Steel Sheet

Competitive Metals offers a variety of thicknesses and sheet sizes in both hot rolled and cold rolled finishes. Hot rolled steel sheet is rolled at high temperatures and tends to have less accurate tolerances because when it cools it can cause the material to shrink and alter the shape slightly. Hot rolled sheet is a good general-purpose sheet metal but does have a mill scale finish. Cold rolled steel sheets are hard, durable sheet metal that have a clean, mill scale free finish. Cold rolled steel sheets go through the same beginning processing as hot rolled but are then cooled then annealed and/or temper rolled; the additional processing gives cold rolled steel tighter dimensional tolerances and better surface finishes. Typically, cold rolled products are harder to work with than hot rolled due to cold rolled having a higher carbon content. With sheet however, cold rolled steel sheets have a lower carbon content and are typically annealed making them softer than that of hot rolled steel sheet.