1070 steel.

[richard j]

i was wondering if anyone else uses or has bought a knife made with 1070 steel and if so, how well do you like the knife or using the steel to make a knife?

 

[deker]

I've just started working with some 1070 I got a while ago and so far I like it just fine. I've got 2 blades of it rough ground right now and about ready for heat treatment. I can't speak for the finish or edge holding capabilities just yet, but I'm pretty certain it should be really easy to heat treat. I believe the window to get to the Ms "nose" is pretty long (4 sec? Have to get the diagram and check). It forges and grinds just fine though.

-d

 

[LRB]

Just my opinion, but I can see no reason to make a knife blade from a steel in the 10xx series, with less carbon than 1084. I'm sure there is little, to no price difference, and the 1084 is going to make a better blade. There should be no difference between the two as far as working the steel. 1070 would be better suited as a sword steel.

 

[rlinger]

On a regular basis I make quite a few rather large blades of 1075. The ones I make of 1075 are 1/4 inch thick. I advise doing some HT'ing on sample pieces of your 1070 before actually HT'ing your first blade. It took me some days of many hours per to learn it well enough to be confident. Your 1070 will be very difficult to Rockwell test since it is such a shallow hardening steel. The edge can be get very hard but testing at the thicker flats of blade may show softness unless you get VERY close to the sharp drop off of a flat edge (bottom of flat portion of tang, as an example). The thinner portions, such as blade edge, will be hard if HT'ed properly. The thick portions will not be so throughout but will be so for a shallow depth. That is why an indenter will give you a soft reading. Even with a full oil quench you will see a faint quench line on your 107X blade a respectable distance above the bevel edge. You may well like your 1070. I love 1075 except that I hate to mill it. It is rough on my end mills. My 1075 blades have proven themselves well.

rlinger
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[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

1070 is a great sword steel. It works well for hamon type blades,too. HT is simple and straight forward. rlinger is right, experiment to get the Ht down pat.
Stacy

 

[richard j]

i use a torch to heat treat only the edge. i have most of my blades rockwell tested and they usually run in the low to mid 60's. i heated a piece hotter than i normally do and quenched it, mainly to heat up my oil. later i put the piece on the welding table flat and beat the crap out of it trying to get it to break but it didnt. the only way i did break the piece was to lay it on the edge of the table and hit it which took quite a swing. i was using a 3# sledge the whole time. thanks for the input and opinions. i have quite a bit of this steel so i'll be making quite a few knives from it.