1045 for knives?

Tai/Kevin - have either of you done anything with M4? I assume you stay away from it if for no other reason than its red hardness.
 
Tai,
Kevin and I will square off with pole arms at Ashokan and settle this in a he-manly fashion.....Either that or we will discuss it over Scotch and cigars like intelligent men.
I vote for option #2.
Stacy
 
O.K. now with the direction of the thread, I must fully go with my businessman side and say that if folks want 50HRC and believe it is the only way to avoid breakage, after all the discussion we have had about the way those things work, please by all means use the lowest carbon contents you can find. :thumbup: I have seen the light! :D I am quite cool with it. If factory knives that are 52-55HRC are where people want to set their goals, I would be a fool to stand in the way.:)

I retract my previous statements. 1045 will make a fine blade that would do everything that we expect a knife to do, it should bend back and forth in the vice until you are exhausted. I know it will be very easy to sharpen, and it will indeed never snap into pieces. All very fine points that I will not contest, and I was a fool for trying. Gabe is correct that I would even highly recommend austempering them for maximum toughness. ;)

P.S. Not much wisdom to share on M4 Gabe, believe it or not, as you surmised I actually like the simpler steels for forging. The austenitizing temps exceed my salt rigs, the high level of hardness could make it inferior to 1045 though. ;) I may need to adjust my ways however because I have some steel being sent to me to test that would exceed many of M4 characteristics due to W content. Rest assured I will be stock removing it though.;)

P.S.S.
bladsmth said:
Tai,
Kevin and I will square off with pole arms at Ashokan and settle this in a he-manly fashion.....Either that or we will discuss it over Scotch and cigars like intelligent men.
I vote for option #2.
Stacy
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Depends on the scotch! Islay or Highland? No need to squable on the cigars, we can just steal whatever Matt brings;)
 
Option #2 sounds better for you and maybe for the state of bladesmithing metallurgy but not nearly as fun for the onlookers as a pole arm duel.
 
jackrabbitslim said:
Option #2 sounds better for you and maybe for the state of bladesmithing metallurgy but not nearly as fun for the onlookers as a pole arm duel.
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Depends on how shnokkered they get on the scotch! :D

Kevin, I think you've stumbled on the ultimate ABS js test steel, the designation should be ABSJSTEST1045, ROFL :) .
 
Kevin, I will bring up an unopened bottle of 10 year old scotch vatted in 1908, which will probably be a disappointment, to open with the gang. And a good 18 year Islay, Lapphroaig, for those who appreciate the finer points of malt and peat. I always have a reasonable cigar or two in the humidor. I'm out of Cubans ( which are usually overrated, anyway) but will bring up two excellent cigars for us to chat over ( and some others for the rest of the guys). Claro or Maduro?
Stacy
 
So you guys are infering that the Jefferson Spivey knife made from 4130 may not be worth $300?:rolleyes:

When I first read about that knife I thought it was a typo.
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
Heat treat! Heat treat! It is all in the heat treat!
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You mean like triple quenching? :D

... I bet you could just run your forge extra oxidizing and suck most of the carbon out of it. LOL

I guess you never heard of edge packing... HA HA HA
 
bladsmth said:
Kevin, I will bring up an unopened bottle of 10 year old scotch vatted in 1908, which will probably be a disappointment, to open with the gang. And a good 18 year Islay, Lapphroaig, for those who appreciate the finer points of malt and peat. I always have a reasonable cigar or two in the humidor. I'm out of Cubans ( which are usually overrated, anyway) but will bring up two excellent cigars for us to chat over ( and some others for the rest of the guys). Claro or Maduro?
Stacy
Click to expand...


I am not sure what the policy is at Ashokan now that it is under new ownership, but previously the campus was desginated alcohol free. The New England Bladesmiths Guild was such a long time friend to the facility that as long as we kept it very discreet and out of sight an occasional infraction was overlooked. A couple of years ago a bottle or two appeared in plain sight at the forging pavilion and the rules had to be enforced.

Last year the campus was sold to new owners and I do not know how things will go so the safest bet is to keep things very discreet. It is normally announced that if you have alcohol with you it should be kept in you vehicle. So if you have a particuarly tasty bottling I may be tempted to sample but only well after working hours and totally out of sight, if you know what I mean;).

I like my stogies the same as my drink - the darker and bolder in flavor the better! I am an old school cigar man, so much so I remember back at the beggining of the dreaded boom when claro meant a green wrapper:barf:.
 
Kevin, I thought you said the only way to make a blade stiffer or less stiff was with geometry…

It’s all so complicated and confusing! That’s why I decided to go the knife farming route,... just plant the steel in the ground and watch it grow. :)
 
Jeff Clark said:
Let's say that I wanted to make something like a WWI Enfield Bayonet. It would have a comparatively narrow 17-inch long blade. I want to be able to ram this blade into a door with a 10 pound rifle behind it and be certain that it wouldn't break (bend a bit maybe, but not break). I also want to be able to make 1 million of them cheaply and quickly (as if there is a war on). Assume that chrome is a critical material and unavailable. Would 1045 be a reasonable material? I assume I could find a fairly simple water-based quenching approach. Could I get the blade up to say 50 RC? If I wanted 50 RC would I be better off using something with a bit more carbon?

You may laugh at 50 RC, but that is closer to the norm for some classic combat knives and even some well known American cutlery than 58 RC. http://www.knifemerchant.com/products.asp?manufacturerID=8
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In this scenario your hyper erectoid steels would have too much carbon contamination in the iron for my liking. :D
 
Tai Goo said:
Kevin, I thought you said the only way to make a blade stiffer or less stiff was with geometry…
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Indeed I did, and indeed it is. Elastic stiffness, impact toughness, ductility, strength and abrasion resistance, each is an entirely unique and distinct property governed by different factors.

At least that is how I used to think before I gave up the hopeless struggle. Now I say just edge quenching 1/4" of the blade will give excellent flexibility! Carbon is the enemy and will only result in the countless incidents of shattered blades that we encounter on a daily basis, the less of it you have in the blade the better. A soak longer than a second or two will only result in what carbon you do have being used in brittle microstructures that will not allow your blades to flex (meaning taking a heavy set) repeatedly. Strength and toughness are exactly the same thing regardless of what all those eggheads and their irrelevent books say. What difference does a blade cutting something make if one cannot easily sharpen it with two passes on the palm of their hand? How many of us would even want to skin a buck when we could hit concrete instead? As I said - I have seen the light! Grab some scrap steel and... gentleman light your torches!

P.S. Tai, edge packing is now a practice that I highly recommend:thumbup: by the end of the day, and a short session in Adobe Photoshop, I hope to have detailed micrographs of steel molecules compacted to 1/4 their original size and 5 times their original density through proper low temperature forging.
 
Yeah Kevin, but with edge packing you have to be careful that you don't over pack. When that happens the atoms get so small and tightly compressed that they collapse and invert on themselves, and become antimatter,... which renders the steel, (or antisteel), unquenchable. :D
 
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The only real reason I even use steel at all is,… because I can get it cheaper than copper. ;)
 
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