Bend annealed O2 tool steel

A

AlexKV

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Jan 28, 2015
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I am planning to buy annealed O2 tool steel (very similar to O1, with no Wolfram and a bit more Manganese), but it handles the same as O1.
The only dimension available is 10mm X 80mm flat stock, and lenght is up to 3m, which is not important here.

My question is: If I cut that piece in half by lenght, to get two pieces of 10x40mm, is it possible to force bend it while cold to get a small curved shape to make a katana like sword by stock removal method? Will it get microcracked on the elongated side?
I guess it is better to bend it while hot in forging temperatures, but I don't have an oven where I could let it cool slowly so it doesn't get hardened...
Can I hear your opinions on this one?
 
Good luck trying to cold bend any tool steel on its edge regardless of how "soft"it is. You will have to ask one of the European guys about whether O2 air hardens to any degree because we just don't see that steel over here.
 
You aren't going to cold forge a 10X80mm bar of steel into a curve.

For any normal amount of sori, just grind it in. If you plan on 15mm of sori and the moto-haba of the blade is 40mm, then you have lots of steel to work with. I would actually suggest you saw the profile from an 80mm wide bar.
 
In the metal fabrication world, this is called rolling or forming "the hard way." It is done on a roller (e.g. slip roller) with guides that keep the bar in position, or with special grooved rollers.

I can't comment on the risk of micro-fractures, but you could probably find a metal shop that would do this for you.
 
@jdm61 from everything I've found out up untill now, the O2 is almost the same steel as O1, behaves almost te same, hardens the same... The only difference is in more Manganese which gives an O2 the property of being darker after acid etching.

@Stacy: That was the initial plan, I was also thinking of laser cutting, as I probably can use that service from a local metal shop, but I don't know if tool steel will work-harden from that laser?
- Also, by cutting out the katana-shaped piece, leftovers would be ugly pieces of steel without much usable shape, but by cutting it in half and bending it, there is another same piece that could become a wakizashi for example :)

@P.Brewster Yeah, I could try finding a slip roller which is made for bars instead of sheets, but I doubt I'll find one easily.

Thanks everybody! :)
 
If you are set n cutting it into two 40mm bars, do that and get someone with a forge to bend the sori for you. He can also run it through a normalization heat when he is done to make it soft for grinding and filing.

If considering a laser cutter, you can nest the wakizashi on the mune of the katana and get both blanks cut at the same time. With a 10mm sori, 30mm wak, and 40mm katana the 80mm bar will fit them both. I would just cut three parallel curved lines and do the rest of the shaping on the grinder.
 
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