I am almost to the point of having everything ready to start forging.What would you recommend as far as steel for the beginner and why?

In what order would you recommend other steels,again would you explain?


Thanks in advance,
Mike K

I'll jump in here and suggest 5160. Its relatively easy to heat treat and somewhat forgiving of abuse. Think of it as a moderate carbon content steel with a smidgen of chrome to help with the heat treating. 1085 is one of my favorites too and would be a good choice. So would be 1070 if you can find any. I guess the real advice here is to NOT pick one of the more complex alloys to start with. They are much harder to forge, which would be frustrating, and require more precise temperature control and complexity of procedure to properly heat treat to their full potential. Mainly much more difficult to fully anneal, and annealing is a big part of the heat treat cycle.

I've just been forging since last October, Mike, but here's my two cents. 5160, 1084, or 1095 will all make usable blades, provided they have been forged properly. "Proper" forging, I'm convinced, requires that you know how hot your metal is actually getting during the critical periods of the forging and heat treating process. In this regard, I think a gas forge has it all over a coal forge. Forge colors are next to useless, and while a magnet will tell you how hot a piece of steel is when you apply the magnet, it won't prevent you from overheating the steel first in the forge. I think a thermometer inside the forge is probably helpful, but my gas forge is only adjustable with a shut-off valve, and I don't think I could reliably get within a hundred degrees of the temp I needed. My personal solution (there may be better ones) has been to use a product called ThermaGel. This is a heat-sensing liquid that melts at a specified temp. I use it to sperodize 1095 at 1300 and heat cycle at 1500. I paint it on the blade, and when it melts, I know I'm darn close.

Everybody has their favorite steel, and every steel is a trade off. There's an awful lot I don't know about steel, but I do know if you guess on your forge temps with any of them you probably won't be getting the most out of the steel, and if you forge to accurate temps, you'll be getting the most.

Hey TMK,

Just a note to add on forge temps:

_ _ _ _ I have an upright Don Fogg Style Forge and I drilled a hole in the top off to one side where I can drop in a foot-long thermocouple. I have an Extech temp reader and I can get to within .33 degrees interior temp on a real-time digital readout. The coolest thing is putting a piece of steel in the forge and watching the ambient temp drop fifty degrees and come back up within minutes... It is great for tricky heat-treating and total cost was $200.00 from Grainger. I also use it to precisely measure my quench temp.

_ _ _ _ It would be helpful to any beginner who plans to do any of their own heat-treating. I haven't tried the gel but had bad luck with tempil-sticks.

_ _ _ _ Solved all of my heat-treat problems instantly- as I found the magnet test did diddly for my Damascus...

I should have mentioned that the Tempil company makes different products for different heat ranges--stiks being a watery fluid that only works to about 800F and gel being a paste that will survive 2000F or so. Gel works fine at 1500F and costs pennies per blade to use. Since my forge runs much hotter than this, I put the tang (thick) end of the blade in first and heat it to near the target temp. Then when I turn the blade around, the thin steel heats much more evenly and I don't have to worry about the point overheating. Before I settled on this, I looked at Paragon furnaces, and also Fluke thermometers, but couldn't find a probe that would go high enough. Which one do you use J.?