What kind of metal might this have been ?

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Here's the scenario I was presented. A buddy wanted to atleast slow a thief down, and asked if I could come up with a way to secure his riding lawn mower in a shed he was building. He sunk a post hole and wanted something on a chain that he could put one end of the chain in the post hole and cement it in the hole along with the post leaving a 6 foot piece to lock his riding mower to. I chose a 2 inch pickup receiver hitch trailer pin with a keyed lock on the end. My plan was to weld the end of the chain onto the end of the trailer pin where the pin would fit up through the trailer hitch part on his tractor and the locking end would secure the pin keeping the tractor from being stolen easily.The trailer pin was a shiny chrome and I knew I'd have to grind the chrome off the end that I was going to weld the end of the last link of chain to. As I ground off the chrome on the pin, the metal underneath stayed a bright shiny silver just like the surface finish looked.???Anyhow, got it ground down, welded the chain to it and it seems rock solid. A good bead was run on both surfaces and all appeared to have fused together nicely. Any problems anyone sees with bonding these two types metal together (If they are even two different kinds ) ?I used a flux core wire BTW.
Reply:Hit it with a hammer to find out.  The pin should be chrome plated steel but if its made in China who's to say what it actually is.  If there is an issue with the metals be dissimilar then hitting the weld with a small sledge hammer to see if it breaks is one way to find out.
Reply:I've already given it to him, so too late to sledge hammer it, though I did beat it pretty good with my chipping hammer while laying on top of my welding table to get the slag off the welds and it seemed solid.... Just got to wondering if maybe I mated two metals that shouldn't be ? ? ?
Reply:I would think that for your application, if it "looks" strong, that's good enough.Nobody trying to steal the tractor by beating this contraption off of it.  You'd damage the tractor.They'd try to break the lock or cut the chain first.  What kind of chain did you use?  They use some massive stuff with square links here for bicycles, because apparently the square links are much harder to cut with a bolt cutter.When I did something similar for a boat, I welded together a ring that sat right at ground level, which you could connect the trailer tongue to, using a bicycle U lock.  Thieves in the area had been known to bypass a typical trailer coupler lock by skipping the ball and just using rope to tie the trailer to their vehicle.  This prevented that from happening, and by keeping the tongue on the ground, there was much less way to apply leverage to pull the anchor from the ground by tying to a hitch.
Reply:It was way overkill on the chain. I had about 8' length scrap of some kind of major heavy duty chain, the links were about 1/2" thick..... Took forever to grind through a link that held a clevis on that had been welded to the chain at one time.
Reply:It was probably stainlessand ive welded steal to stainless with no issues plenty of times
Reply:Im sure it was just carbon steel.  Fresh ground steel will look similar to cheap chrome plate.You dont chrome plate stainless for a trailer pin. Have we all gone mad?
Reply:Originally Posted by sn0border88Im sure it was just carbon steel.  Fresh ground steel will look similar to cheap chrome plate.You dont chrome plate stainless for a trailer pin.
Reply:Did you test with a magnet? That would let you know if it was 300 series stainless.Stainless is electropolished which is not chrome.Google - electropolishing stainless steel.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:Originally Posted by Donald BranscomStainless is electropolished which is not chrome.Google - electropolishing stainless steel.