Carbon Steel Spacers

Manufacturing the Very Best

At Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing, we create a wide variety of spacers, shims, washers, and seals (among other products). Some of the most popular and useful products we carry are shims and spacers. Spacers in their most basic form are objects designed to fill a gap between two other objects. In everyday settings, this can mean a coaster under your table that keeps the table from wobbling or a bit of rubber in your car door to keep it from rattling at highway speeds. In industrial applications, spacers and shims have much more significant and important roles.

Industrial spacers and shims come in a wide variety of materials. In fact, we have more than 300 types of raw materials on hand and ready to be manufactured into the products you need. The materials range from the common (aluminum), to the unusual (nylon or vulcanized fiber). However, few spacers are as unusual, useful, and unique as carbon steel.

What Is Carbon Steel?

While the name is accurate, it by no means explains all there is to know about the combination of carbon and steel.

Steel itself is incredibly durable and strong. Steel is used in almost every industry in a wide variety of purposes. Our steel spacers and shims are among our most popular and widely-requested items.

Carbon is an incredibly light and durable material, and it is used in everything from bicycle components to racecar bodies. When it comes to manufacturing purposes, carbon’s strength is highly prized.

Carbon steel is, as you can guess, an alloy of both carbon and steel. Its properties and uses can vary tremendously depending on the alloy ratio. Carbon steel is made by taking steel and combining it with varying quantities of carbon. The actual properties of the new alloy depend upon the percentage of carbon present. Steel with a small amount of carbon is much like iron and is relatively soft. When you begin adding more carbon, the alloy will become stronger but much more difficult to work with.

Carbon steel is usually placed into a few categories based on carbon content.

Mild steel: Low-carbon steel contains between .05% and .25% carbon. This alloy is one of the most commonly used and can make great shims or washers.

Medium carbon steel: This alloy contains between .29% and .54% carbon and is much stronger than mild steel.

High-carbon steel: Between .55% and .95% of this alloy is carbon.

Very high carbon steel: This alloy ranges between .96% carbon and 2% carbon. Anything beyond 2% carbon is considered cast iron.

Carbon Steel as a Spacer

The carbon steel spacers and shims we produce are incredibly durable due to their high quantity of carbon. While mild steel is great for applications where bending and flexing are common, our high-carbon-content spacers are incredibly durable and rigid.

Because our spacers and shims are so durable, they can easily find homes in the most demanding aerospace, automotive, and industrial applications. Furthermore, the unique way that carbon steel resists wear and deformation means you can avoid replacing even high-impact shims or spacers for a longer period of time than nearly any other material.

As with our other products, we can manufacture carbon steel spacers in nearly any size or shape you need them.

Manufacturing Precision

If you need a high-quality alloy, like carbon steel, for your project or application you can’t afford to get a second-rate product. At Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing, we use only the most technologically advanced and precise machines to create our assortment of products. With over 100 years in the industry, we know a good thing when we see it. And every tool or machine we have is one we can stand behind and know will produce the highest-quality products.

It isn’t just our initial manufacturing process that allows us to create the best spacers and shims. Once we have created a product, we make certain that it meets our standards and your specifications. Unlike other companies that will simply eyeball a few sample shims or spacers, we use the latest technology to ensure every piece is exactly what you ordered. Here are just a few of the precision measuring and calibrating tools we use every day to produce our high-quality carbon steel spacers as well as other products:

• A coordinate measuring machine
• Optical comparators with edge detection
• Hardness testers
• Toolmakers microscope
• And many others