The Complete Guide to Buying Metal Products

AISI

Stands for American Iron and Steel Institute. The institute serves as the voice of the North American steel industry. AISI numbers are used to categorize metals by alloy type and carbon content, and they do it with four digits. The first two digits of an AISI number refer to the alloy type, and the second two digits refer to carbon content.

ALLOY

A metal made by combining two or more metallic elements. An alloy typically possesses qualities different from those of the components used to create it.

ASM

Stands for American Society for Metals. ASM International is the world’s largest association of metal material engineers and scientists. The association engages and connects materials professionals and their organizations to the resources necessary to solve problems, improve outcomes, and advance society.

ASTM

Stands for American Society for Testing and Materials. ASTM International is a not-for-profit organization that develops standards for materials, products, systems, and services. Metal with an ASTM designation meets the international standards for quality and regulations.

CUT-TO-LENGTH

This process levels coil into a flat sheet or blank. The service provides better length and width tolerances than sheared product, and it can improve diagonal tolerances as well.

DEBURRING

Cutting metals can leave behind burrs, which are unwanted pieces of material. Deburring is the process of removing these burrs with a tool.

DRAWING

Drawing is a metalworking process that uses tensile forces to stretch metal. As the metal is drawn, it stretches thinner, into a desired shape and thickness.

DRAWING TEMPERATURE

Drawing is usually done at room temperature, classifying it as a cold working process. However, it may be performed at elevated temperatures during special applications like on large wires, rods, or hollow sections in order to reduce forces.

ELONGATION

A metal fabricating term that refers to the degree to which a material can be bent, stretched, or compressed before rupturing. A metal’s elongation is a point between tensile strength and yield strength, and it is typically expressed as a percentage of the original length.

GAUGE

The thickness of sheet metal in the USA is commonly specified by a traditional, non-linear measure known as its gauge. The larger the gauge number, the thinner the metal.

HEAT LOTS OR HEAT NUMBER

A heat number is an identification number that is stamped on a material plate to prove it meets industry quality standards which require materials to be tested by the manufacturer. The heat lot or heat number is used to identify production runs for quality control purposes.

EDGE ROLLING

Edge rolling is the process of adding finishing edges to metal. It forms the edge of a strip to the desired shape beyond that of a standard slit edge.

MIL STD

Stands for Military Standard. This classification establishes uniform engineering and technical requirements for military-unique or substantially modified commercial processes, procedures, practices, and methods. In order to qualify, materials have undergone rugged, exact testing, equal to the exigencies of combat use.

NORMALIZING TEMPERATURE

Normalization is a heat treatment that relieves stress on steel to improve ductility and toughness in steels that may harden after the cold working process. During normalization, steel is warmed to a temperature just above its upper critical point. Normalized heat treatment facilitates later heat treatment operations and produces a more uniform final product.

ROCKWELL SCALE

The Rockwell Scale indicates the hardness of materials. Rockwell hardness numbers are most often used to describe the hardness of metals, although they are also used for some plastics. The Rockwell scale is based on measuring the depth of the indentation made by pressing a diamond point into a material.

SAE

Stands for Society of Automotive Engineers. SAE International is a global association of engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial-vehicle industries. Materials meeting SAE standards are internationally recognized for safety, quality, and effectiveness.

SLITTING

Slitting is a precise shearing process, but instead of making cuts at the end of a workpiece like shearing, slitting cuts a wide coil of metal into a number of narrower coils as the main coil is moved through the slitter. During the slitting process, the metal coil passes lengthwise through the slitter’s circular blades.

TEMPER

Temper refers to reheating hardened, normalized, or mechanically worked steel to a temperature below the critical range to soften it and improve impact strength. Tempering results in greater toughness by decreasing an alloy’s hardness.

TENSILE STRENGTH

The maximum stress a material will withstand before fracturing or breaking. The ultimate tensile strength is calculated from the maximum load applied during the test, divided by the original cross-sectional area.

UNS DESIGNATION/NUMBER

Stands for the Unified Numbering System for Metals and Alloys. UNS designation provides a means of correlating internationally used metal and alloy numbering systems currently administered by societies, trade associations, and those individual users and producers of metals and alloys. This system is meant to avoid the confusion caused by using more than one identification number for the same metal or alloy, and the opposite situation of having the same number assigned to two or more different metals or alloys.

YIELD STRENGTH

The amount of stress a material can withstand before causing permanent deformity.

Discover what a precious metal trader is and what it does

What is a precious metal trader? What is it for and what exactly is this type of business? It is, in fact, a still virtually unknown topic and, above all, somewhat inaccurate.
So, let’s see what it is, what tasks this type of business carries out, what they offer and how they can be of use to anyone who wants to invest in gold, but with reliable guarantees.

A metal trader is, in short, a company that deals, on a professional level, with the purchase and sale of precious metals, mainly gold, but also with the sale of other types of less valuable metals, but still of interest to anyone who wants to secure their savings, such as silver, platinum, copper, palladium, etc.

However, the activities carried out by the metal trading store could be confused with stores which buy gold, which are well-known and found everywhere in our cities. Compared to the latter, however, the precious metals trader is governed by different and much stricter rules.

The difference between a metal trader and a gold buyer

So, what is the main difference between a precious metal trader and a classic gold buyer? The fundamental difference lies in the expertise and guarantee that only the metal trader can offer. To be able to operate in the market, this type of business must receive authorisation directly from the Bank of Italy to purchase and sell precious metals and, therefore, possesses all the legal requirements to operate legally and be recognised as a "professional gold operator".

This permission, therefore, issued by the Bank of Italy, allows the metal trader to legally operate and trade in precious metals, employing trained, qualified and expert sector-based staff and partners.

Another difference is in the type of activities permitted by law, only and exclusively to the metal traders, which in addition to buying gold and other precious metals, can melt and rework them before reselling them. This means that metal traders may trade in gold and precious metals, such as cast bars, sovereigns and coins, also as an investment.

Moreover, to open a recognised activity and hence receive the approval of the Bank of Italy, it is essential to have certain specific requirements, established by law.

1. First of all, the business must have a guaranteed share capital of at least 120,000 Euros and one of the following legal forms: Ltd, company limited by shares, LLC or Cooperative;
2. It must have the entry “gold trader” as its corporate purpose;
3. employees and collaborators of the metal trading business and, in particular, the technical, commercial and administrative staff, must be able to prove that they have no criminal record;
4. comply with all the legal obligations foreseen for metal trading businesses.

Metal trader: legal requirements

What are the specific legal obligations for a metal trading business? In addition to the points listed above, all the buying and selling operations and gold exchanges must be declared, following precise entry models, through a specific policy program.
The data about the buyer (and the person making the statement), the data identifying the seller, the date on which the transaction is carried out, the specific type of the operation, the amount of precious metal bought and sold (expressed in grams) and the corresponding value must all be included in the documents that are filled in by the metal trading store operator.

Italian Law No 7 of 17 January 2000 specifically regulates the sector and activities of metal traders. Among other requirements, the law stipulates that to be able to melt gold, the operator must be enrolled in the list of professional gold dealers and it is the Bank of Italy, as previously mentioned, that communicates and officially publishes the list of the companies authorised to carry out this type of activity.

Orovilla is enrolled in the list of professional gold traders, recognised by the Bank of Italy (UIC No 5000211) in compliance with Italian Laws and, in particular, Law 7/2000 that has also permitted, among other things, trade of gold as an investment among private individuals; our operations conform to ISO 9001:2008 and are certified by TUV.