Steel options.

[Shankmaker]

I work at a steel mill and have access to alot of different forms of steel.

I made my first knife last week using .25 bar stock. Is this any good for knifes?
I dont know what the properties are other then its carbon steel.

My question is what material would you be looking for in here ?

Is the bar stock ok? Should I use the flat steel instead? Does it matter?

[Alan L]

Well, depending on what kind of steel it is, it may or may not be useful for knives. What does the mill you work for call it? If they call it "structural steel" or "hot-rolled weldable steel" or "AISI Grade A-36" you're out of luck, it does not have enough carbon to harden up properly. You can certainly use it for practice, and it will cut for a while, but it will bend and stay bent when stressed, and can't hold an edge for any length of time.

For those properties you need a hardenable steel, which means a higher carbon content.

If by chance you work at Admiral Steel, you're in luck! They make several grades of good blade steels.

Find out what grade of steel you have. If it's 10xx, where the "xx" is any number from 50 to 95, it's a straight carbon steel with 0.xx percent carbon and will harden well.

If it's 5160, that's a low-alloy chromium steel with 0.5% carbon and around 1% chrome. It makes excellent blades but is often used for spring stock. It and 9260 (0.6% carbon, around 2% silicon) can be found at automotive spring shops for cheap or free if you ask politely for the drops.

There's a lot of stuff to know about steel, as you may be beginning to guess.

Find out what you've got, then report back. We'll figure something out for you to use.

[Shankmaker]

We are actually just a process mill. We buy the hotband in coils and pickle it and cold mill it down to spec. It sounds like by your description I will be S.O.L.

All I could find so far is the carbon content. It runs from .03 - 0.10.

We also have a maintainance shop that throws away the leftover steel from projects.
Its usually angle iron , bar stock etc. Should I be looking into this stuff instead?

[Gary Mulkey]

Something that was told me years ago when I first started making knives is to buy the best materials available no matter the cost as most of the value of the finished knife is in your labor anyway. I would recommend that you pick one of the common blade steels and get new bar stock so you know exactly what you are working with. Whichever steel you decide on, I wouldn't use anything else until you know that steel well. Many steels work & H/T very differently and if you start out using varied steels at the start it can be confusing.

Good luck & have fun.

Gary

[LRB]

I agree with Gary. You can waste a lot of time, and effort playing with mystery steels.

[Recurve]

Hey Shank, There is a Knife and Gun Show at the Valpo fairgrounds next weekend Sept.20-21 I have a table there, stop by and I,ll be happy to help point ya' in the right direction. Jim Shull Shull Handforged Knives or shoot me an e-mail at nbjs@netnitco.net
WARNING!! Once you start it will become addictive!

[Shankmaker]

Originally Posted by Recurve

Hey Shank, There is a Knife and Gun Show at the Valpo fairgrounds next weekend Sept.20-21 I have a table there, stop by and I,ll be happy to help point ya' in the right direction. Jim Shull Shull Handforged Knives or shoot me an e-mail at nbjs@netnitco.net
WARNING!! Once you start it will become addictive!

I would love to make it there but im on the weekend shift for the next few weeks.

Thanks for the invite though.

[Recurve]

Been there done that. If I can be of any assistance feel free to gimme a shout you are the next generation of artisans you don't have to go it alone like many of us older one did.Take care -Jim-

[Wade Holloway]

All that is true about buying you some good steel, but all that scrap they are throwing away might be used to build frames for some new tools you could make. Like a frame to hold a portable band saw to use to cut out you knife blanks. Or a table to hold a homemade forge or any number of other things. Remember this hobby is very addictive.

[Alan L]

Sounds like for the most part you're not gonna find any blade steels around work, sorry. Do keep the useful looking scrap, like Wade says, you WILL be using it to build stands, frames, and all sorts of other stuff you'll decide you just have to have!

If you've got a machine shop supply nearby, or even a machine shop, ask 'em for some tool steel flats, preferably water-hardenable or oil-hardenable. they may have only precision-ground stock, and that's fine. It's just more expensive than hot-rolled. It is best and cheapest to do as Gary says, get a big lot of new barstock of one type and work with it until you've mastered the treatment. I'd recommend 1095, 1084, or 5160 for your first steel.

Whatever grade you get, be sure to ask here for heat-treating hints, as they all need just a little bit different treatment to bring out the best performance.

[chiger]

Hey Shank,

The guys are steering you right about steel. The one thing that no one has told you yet is that 99.9% of us older guys made our first knives out of bastard mill flat files. Nowadays, I understand that most files are of some verity of 1084 or 10somethin'. If you can find some older files they will be W1.

Whatever they are, you can water quench them if you decide to anneal the steel so it's soft and easier to work.

Or you can just take your time not to over heat it while grinding, use up a bit more sand paper on finishing and work it as is. Then you just stick 'um in the oven at 375 for 2 hours and call it a day. You will get a very usable...dependable knife. And you don't need to have a furnace or touches to heat it to nonmagnetic for reheat treating if you've anneal it.

All that said, if you have or plan on having a oven of some sort that will reach 1800-2000 degrees, order a 2 or 3 foot section of one of the simple steels the guys suggested and have at it. It is the best to learn on.

I would not suggest spending a ton of cash on buying high priced steels that you will have to send off to be heat treated until you get your skills up to match the materials. The same with handle materials. Don't go buy a $60 set of scales just to wreck 'um trying to get a hole drilled or pin set. Stick to simple stock like native hardwoods and sheet aluminum or brass from a local source or recycling yard.

Whatever you use...enjoy. Knife making will never get old, but it will never get any more fun than right now.

chiger,