Small hot-rolled bars and shapes — flats, rounds, squares, hexagons, small tees and angles — sold through stockists to fabricators and manufacturers who cut, bend and weld them into products. Merchant bar quality (MBQ) is a general-purpose, structural-grade product, distinct from the engineering (special bar quality) steels used for machined parts.
Also called
MBQ
Merchant bar quality
Flat bars
Round bars
Square bars
Hexagon bars
T-bars
Tees
Small sections
AR
قضبان تجارية (مسطحات ومستديرات ومربعات)
ZH
小型材（扁钢、圆钢、方钢）
DE
Stabstahl
FR
Laminés marchands
ES
Barras comerciales (planas, redondas, cuadradas)
IT
Laminati mercantili (piatti, tondi, quadri)
TR
Lama, kare ve yuvarlak demir
RU
Сортовой прокат (полоса, круг, квадрат)
Main formsFlat bars, round bars, square bars, hexagon bars, equal tees, small angles and channels
Typical sizesFlats 20–150 mm wide × 5–50 mm; rounds and squares 8–150 mm; lengths 6 and 12 m
Main standardsEN 10058, EN 10059, EN 10060, EN 10061, EN 10055, EN 10025-2, ASTM A6 / A36 / A575, JIS G3194
Merchant bars are the small, everyday shapes of the steel trade: flat bars, rounds, squares and hexagons, with small tees, angles and channels rolled on the same mills. They are bought by stockists in mixed loads and sold on by the bar or the bundle to fabricators, blacksmiths, gate and railing makers, trailer builders, agricultural equipment makers and maintenance workshops.
They are rolled from billets on light section or merchant-bar mills, often the same mills that roll rebar. Merchant bar quality (MBQ) means a structural-grade carbon steel with ordinary surface and dimensional tolerances; bars for machining, forging or heat treatment are bought as special bar quality (SBQ) or engineering steel instead, and bars for precise sizes as bright bars.
Each shape has its own European dimensional standard, all of which replaced older German DIN standards: EN 10058 for flats (formerly DIN 1017), EN 10059 for squares (DIN 1014), EN 10060 for rounds (DIN 1013), EN 10061 for hexagons (DIN 1015) and EN 10055 for equal tees (DIN 1024). The steel grade is ordered separately, usually to EN 10025-2.
In the GCC most merchant bar is sold through stockists in the main industrial areas, in 6 m and 12 m lengths, from regional mills and imports from Turkey, China, India and the CIS. Wide flats from about 150 mm are often slit from plate rather than rolled.
Forms & sizes
Flats are quoted width × thickness (100 × 10), rounds by diameter, squares by side and hexagons by the width across flats. The mass per metre follows directly from the cross-section — see the tables below or the steel weight calculator.
Flat bars
Rolled with rounded or square edges, about 10–150 mm wide and 3–60 mm thick; wider flats are rolled as universal flats or slit from plate
Round bars
Hot-rolled rounds 8–150 mm and more; larger diameters are often forged or rolled on bar mills for engineering use
Square bars
8–150 mm, sharp or round cornered; used for railings, gates and decorative work
Hexagon bars
Across flats about 13–100 mm, mostly as stock for nuts and fittings
Tees
Equal-leg T-sections T 20 to T 140 to EN 10055; also split tees cut from I-beams
Lengths
6 m and 12 m stock lengths; bundles of 1–3 t, tagged by size and heat
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