leave, and answers the document list. The reply goes out within 24 hours on a working day with feasibility, stock or production, and lead time. First business with a new distributor can run as a single verification order.
The five topic lines: from grade equivalents to certificate reading
Grades & Equivalents. Cross-reference tables across AISI, DIN/W-Nr, JIS, GB, ASSAB and BÖHLER, written the way the technical desk confirms them: one grade, one specification, one certificate. The first articles cover the hot work and cold work families, starting with H13 (1.2344/SKD61) and D2 (1.2379/SKD11), and state which cross-references the desk confirms in writing before an order is accepted.
Heat Treatment & Process. Annealed and pre-hardened are two different products, and the order must say which. Articles in this line give the annealed hardness window per grade, explain why a heat that reads outside its window is annealed again and re-measured before release, and describe what electroslag remelting and EFS grain refining change in the delivered bar. Hardening and tempering is done by whoever makes the tool; the works advises on the stock allowance to leave, and the technical and heat treatment support page shows what a written heat treatment route looks like.
Die & Mould Applications. Which grade to put forward for die casting, stamping and injection mould work, by family: hot work grades for die casting and forging dies, cold work grades for stamping dies, plastic mould grades for injection moulds. They are written for the stockholder who has to recommend a grade.
Machining & Supply. What the finishing areas hold to: precision saw cutting to a length tolerance of ± 2 mm, surface grinding to a thickness of ± 0.05 mm, milling to a flatness of ≤ 0.1 mm/m. Also the difference between a stock order and a melt order: 7–10 days from stock for common sizes of the five stock grades, 25–35 days from melt for a production order including finishing, and saw cutting +2 days on stock orders. See precision saw cutting and stockholder and wholesale supply.
Quality & Certification. How to read an EN 10204 3.1 material test certificate line by line, what a bar-by-bar ultrasonic reading shows, what the eight inspection steps are, and what ISO 9001, EU CBAM compliance and TÜV carbon footprint certification each cover. The rest of this article belongs to this line.
How to read the EN 10204 3.1 certificate that arrives with the first order
Every batch ships with an EN 10204 3.1 material test certificate. The certificate is issued by the quality department: 34 people independent of production, reporting to the general manager, with sole authority to release steel. Nonconforming steel is held back, there is no concession route, and a shortfall is remade from the works' own melt. That is why the certificate can be read as a record of what was measured rather than a statement of what should have been.
The certificate follows the eight inspection steps:
- Visual inspection of the bar or plate surface.
- Dimensions and tolerance against the order.
- Chemical composition by OES spectrometer, reported against the grade specification.
- Hardness in the delivery condition, annealed or pre-hardened.
- 100% ultrasonic testing to SEP 1921 Class D/d or E/e on every bar.
- Magnetic particle testing.
- Metallography and grain size.
- Carbide distribution rating.
A distributor forwarding the certificate to a customer should check three things before sending it on: that the grade and specification on the certificate match the one confirmed in writing at order stage, that the delivery condition and hardness match what the order said, and that the heat number on the certificate matches the heat number stamped on the steel.
Heat number traceability and the bar-by-bar ultrasonic reading
The heat number is the index for everything else. It links the melting analysis, the forging regime, the annealing chart, the eight inspection records, the individual ultrasonic reading for each bar, and the certificate copy. When a stockholder cuts a bar into smaller pieces and sells them on months later, the heat number is what lets the end customer trace each piece back to the certificate.
The certificate summarises the ultrasonic result; the bar-by-bar record expands it. 100% ultrasonic testing to SEP 1921 Class D/d or E/e is carried out on every bar by the quality department's ten certified ultrasonic operators, and the individual reading per bar is available by heat number. A stockholder whose customer asks for the ultrasonic record of one specific bar can request it by heat number rather than by order number.
How to use this tool steel blog with the technical desk
The blog does not replace the enquiry. It gives a distributor the vocabulary and the reference points to write a shorter one. A grade list that says D2 (1.2379/SKD11), annealed, round bar, quantity per size, EN 10204 3.1 with bar-by-bar ultrasonic record, can be answered in one reply. A grade list that says steel for a stamping die needs two or three rounds first.
Each article ends with the same route: send the grade, section and quantity per size to the technical desk through the contact page, and a technical support engineer replies within 24 hours on a working day. New articles will appear across the five categories in turn.