Getting steel tested...

[claymoore]

First off a Safe & Merry Christmas to all.
Just wondering if i had some leaf springs, is there a place i can send a piece to tell me the steel so i could heat treat accordingly? Does anybody know of such a place? And is it worth it or should i treat it like say 1084? Thanks again. God Bless
Clay

[AUBE]

Yes there are places that will do testing to determine the alloy composition. Offhand the only one I know of is over here in Asia so that doesn't help you.

But it just doesn;t make sense to pay for testing unless you have a pile of the springs that you are 100% sure are the same steel.....which is rare. You can order 5160, 1080, etc cheap enough.

The best bet is to order known steel but if you want to use spring steel simply cut a piece off, make a test blade, heat treat it then test to destruction. You can see if it hardens ok, if you need to raise/lower tempering temps etc. Treating it like 1084 is a decent starting point but keep in mind it more than likely has a fair amount less carbon, and additional alloys added to it where it will differ from 1084 so you will have to adjust accordingly.

Merry Christmas to you as well.

[Doug Lester]

Look to see if there is a Fastenal store around you. They also have a web site that you could get an address for sending a sample of steel to. Not an endorsement, we just have a store in town so I know about them.

Doug

[Imakethings]

I usually HT my leaf springs as 5160 and test till destruction on a sample. It's a safe bet that most of your leaf springs from the automotive industry are some flavor of 5160 or close.

It's also a hell of a lot cheaper than sending out for testing

[AUBE]

Originally Posted by Doug Lester

Look to see if there is a Fastenal store around you. They also have a web site that you could get an address for sending a sample of steel to. Not an endorsement, we just have a store in town so I know about them.

Doug

Fastenal does testing eh? I never knew that... I had one close to me when I was in the states too. Offhand do you know what they charge?

[claymoore]

thanks for the fast responses guys. Great advise. Making a test piece is the way to go. And there is a fastenol near me also. After the holidays i'm going to call them and see if i can buy steel from them. Aldo's steel is great but the shipping & tax(?) adds up. Sometimes it probably pays to just use good known stuff (Aldo's) though , because of all the time put into a blade. But also knife making is like therapy for me so it's all good. Oh yeah, imakethings how do you like 5160, i'm thinking of a machete in the near future?
Thanks again & Merry Christmas.
Clay

[Doug Lester]

Sorry, I don't know about Fastenal's prices for testing but their site advertises different types of testing from hardness to microscopic analysis.

Clay, a lot of us have come to that same conclusion. It's far better to start off with a known steel that's not a used part off something or other. Used springs are probably the safest thing to re-purpose as far as carbon content goes but they can have stress cracks in them. 5160 is a good steel for the beginner. It's easy to forge and to heat treat. A long controlled soak at temperature is not necessary to get the carbon into solution in the austinite for hardening. It's also a good steel for making a differentially hardened blade by edge quenching to make a big chopper like a machete.

Doug

[claymoore]

Thanks Doug,
You, Ray, ( and some others)really help the newbies (me) out. Sometimes i think i know what to do but when you guys answer it cements what i will do. I guess when you start thinking that you can get something cheap it can cloud your mind. Awesome bunch here on this forum.
Clay

[Imakethings]

Well, provided you're clever and check your stock before you get to the forming (acid etch anyone?) you can avoid most of the fracture problems. Alternately you can just take it up to forge welding heat and soak for a min, fluxing optional. I'm never that worried, a mild acid etch should show any problems.

Anywho, I think 5160 is a great choice for doing longer/larger blades. Being able to do a differential heat treat is great, you can get much greater versatility if you can do the HT correctly, but you're not going to get a hamon when you're done with the blade. The chromium in the 5160 won't let it take an etch easily.

One of the other things I can't stress enough is that if you are going to be forging it down, don't work it below a medium or bright red, if you do you're tempting stress fractures.

Lastly, anneal twice. Take it up to medium yellow and stick it in some vermiculite, it will take a heck of a long time to cool down in the stuff, but when you take it out it will be nice and buttery soft. Then anneal it again just to make sure it's good and pliable before you go in with the files or grinding. Annealing is your friend, it will keep you from having some problems down the road (things like fractures during HT).

If you have more questions, please feel free. We all want to see what you do!

[claymoore]

Thank you, imakethings for your time. I hope this coming year will be your best ever.
Clay

[Ed Tipton]

Claymoore...I've made several knives from both coil and flat spring materials. The steels used in springs may or may not be 5160, since the mfrs. all pretty much use whatever is available at the best price.Whether or not it is 5160 is really of little concern since there are similar steels used with similar properties, and there is little if any difference in how they are HT.
Prior to starting, give the steel a good visual check, and if it looks good, then go for it. If there are stress cracks, they will become evident once you begin forging. Your eyes and ears can tell you much.
I've never sent any steel for analysis, but I understand the process is expensive enough to make using mystery metal something other than cheap steel.
I have ordered steel directly from Kelly Cupples before with excellent results. For 1080 steel, he pays for the shipping provided you order 100.00 or more...and that translates into a lot of steel at a good price. His shipping cost does vary depending upon the type of steel, so be sure to get his up to date info before ordering.
Ditto on working the steel hot. Pounding cold steel is a good prescription for getting cracks in your blades. The HT of steel...specifically the quench...is probably going to be the most stressful event in the life of your blade...so anything you can do to minimize the stress prior to the quench is going to be helpful....and that applies to all steel types.

[Imakethings]

Originally Posted by Ed Tipton

The HT of steel...specifically the quench...is probably going to be the most stressful event in the life of your blade...so anything you can do to minimize the stress prior to the quench is going to be helpful....and that applies to all steel types.

This is why I stress annealing so much, it reduces some of the stresses during the HT. There are a couple good tutorials for the HT process on 5160 and it's variants.

I also suggest doing a couple of larger bowie knifes or similar before you move on to a machete or sword. Start with an 18-24 inch knife, doing something that big will teach you a good bit.

[claymoore]

Thanks Ted & imake. I use the stock removal method for now (but i am fasinated with damascus, so who knows what 2013 will bring i may biuld a forge.) Thanks again Ted i will check out Kelly's tonight. I'm going to grab up some flat springs and just learn from it. It's all good some people go to shrinks i go to town in my garage so i don't have to. lol. One thing i do know is i have enough 1084 for that contest. Whats fun about the contest is that everybody can see progress/results from all the tips you nice gentlemen have offered.
Thanks again
Clay

Guy's while i have ya here 2 quick questions:
1) is there a big difference between 1084 and 1080?
2) I have a few blades i'm working on (1084 & 1095) can i heat treat them together w/ 1095 heat temps? Or just heat treat as like steels? I know this post is probably testing your endurance, but it was twice as hard typing it. lol

[Doug Lester]

There's not much difference in 1080 and 1084, even if you got the 1084 from The New Jersey Steel Baron. There is a lot of difference between 1084 and 1095. 1084 is only slightly hypereuteciod where 1095 is strongly so. 1084 doesn't need much of a soak but 1095 will but not too hot or too long or you will end up with large grain and plenty of retained austinite. For the 1095 I would soak at about 1450? for about 5 minutes. I would also temper the 1095 at 450? and maybe a 425? for the 1084. As far as the 1080 goes, I would austinize it at about 1500? just long enough to heat through and then temper it at 400?. Of course those times might have to be adjusted slightly for your own equipment.

Both the 1080 and the 1084 would be more forgiving of a gas or solid fuel forge that doesn't have ability for fine temperature adjustment than the 1095 will be. However, once you have some experience determining that your steel is at proper austinizing temperature it can be heat treated with more basic equipment too.

Doug

[claymoore]

Super Doug thanks for clearing that up for me.
Clay