I bought some of Phillip Patton's 404 stainless steel in the exchange a few weeks back. I got 2 pieces of the 1 3/4" round bar that would fit in a small flat rate box, i guess about 10 inches long and weighing about 5 pounds each. Now, I don't have a big shop, no band saw, no chop saw and as soon as I opened the box, which barely survived the USPS with both pieces inside, I was thinking "how the H3ll am i going to use this?" I finally remembered that one of my dad's neighbors is a retired machinist and runs a little machine shop on the side, so I called him up, dropped the 2 pieces off and had him cut one piece into 3/8" thick pieces and the other into 3/4" pieces. I ended up with about 25 total pieces I think and he charged me $30 to cut them. I figured I could use the thin pieces for bolsters and the thick ones for guards. I was drawing up a larger hidden tang bowie the other day and realized that 1 3/4" was too short for the guard. SO i figured I had nothing to lose and tried forging 2 pieces into longer pieces:
The 2 pieces I forged are in front of 4 of the cut pieces and are shown after grinding flat on the Bader. They are flat and parallel within +/-0.006". Next time I do it, i will forge the thicker piece to less than 2 inches wide so it will be easier to get flat on the flat platen.
I know stainless flat bar is hard to find. I guess I'm just showing another way to get it and you don't need a lot of tools and a power hammer.
randy
The 2 pieces I forged are in front of 4 of the cut pieces and are shown after grinding flat on the Bader. They are flat and parallel within +/-0.006". Next time I do it, i will forge the thicker piece to less than 2 inches wide so it will be easier to get flat on the flat platen.
I know stainless flat bar is hard to find. I guess I'm just showing another way to get it and you don't need a lot of tools and a power hammer.
randy