Forging stainless steel

J

Jman739

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Oct 5, 2017
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Hello everyone,
I recently saw one or two websites that mentioned z-finit (which I think is the same as lc200n?) can be forged. However, because z-finit is a stainless steel, I am unsure of whether or not this means it can be forged like a normal carbon steel or if it requires specific temps, equipment, etc.? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jman
 
In my opinion, there's no practical reason to attempt forging stainless steels. I don't know what you would hope to gain. Besides maybe being the one guy who can get it right often enough to make a living at it. There's a lot to be said for that, if that were to be your approach. But there are already plenty of steels that respond better to forging, and lots of options for corrosion-resistance. Then again, I've always kind of thought that stainless and stock-removal were synonymous.
 
There are some oddball times it happens, such as with MS Jean-Louis Regel and his stainless steel wootz that's forged.
 
As a realistic answ under the hammer …. and you basically harden it each heat. Nothing good will come from forging it 99% of the time.
Buy the steel in the desired thickness and grind the blade.
 
Thanks for the replies!
I would assume that the chromium has something to do with difficulty when forging stainless steels?
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
As a realistic answ under the hammer …. and you basically harden it each heat. Nothing good will come from forging it 99% of the time.
Buy the steel in the desired thickness and grind the blade.
Click to expand...

I agree that just buy a desired size sheet and stock removal it is a better idea. But I don't think it gonna be any hardened until you left it cool below martensite start temperature.

Forging stainless is kinda tricky but can be done. It require properly pre-heat stage and will be much more difficult to move compare to carbon. They also have narrow forging range and full annealing is a must after finished forging. So with all of this, it would be much less trouble to just buy sheet and grind it.
 
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