Beginer knife making metal demmention advice and grade of metal

M

mocaba

Joined
Oct 13, 2012
Messages
87
I am looking at NJ Steel Baron's metal because someone suggested them as a good source to buy from. Is it better to buy a slab, or a bundle.

1084 .187" T 3" W 6" L = Bundle 47.38$ for 6 pieces 13.28$ Shipping
1084 .187" T 3" W 48" L = Slab 39.88$ 12.90$ Shipping

If you know of a better place to buy from that has better prices and better shipping costs let me know please and thank you for your help.
 
Seems to me that is a huge size to use if you are just starting to make knives. Did you read the stickies? There is a huge amount of help there. Frank
 
Yeah the 3" wide is gonna be alot of waste if your doing stock removal and a bear to get down to a working width if forging (unless you have a power hammer). The bundles are primarily made for using in damascus, basically you can layer it with the precut 15n20 of the same width and it saves you from having to cut them all to length so stick with the slab or bar.

I would stick with the 1084 but get something along the lines of 1" or 1.5" width, about 1/8" thick and just get the 48" bars. Plus you dont want to limit yourself to a 6" long blade.
 
Yep, only get the 3" wide if you need it. I buy a lot of that, but that's because I'm doing gladii with a 2" wide blade and a 3" wide guard. I usually sketch out my design and figure out how wide my steel needs to be.
 
The "bundles" are used by damascus makers. The extra cost just saves a bit of time in cutting equal pieces. To a damascus maker, time is money.

Most folks get bar stock. 18", 24", 36", and 48" are the norm lengths. Most simple knives can be cut from a 1.5 or 2" bar. Don't get any wider than you need.

The biggest error of new makers is using stock too thick. 1/8" is more than enough. I wouldn't use .187 unless I was forging the blade or making a huge knife to cut down trees. Take a micrometer and measure some of you commercial knives. You will be surprised to see how thin they are.
A good starter order would be two bars of 1084 in 1/8"....one 24"X1.5" and one 24"X2". That will make half a dozen good first knives.
 
Thanks for the input the reason why I wanted to start a bit bigger was to attempt a K-bar or Bowie, But for my first knife I probably should start smaller. Idk if this is dumb or not but I wanted to start a little bit bigger because I could see everything forming more clearly than looking at a smaller blade I feel like I would miss a lot. But Ill start making some smaller knives first if that is how I should start, thanks again guys this community is helping me a lot.
 
You still don't need 3" wide for a bowie. Draw out your knife and measure, and you'll see. If you want to start big, feel free. But you don't need steel that wide.
 
ok ya I see your point the size in my head wasn't translating to actual numbers thanks crimson. I got 3 slabs 1.5, and 2 in wide 48 in long .125.
 
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