hardening 304 for throwing knives?

S

skippingstones

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Jan 18, 2016
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Hi there

I am just wondering about hardening 304 steel I bought at my local metal supermarkets for making throwing knives does anyone know how this steel comes or how to treat it once I'm done working with it? I understand the basic process of hardening and annealing but I'm just curious if stainless steel needs to be hardened at all and if it does if there is anything specific I need to know. I'm making my girlfriend a set of throwing knives for her birthday next week. I'm basically totally new to this made one knife before.

the steel is 3/16 x 1 inch flat bar. thanks y'all!
 
Cold rolling or cold forging is the only way to harden 304. It is considered a non hardenable steel. With a certain % of reduction, it will harden some.

Hoss
 
You really don't want throwing knives to be hardened anyway. At least the kind that you throw at targets and such. Just profile them and sharpen the pointy end. That way when (not if... when.) you mess up a throw and the knife bends, you can whack it back straight with a stick or something and keep practicing. Now if you are wanting a general purpose knife that you can throw is another thing entirely.


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Any stainless in the 300 series will not make a good throwing knife, because they are unable to be hardened (except for work hardening as mentioned). Try 17-4PH or something in the 400 series; you will need digitally-controlled equipment.

The best way to make a DIY throwing knife is to start with a lawnmower blade or prybar. Either one is already in the right ballpark of hardness/toughness and won't require a heat-treatment.
 
17-4 is one of my favorit stainless steels. It's super simple to heat treat as long as you get it in the right condition when you order it. After doing your work just heat the steel to 900° and hold for 1hr per inch of thickness and let air cool and bam hard.
 
JTknives said:
17-4 is one of my favorit stainless steels. It's super simple to heat treat as long as you get it in the right condition when you order it. After doing your work just heat the steel to 900° and hold for 1hr per inch of thickness and let air cool and bam hard.
Click to expand...

That's an awsome Lil tidbit of info :) how well does this stainless preform ?
 
It's a great stainless, one of my favort. Easy to work (machine) easy to heat treat. Never made knives from it but I would thing it would be a VERY good stainless for a throwing knife. At condition H900 we would get around 45rc and H1150 around 34rc. When you buy it make shure it's condition A, this means it's annealed and ready to go. It's not like other steels that need a heat and quench. You just heat to 900° and bam hard. The hotter you heat it the softer it hardens. We had to reset some steel to condition A at one of my jobs and it involved heating to past non magnetic and water quenching. After this it was as soft as it could be, yeah I know confusing. Then after making parts you pop in the oven at 900° or 1150° and heat soke for 1hr and it's hard. It's very very tough steel. It's the same steel dick casule uses to build his 454 revolvers. Great stuff
 
In the H900 condition (max hardness), the charpy v-notch impact strength (toughness) of 17-4 is 16 ft-lbs. This is very high.

One downside of 17-4 is brittleness in sub-zero temps.
 
JTknives said:
It's a great stainless, one of my favort. Easy to work (machine) easy to heat treat. Never made knives from it but I would thing it would be a VERY good stainless for a throwing knife. At condition H900 we would get around 45rc and H1150 around 34rc. When you buy it make shure it's condition A, this means it's annealed and ready to go. It's not like other steels that need a heat and quench. You just heat to 900° and bam hard. The hotter you heat it the softer it hardens. We had to reset some steel to condition A at one of my jobs and it involved heating to past non magnetic and water quenching. After this it was as soft as it could be, yeah I know confusing. Then after making parts you pop in the oven at 900° or 1150° and heat soke for 1hr and it's hard. It's very very tough steel. It's the same steel dick casule uses to build his 454 revolvers. Great stuff
Click to expand...

Nice :)
 
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