Ever heard of this kind of steel?

B

BurdgeBladeworks

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Jun 3, 2016
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Hello all,

As you may notice, this is my first post in these forums. I've been around reading a ton, and I am a knifemaker in Florida trying all kinds of things. I haven't been doing it for very long (mostly weekends for a year and a half), but I've gained some traction and connected with a Knifemaker's Guild member who lives nearby to get some guidance.

A bit of background to my post: my Guild-member friend was acquainted with another maker whose health unfortunately went south and couldn't make anymore. He sold a box of blanks he had mostly ground to profile but no further (quite a few of them, actually) to my friend, but since they weren't his shapes or style and he has a lot of projects preventing him from playing with them, he gave them to me (the trial-and-error rookie) to do with as I will.

Here is my question: my friend was told that the steel was "J134," and he believes the J to stand for Jessop, but he could not find anything on the internet about the alloy, much less heat treat information, etc. I run a forge, and can test the heat treat well enough myself, but I cannot find any real information on this "J134" any more than my friend.

Does anyone have any idea what kind of steel this might be? A more common name for the alloy, perhaps, or any idea at all? Any info would be appreciated, especially as this community has given me so much insight already.

Thanks,
Aaron at Burdge Forge and Bladeworks
 
None. That's part of why I want to find out about the alloy, it that name is accurate. I haven't started working on it yet; hell, the stuff could be damascus for all I know.
 
Jessop Steel Company was a premier producer of specialty steel plate whose history dates back to the very beginning of stainless steel in Sheffield, England. In 1993, Allegheny Ludlum purchased Jessop Steel Company.
That's it briefly ! My guess is that as a plate mill it probably didn't make any knife types. I think A-L has changed it's name now.It would be a search !

www.Alleghenymetals.com is the present name of Allegheny Ludlum . You might contact them and ask for old Jessup steel type numbers .
 
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Just for S&G's I would try a coupon of the steel at this HT.

Preheat: Heat to 1400° and equalize.
Austenitize: Ramp to 1950 and hold at temperature for 45 minutes. Oil or plate or air quench to below 125°F.

Temper: Twice at 400 for 2 hours minimum each time. I would look for 58 or 59 Rc.

It's just a hunch.
 
That would be fun, but I'm not real familiar with the details of heat treating that precisely. I have a dual-burner home-built propane forge that I can use to forge weld (another recent project), but no temperature controls or infrared thermometer with high enough range. My hardening on the first six knives has been to heat it in the forge till it glows bright orange consistently, then plunge it in the used motor oil! File tests prove it's hard, and I've learned to avoid all but the slightes warping, but I haven't done much to test the brittleness or have an actual RC.

Again, I am basically a backyard hobbyist at this point who has loved this process but needs the hobby to mostly pay for itself before I can invest in bigger equipment or professional heat treating. For this particular alloy, it would really be best if I could at least tell whoever is buying what kind of steel it is, as opposed to keeping to specifications for treating.
 
And yes, I have found a lot of historical information on Jessop, and they do still make a few cutlery steels, according to zknives.com. But I haven't come across anything like "J134" in their listings; it's actually just been "Jess Air," M3, T-8, and T-15, as well as "Truwear", all of which are basically tool steels designed for industrial cutting equipment.
 
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