Are bus U bolts good for making knives?

C

cre8tivesolutions

Joined
Dec 3, 2010
Messages
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I have a source to aquire school bus leaf springs and u bolts; but I want to know if the U bolts would make good knives. I know the leaf spring are a given, any help in this are would be appreciated.

Ed...
 
i dont think you will get very many answers on this question. so i suggest you make one into a edge, heat treat, and test
 
And the leaf springs are not really a given,One of the members here got a bunch of truck leaf spring and had them tested and they came out way too low carbon for blades.As for the bolts I don't know.
Stan
 
Take one and heat up a section (away from the threaded portion) with a torch, or forge, or whatever heat source you have access to. Heat it up until a magnet won't stick to it.

Quickly cool it in a bucket of water.

Put it in a vise and smack it with a good sized hammer. If it breaks like a piece of glass, it has potential. (You still won't have a clue of what it is or how to heat treat it) If you have to keep hitting it and it finally starts to bend......... then it is only good as a U-Bolt.

Robert
 
If it is a bolt, it probably isn't knife steel.

The "heat to non-magnetic and quench" test often stated will give you the same results with mild steel. I regularly break plain old 1030 steel parts that I accidentally harden when cooling down.
Try it with a bar of Home Depot steel. Heat to above non-mag and quench in water. It will break easily....proving that any steel with more than about .2% carbon will become brittle. That does not mean that it will form a hard martensitic structure and make a good knife.
 
Well Ed, it seems that according to some, I gave you some bad info.

Won't happen again.

Good luck on your endeavor.

Robert
 
What I've found so far is a lot of the smaller U bolts are made from low carbon steel. These are the type that would be used to clamp lumber, pipe etc. I have not found any information thus far as to the make up of these larger U bolts. I will do some testing as well as more research to see what can be found out about this mystery metal. Thanks everyone for all the replies! Will check back often.
 
Robert,
I was not meaning anything bad, just pointing out that the test can give false positive results.
 
I had a friend that used to work in a lab testing u bolts in S.W. Missouri... He told me they were 1040 and he used them to make tomahawks.
 
No. Neither are old springs, lawnmower blades, rusty files, railroad spikes or any other "free" junk. Most of us have been down that road, and we've almost all learned that it's not really worth the trouble.

At best, you may end up with something fairly decent. At worst, it will be a complete waste of time. $20 worth of good clean 1084 is a tremendous bargain.
 
Keep the U bolts... those are great stock for making tongs ! they'll be a steel tong, so remember not to quench them in water if they get red hot..... i've also made many drifts n punches with them... they're ok for that but not the best

1075,1084, W1 drill rod are cheep and great for knives... buy some of that !

G
 
Love the diversity of all the answers. Thanks everyone for all the input! @ Greg Outstanding Idea! I need a few extra tongs anyways.
 
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