1095 stock removal

C

camper86

Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
17
hey guys, hows everyone's first day of summer goin?

anyways, still kinda new to knife makin and i just got a 5' piece of 1095 that im gonna have tempered by this guy in michigan (im cheatin :D). The bar is 2.5" x 1/4" and I am having trouble removing the extra material.

tried drillin holes around the edge of the future knife and it doesn't seem to work (6 amp black and decker with 1/8" hitache bit)...do i need a special bit or something?
Seems like a hack saw would take forever... my friend has a "sawsall". would that do the trick? and if so, what kinda attachment would i need?

appreciate the help guys
 
Typical knife steels should be in the " spheroidized anneal" condition. If you're having those problems I wonder if yours is just normalized.It should be 1095 ,'hot rolled annealed' rather than just 'hot rolled'.
 
camper86 said:
Seems like a hack saw would take forever... my friend has a "sawsall". would that do the trick? and if so, what kinda attachment would i need?
Click to expand...
If you think hacksawing is gonna be tedious, wait till you get to sanding out the scratches!


But to answer your question, yes, a sawzall/reciprocating saw will do it adequately, you just need the blade with little tiny teeth that says "Metal" on the package.

An even better way is to cut them out with an angle grinder. The grinder itself is less than $25 at Harbor Freight, and the cutoff wheel will be a buck at the most. (Don't try to cut things with the grinding wheel that comes with it. Grinding wheel for grinding, cutoff wheel for cutoffing.)
 
Most all the HRA 1095 I got years ago from Admiral, had to be re-annealed. A lot of it would wear out cobalt bits if not. I suspect that it was not spheroidized. Acually, I know it wasn't.
 
1095 will be loaded with what I call carbide "sheets" unless spheroidized. If you had problems with the drill then it will simply laugh at and trash a saws-all blade and you will need a pile of hacksaw blades. Short of using heat treatments to turn those sheets into spheres I would for forego the cutting tools for abrasive ones. Abrasive cutoff blades at least have a fighting chance against iron carbide and will most often win with pure brute force. You can get cuttof wheels for skill saws or table saws and do your straight cuts, but if you are careful you can nibble away and shape the steel free hand as well.

Of course you could always use a cuttgin torch and grind away the overheated zone, carbides cant do squat against a blast of super heated oxygen;)
 
thanks for the help guys,
im gonna try a carbide tipped sawsall blade just to see what happens since i already bought it...if that doesnt work (which it probably won't by the sound of Cashens post) then ill just gonna grind it down. I would anneal it etc but i don't have the skills :o

i would like to take a torch to it but i simply cant afford one. good ole' trial and error is gonna have to do this time lol

thanks again
 
Before I got a band saw, I used an 8" metal cut-off wheel on a bench grinder. Pretty fast if you cut a series of slots to your scribe lines, then angle in and cut the tabs away. ACE hardware house brand were the best wheels. I still use it for some work.
 
i have a bench grinder that i already did a little test run with, seems to do the job even if its a little slower then i would like. I'm gonna run by Ace in a little bit to see what kinda replacement wheels they have.
 
For annealing.... Does heating the steel up to red hot and then burying it in sand work?


i.e. is there a simple way to anneal it without ruining the steel?
 
Camper86, You've received some valuable information here on this site. We are all friends with each other on this forum, and know everyones name. You have just started, and have not even filled out y our profile, so we don't know who you are. It is not a good policy to address a person just by their last name, they deserve a little more credit than that.
That being said, I am more than positive that Mr. Cashen would be happy to let you address him as Mr. Cashen, or as Kevin, but to call one of our most esteemed members as "Cashen" is far from being courtieous.

Robert Hensarling or
Mr. Hensarling or
Robert, but not:
Hensarling
So we hope you continue to learn what you're after. These guys can answer just about any question you have, and they're more than happy to do so, please be respectfull in return, thank you.
 
Robert, I apologize for being un-courtieous in any way. I'm used to calling people by their "tag" and am unaccustomed to the more formal approach.

My name is Max Connelly by the way, just max is fine.

I appreciate the help everyone has given me greatly, and meant no disrespect.

So, I have the bulk of the work almost done with the bench grinder, the only problem i have run into is drilling the holes for the handle. I have tried every drill bit out there except for carbide and diamond coated. Without annealing my steel, will either of these work? :confused:
 
Im also having the same problem, but im using O1 instead. I got the steel from Nick here on the forums. I remember him saying it was annealed but it was a pain in the ass to hacksaw it. Im wondering if that was normal. (Not intending to hijack)
 
camper86 said:
Robert, I apologize for being un-courtieous in any way. I'm used to calling people by their "tag" and am unaccustomed to the more formal approach.

My name is Max Connelly by the way, just max is fine.

I appreciate the help everyone has given me greatly, and meant no disrespect.

So, I have the bulk of the work almost done with the bench grinder, the only problem i have run into is drilling the holes for the handle. I have tried every drill bit out there except for carbide and diamond coated. Without annealing my steel, will either of these work? :confused:
Click to expand...

Have you tried cobalt bits? you can buy a pack of "testers" from harbor frieght pretty cheaply. If that doesn't do it i'd go anneal it.
(Cobalt is recommended for stainless)
 
rhrocker said:
Camper86, You've received some valuable information here on this site. We are all friends with each other on this forum, and know everyones name. You have just started, and have not even filled out y our profile, so we don't know who you are. It is not a good policy to address a person just by their last name, they deserve a little more credit than that.
That being said, I am more than positive that Mr. Cashen would be happy to let you address him as Mr. Cashen, or as Kevin, but to call one of our most esteemed members as "Cashen" is far from being courtieous.

Robert Hensarling or
Mr. Hensarling or
Robert, but not:
Hensarling
So we hope you continue to learn what you're after. These guys can answer just about any question you have, and they're more than happy to do so, please be respectfull in return, thank you.
Click to expand...

:D Heheh, the whole last name thing actually went right over my head. That just goes to show that I have indeed mellowed in my age. The high school I went to was divided between two towns, one a suburbanite elitist, hypocritical Payton Place of inbred W.A.S.P types and the other was the blue collar gathering of Irish and other northern redneck types. I, of course was from the latter. Those of us from Matherton were treated like second class citizens by both the faculty and the other students there. Anyhow if you were from Matherton you would only ever be referred to by your last name and it was not meant to be complimentary. Needless to say if Camper86 had made his faux pas back in 86 I would be all bent out of shape. I have advanced a bit since then; though I doubt my class mates have over the years;).


Burnera, hot blades in sand will get you lamellar structures that will be all right with steels at .8% carbon or less. However I would not do it with 1095, not only will the lamellae be loaded with iron carbide, the slow cooling will allow the same to accumulate in the grain boundaries. I believe this is a major contributor to the belief among bladesmiths that 1095 is too hard, brittle or difficult to work with for many applications.


Kim Lau O-1 absolutely has to be spheroidized in order to saw on it as it will be loaded with alloy carbides. It is not impossible I do my own annealing of it and mill on O1 all the time.
 
Thanks Kevin. I was saying to myself, a 2 in. piece of PFG shouldnt take 15 mins to hacksaw through :eek:. So I held off on my knife until i got some answers. Is there a way I could anneal the O1 in my backyard? I dont have any set ups but i was thinking of getting some charcoal and get it red hot and stick the whole piece in. Would this work?
 
If it came from the mill in the condition it is now in then you are just experiencing the ornery nature of even dead soft O-1, if howevr any heat at all has been done on it you will simply ruin your tools trying to cut it. If this is the case you can somewhat undo what has been done by heating and cooling several times to a dull red but NEVER allowing the steel to lose magnetism, if you go over the nonmagnetic point you can basically start all over again. The low temperature cycling will tend to ball teh carbides up and take them out of play.
 
burnera, i tried cobalt earlier today and no luck.

i'm gettin ready to order a carbide bit, hopefully that will do the trick for 2 or 3 holes. I'm gonna try what kevin said with the heating and cooling to try and loosen it up a bit before i go drillin with a 20$ bit
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top