Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Every Material Known to Man/Steel

This is a simple steel material. I'm only a noob, so please feel free to play around with it and make it better.

Col: R:0.8 G:0.8 C:0.8
Spec: R:1 G:1 C:1
Mir: R:0.8 G:0.8 C:0.8
Mirror Transp:
RayMir: 0.5
Shaders:
Spec: (Lambert) 0.65

Another method, giving a brushed look to the material:

In under material buttons, in the material tab, change the diffuse color (Col) sliders to as follows:

R: 0.572
G: 0.579
B: 0.598

Click the Spe button (just below the Col button) to change the specularity to as follows:

R: 1.0
G: 1.0
B: 0.984

According to a few steel pictures I referenced, the specularity of the metal is generally not pure white, but slightly off-white. It might not seem like much of a difference, but the little details can really add up to the realism of your image.

Steel seems to pick up a sort of tan brown in its reflections. Change the Mirror color value (Mir) to the following:

R: 0.773
G: 0.706
b: 0.604

In the "Shaders" tab, change the defaults to the following settings:

Diffuse Shade: Lambert; 0.8 (this should be the default)

Specular Shade: CookTor Spec: 1.088
Hard: 16

Under the "Mirror Trans" tab, turn "Ray Mirror" on, and change RayMir to 0.1

Select the "Ramps" tab (it should be right next to the "Materials" tab) and make sure "Show Col Ramp" is selected. Press the "Colorband" button. Change Cur to 0, and apply the following settings:

R: 0.342
G: 0.416
B: 0.475

Alpha: 0.5

Next, change "Cur" to 1 and apply the following settings:

R: 1.0
G: 1.0
B: 1.0

Alpha: .1

This is important because steel does get a twinge of deep blue.

Next, we are going to add a brushed texture. You can stop here if you want a smooth look to your steel.

In the Texture buttons (press F5 again), press "Add New" in the texture data block selector. Change its name to "Brushed" and assign it a "clouds" texture.

Go back to the Material buttons, and click the "Map Input" tab. Change the "SizeZ" slider (at the very bottom) from 1.0 to 75.0.

Click the "Map To" tab, turn off the "Col" button, and activate the "Nor" button.

Finally, change the "Nor" value to 2.5 and you are done!

Noob note: I've found that the above method looks fantastic, except maybe set the spec down a little, and the Nor to about .75 if you don't want hardcore lines.