The steel is processed further in cold reduction mills, where the material is cooled (at room temperature) followed by annealing and/or tempers rolling. This process will produce steel with closer dimensional tolerances and a wider range of surface finishes. The term Cold Rolled is mistakenly used on all products when actually the product name refers to the rolling of flat-rolled sheet and coil products.

When referring to bar products, the term used is “cold finishing”, which usually consists of cold drawing and/or turning, grinding, and polishing. This process results in higher yield points and has four main advantages:

#1 Cold drawing increases the yield and tensile strengths, often eliminating further costly thermal treatments.

#2 Turning gets rid of surface imperfections.

#3 Grinding narrows the original size tolerance range.

#4 Polishing improves surface finish.

All cold products provide a superior surface finish and are superior in tolerance, concentricity, and straightness when compared to hot rolled.

Cold rolled steel coils are typically harder than hot rolled steel coils due to the increased carbon content. However, this cannot be said about cold-rolled sheets and hot-rolled sheets. With these two products, the cold-rolled product has low carbon content and is typically annealed, making it softer than a hot-rolled sheet.