Recommendation? Grinding practice and mild steel

I’m fairly midline on this... I don’t see making practice blades out of mild steel as a good use of resources.

However, using mild steel to practice a certain technique before putting it on a real blade is something that I can see as a good use.

So I just checked prices on steel. Lowe’s 1/4 x 1 x 48” of cold rolled mild steel is 1/2-ish the price of 1084 of the same size from NJSB...
 
A.McPherson said:
So I just checked prices on steel. Lowe’s 1/4 x 1 x 48” of cold rolled mild steel is 1/2-ish the price of 1084 of the same size from NJSB..
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Indeed. But I can run out right now to Lowes and have that steel at my grinder in 45 minutes, and I do not need to pay shipping......

I think, somewhat perversely, I would be more comfortable absolutely ruining a piece of steel that will never be a knife anyway, versus absolutely ruining a piece of steel that I could send to JT and ultimately turn in to a real knife :)
 
I actually feel like I learned more grinding on hardened 1084. It went a little slower than soft steel and made it easier to correct mistakes. Just my opinion though
 
kmf600 said:
I actually feel like I learned more grinding on hardened 1084. It went a little slower than soft steel and made it easier to correct mistakes. Just my opinion though
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Yeah - I understand that any of the options (mild steel, paint can stir sticks) go at different rates than hardened steel (as others have mentioned). I guess I will just need to try to take that into account, and try to adapt when I hit the actual hardened steel. no perfect solution.... :-(
 
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