Hoping to find hardened steel in 3mm thickness

STR

STR

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Do any of you guys have any already hardened 3mm thick pieces of scrap laying around your shop? I can use small pieces from 3" to 6" or more in length anywhere from 3/4" wide or wider for spacer bar/blade stops in my folders and will sure take it off your hands if you want to get rid of it. I'm more than willing to buy it if you just want to make a few bucks on some scraps.

Here is a pic of what I plan to do with it. I traced an outline on there to show what I need to do with the 3mm steel. You can see from this pic on one of my folders the spacer/blade stop all in one piece. This has worked well for me and I prefer doing this over a stop pin separate from the spacer bar personally.

I'm about out of what I have left laying around in 3mm thickness hard steel. I need this thickness to work with my 2mm thick WhittleJack folder blade and the gents folder in the pic here. Once I put my washers on the blade it comes out to 3mm in thickness at the pivot. So let me know and thanks in advance. Please email me or send a PM if you prefer. Any help appreciated.

Steve

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Steve what is that close to size wise in standard measurements? i'm doing some heat treating Thurs. and Friday. I've got some carbon steel pieces I could HT and send off. If you want stainless I can't help you. :( Nice looking knife in your sig. :thumbup:
Scott
 
Thanks Scott. That new one in my sig is one I did for my brother-in-law a few years ago. I paid Bob Dozier to heat treat it for me since it was D2. Its a one of a kind but I want to change out the pics in my sig now and then so it was the one I picked for a while.

On the steel. I'm a recycler. In my shop I'll use whatever works. I generally am not all that particular about mixing stainless with high carbon. If stainless comes my way I'll sure use it so long as it is hard.

On sizes: Lets see the blade is .094 or 3/32 basically and the spacer/blade stop needs to be .134 once I use the washers on the blade. As for the fraction measurement for .134 I don't know what the .134 works out to be in a fraction. What ever it is it is between 1/8 /.125 and 9/64 / .140 if that helps. The closest I can say is that when I put two washers on the blade stock it measures just about exactly 3mm. A very thin hair over if anything.

Hope that helps. I got all this 1095 for nothing and figure I'm going to use it for a while so I need to find some 3mm stock to make work for spacer bars or I'm going to be back to the old way where I just didn't use washers at all. Problem is on some of my new ones I want to start using some titanium and you just have to have washers on ti or the blades don't pivot worth a darn.
 
Steve, I've got some 5/32"/.165 O1. It's 1 1/4" wide. I could flat grind it down to .132 thick then HT it. If this is what you could use, how long a piece do you need?
Scott
 
Scott I'll be able to cut it any length I need. If you have a bar no need to cut it. I can sure use it and I'll buy the length from you. If mailing it is a problem feel free to cut it down any way you want to fit it in a box. I really appreciate this Scott. Look for a PM with my address here shortly.

I don't know how the math isn't jiving here for me. I take 3 divided by 32 and it comes up with .09375. and then I add .040 and come up with .13375 which is about what I measure with my calipre when I add the two 1mm washers to the 3/32 blade.

The .118 is also correct according to Chuck for 3mm and every metric conversion chart out there but I'll be darned if I can figure it out as to why it works out to be .134 for me when I check it with the actual materials in front of me. I assume it is because of the 3/32 stock and it isn't really 2mm but just a hair close to that.

I'm going to say I want to stick with my original of .134 since that is what it comes out to with the calipres. I'm afraid .118 will be too narrow by enough for the eye to pick up.

Scott I owe you and I will not forget the favor.

Thanks.
 
It may be a dumb question,but why does it need to be hardened.My take is that the blade stop should be softer than the edge.
 
I guess I don't see why it should be softer than the edge. The edge should never touch it the way I make it.

Idealy I would think blade stops would be nearly as hard as the blade so there is no possibility of indenting. My spacer bar is also the blade stop. If it were just a spacer I could use G10 or some other similar material or non hardened steel. I have used non hardened stock and not had a problem on the smaller folder I make. It makes me feel better to have the stop to at least a Rc45 so it would wear better for hard flicking and hard use on the WhittleJack I make though. Which is still a good bit softer than the blades are. Most of the blades I am using are hovering around Rc56.

I'd sooner cut off the end of a drill bit on the WhittleJack for a blade stop than use non hardened steel, but I don't like rattling stop pins. :(

Granted it may be overkill to harden the whole spacer/stop but I'm known for being the 'overkill king' anyways. No use changing now I guess.
 
Maybe I didn't explain this very well. My wife gets on me all the time because I say stuff thinking it comes across just fine but it doesn't.

Here is a pic of the way I do my WhittleJack. The edge never touches the spacer really. I make it so that it only hits on the back of the blade where it is not sharpened and that keeps the edge up off of the spacer/stop. This has worked for me for years. The space between the two increases with each sharpening or reprofile.

The only thing I'm doing differently is trying to add a washer into the design now. I have not used them on this model before. In the past the blade and spacer have been the same thickness. The washer threw me for a bit of a loop trying to figure out how I'm going to make my own new sized spacer/blade stops. I do all this stuff by hand and don't have a milling machine or expensive equipment. My whole shop is Harbor Freight and enonomy do it yourself stuff.

I guess if I had the ability I could differentially harden the stop so the only part that was hard was the part where the back of the blade hits it but I can make it work ok with the whole thing hardened. Sorry if I lost you in the translation there. I re read my posts sometimes and realize I'm not very clear.

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I generally use 1084 for my backbars. The first hole is generally .1-.2 inches from the stop end of the backbar. I use a 1/16 pin in this hole. I use a propane troch and heat the stop end through the pin hole and quench, I leave the remainder of the bar soft.

.134 is and odd to achieve size, there is a lot of surface grinding to get 5/32 or more commonly 3/16 down to that dimension. Most of the time when you surface grind down 1/8 you get .110-.115 in thickness. To work with easily available material consider using thinner pivot washers; .010-.015 material is plenty thick for washers. That would cut your need for .010-.020 in material thickness. I generally use .005 or on occassion .003 washers...Ed
 
Where are you getting those thin washers Ed? I am interested in doing that. I'm also interested in how well they hold up being that thin. I have the nylatron washers from Texas KnifeMaker supply because they were recommended to me by another maker I know. Two together are 1mm, or very close anyway. I wanted to use Phosphorus bronze washers but those are even thicker than these nylatrons are.

Actually the more that I think about this I have to wonder why the knife suppliers haven't taken this into consideration. None that I deal with regularly have provided me any answers and yet they sell me the washers and the blade steel, pins and everything else.

It should be a common bought item or so you would think. I know Ed and I are not the only guys out there making our folders this way. You would think if a guy was using 3/32 bar stock to make blades and then using washers on his blade, washers the supplier sells btw, that there would be a bar stock size/thickness of the steel needed for the blade stop/spacer bar to go with the blade and the washers thickness when they are used but that is not the case.

I have hardened small parts before using the old heat til it falls of the magnet trick into a bucket of water to quench it and it worked fine so I may have to try what you suggest Ed by hardening the stop portion only. Even still it would be nice to be able to just buy what I need to work with the washers I bought.

Steve
 
Jeff Carlisle at Swains Spring service in Great Falls MT has been selling phosporous Bronze in .005 and .010. I bought my own bushing or washer punch and die set. I ended up buying a roll of shim stock from MSC. I make the bushings I need to fit the knife. MCMaster-Carr sell teflon in .010. On occassion I make a .25 or .3125 pivot for a heavy duty piece and again punch out the size I need. The cost of the punch set is about $80 the roll shim stock was about the same. Not having to wait for ordered parts or modifying design to fit what I have is priceless...not a patient guy...Ed
 
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