How to tell the difference between 1095 and 52100?

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PaladinBlades

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Jul 5, 2016
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I'm a knifemaker and I mostly work with 1095 so far, but i got some 52100 stock and made some knives with it, but i lost track of what is what. I got disorganized and i got them mixed up and now i need to send my knives off to heat treat but i don't know which ones are 1095 and which are 52100. i did manage to keep track of one of the 52100 knives and wrote it on the handle, so i know about at least one of them. Is there an easy way to tell the difference so i can sort them out before I send them out?
 
Spark test ! Touch the steel to a grinding wheel .That Cr in the 52100 should give you a different spark .You could checkit against a know steel.
 
Some of the heat treaters have an XRF hand analyzer they can san the steel and tell you exactly what kind of steel it is.
 
Yes they do have one, I seen a U tube flick with them using one once.
 
Delta now is part of Olympus .The hand held XRF unit looks very nice though I haven't checked the price.
 
mete said:
Spark test ! Touch the steel to a grinding wheel .That Cr in the 52100 should give you a different spark .You could checkit against a know steel.
Click to expand...
^^^This^^^ 1095 will have a burst of complex sparks. 52100 will have dual single like sparks.
Very easy to tell between these two steels.
 
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