Admiral Steel's 1080

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Dixieblade57

Joined
Jun 20, 2007
Messages
1,361
I am going to be forging my first knife from some of Admiral Steel's 1080, I recently purchased. I chose this because it is supposed to be a good steel for a beginner!

http://www.admiralsteel.com/shop/

Has anyone got any advice about the steel?

Working temp?

Quench?

HT?
 
I've always treated it like 1084... with their tolerance 1080 could be 1075 or 1085 or anywhere in between.

I heat it to non-magnetic, hold for 30 seconds then quench in warm panther urine. :p
 
Will Leavitt said:
I've always treated it like 1084... with their tolerance 1080 could be 1075 or 1085 or anywhere in between.

I heat it to non-magnetic, hold for 30 seconds then quench in warm panther urine. :p
Click to expand...

WARM PANTHER URINE :eek: :confused: :) :p :D

It is good to have you back Will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love that sense of humor!:D :D
 
I have been forging Admirals 3/16 x 1.25 1080 steel for small knives. My only tendency is to over heat it a little. The tell tail sign is flakes of decarb. Once I learned what to look for in forging color it hammers out just fine!!!
Hardening temp 1500f ( just over non magnetic )
Double temp at 450f
Any new steel improvements come with practice.
Good Luck!!!!
 
Heya Dixie,

I'm no expert here being a newbie myself and only having HT'ed a couple from Admirals 1080 myself but I would say make sure you normalize before heat treating, twice or even three couln't hurt. Strighten any warp during your normalizing cycles to help prevent warp out of the quench.

I would suggest tempering at 350-375 to begin with and check performance for yourself.

I did one at 350 in the kitchen oven (most likely some overshoot of the set temp) but It did fine on the brass rod test and chopping, stabbing, and twisting in a palm stump. also chopped very hard on a dry oak 2x4. These simple tests revealed no chipping or loss of sharpness.

Food for thought FWIW, Josh
 
I use Admiral's 1080 almost exclusively now...

My problem was forging too cold. 1080 can go to 2200F without major issues, many folks don't get it hot enough and end up taking too much time working the steel. Decarb is going to happen above 1350F (Approx) It is unavoidable.... you just need to limit you time at the forge and leave enough stock for grinding away the decarb layer.

1080
Forging: Heat to 2150 °F (1175 °C). Do not forge below 1500 °F (815 °C)
Normalizing: Heat to 1600 °F (870 °C). Cool in still air.
Annealing: Heat to 1500 °F (815 °C). Furnace cool to 1200 °F (650 °C) at a rate not exceeding 50 °F (28 °C) per hour.
Hardening: Austenitize- Heat to 1500 °F (815 °C). Quench in water or brine. Oil quench sections under 1/4 in. (6.35 mm) thick
Tempering: As-quenched hardness of approximately 65 HRC. Hardness can be adjusted downward by proper tempering
Source
 
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No, but I will bet you "ole WILL" has tried it at least once, knowing that rascal. Ask him how bad it smells!!!!!!!!!!!:eek: :D :D :D

I really do appreciate all the good info you can get on this forum. There is a real good bunch of people here!
 
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