52100 sources

[John Frankl]

Hello All,

I want to begin working with some 52100. I had the pleasure of discussing this in Oregon with Ed Fowler and Bill Burke (thanks for the knife talk!) Anyway, I am wondering what everyone thinks of the pros and cons of 52100 from different sources.

I can get my hands on about 120 2.75" ball bearings for $3.35 a piece. This works out to about a dollar per pound.

Admiral has virgin 3/4" round stock for not much more $.

Jeff Carlisle sells it for about five dollars a pound.

And I can't seem to figure out a per pound price from Rex Walters. Can someone help me here?

I guess I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on the various pros and cons of different sources, and which source they would choose to begin experimenting with considering the price and availability of each.

Thanks,

John Frankl

 

[Ed Fowler]

John: I started out with used ball bearings and learned a lot. My problem was that each ball was different, this was both a frustration and opportunity. Dancing with an unpredictable mate will make you a great dancer, but you never know exactly where you are. I had to sacriface one blade out of each ball bearing to develop reliable blades.

All are good sources, I buy from Rex because he is the man who did all the laboratory work developing our process and challenged me to enter a very rewarding frontier. You want to develop a source that is absolutely reliable, same steel every time. When you talk to a supplier, get the chemistry report, and hope you know what it means, find out how much he has from the same batch of steel and begin your voyage with as few variables as possible. If the steel works for you, buy enough that you will never have to change partners without the change being part of your plan.

We were very fortunate with the steel we started with. Price is of little concern when high performance is your goal, the wrong steel can cost you hundreds of hours of time.

Good luck and welcome to the frontiers of 52100.

 

[AchimW]

It seems that the closer you get to either the steel mill or the junk yard, the cheaper the steel gets.

The steel mill source has the advantage that you know exactly the composition and quality of the steel you are getting.
We have good connections to a european top class steel producer and recently got over 500 pounds of 52100 for free, just for testing purposes. Fresh from the mill steel that was. In a size that you would like, Ed! The bars were 4 x 4 inches. Needed a lot of hot work in the press and under the power hammer to get them to knife size.

Achim

 

[Tom Militano]

I had e-mail from Terry at Admiral Steel this morning and he said he should be getting prices and availability for 52100 in bar stock and if everything works out he will have samples at the Blade Show. Works for me!!

 

[Ed Fowler]

Achim: You are very fortunate with the 4 x 4 stock. All our research indicates that the more you are able to work the steel down to the final form the greater the potential for a high perfromace knife. Your steel has performance limits in its nature. If you do everything to develop that potential and nothing to take from that potential you will experience good times. The trick is to keep good notes, test every blade and control the variables one at a time.
Good Luck.

 

[John Frankl]

Ed, you wrote: "John: I started out with used ball bearings and learned a lot. My problem was that each ball was different, this was both a frustration and opportunity. Dancing with an unpredictable mate will make you a great dancer, but you never know exactly where you are. I had to sacriface one blade out of each ball bearing to develop reliable blades."

I am able to get 120 ball bearings all at the same time and from the same company. I bought ten first just to be sure. I am going to take two of them at random and have their contents analyzed just to make sure they are all the same. I am also going to make some blades to see how I like the steel. If all goes well, I will order the other 110 and have a very long-lasting source.

What are your thoughts on ball bearings as opposed to races?

John

 

[Ed Fowler]

John: Bearing balls or races if all 52100 steel are 52100 steel. If you can get the outfit to state if they are all from the same melt. If so you are in good shape, if not, every one may be an adventure.