Heated steel or metal tends to have a color to it like oil. Also it can have a rough damaged surface. That's what we're going to make.

Select the Type Mask tool.
Click in the center of the image to bring up the Text dialog box. Make a big letter and click OK. Center that selection in the middle of the image. Now make a new layer.

Fill the selection with the White to Black gradient in the direction like I have.

Contract selection about 3 (Select> Modify> Contract). Press "M" and move the selection up one pixel and to the left 1 pixel with the arrow keys on the keyboard. Fill the selection with White to Black gradient in the opposite direction we did the first time.

Now go to Filter>Texture>Grain. Select "Contrast" under grain type. For Intensity enter 23 and Contrast 59 and click OK. Now go to Filter>Noise>Add noise. For amount enter 11, Select Gaussian and leave Monochromatic un-checked.
Ok now go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. For amount enter 340, Radius 1.4, Threshold 45 and click OK. Deselect Ctrl.-D.

For the final effect, Go to Layer>Effects>Drop Shadow and watch your steel pop out from the background!

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