junkyard steel

I worked in a scrap yard for a number of years. I had access to all kinds of great stuff. I was able to buy whatever was there, but the general public was not usually allowed to browse for small amounts of premium stuff. Their liability was too great to allow this. We did cater to people who were regular customers though. Get in good with your local scrapyard, there are great things to find.
 
Please don't be offended by my "can of worms" response, PimpNugget. It's just that threads of this nature sometimes degenerate into vicious arguments.

My thoughts on the matter... yes, it's possible to make excellent knives from reclaimed steel. But it's much easier to make them from known, "virgin" steel.
 
James_Terrio said:
Please don't be offended by my "can of worms" response, PimpNugget. It's just that threads of this nature sometimes degenerate into vicious arguments.

My thoughts on the matter... yes, it's possible to make excellent knives from reclaimed steel. But it's much easier to make them from known, "virgin" steel.
Click to expand...

Just to add to this, used steel can have stress fractures that you can't see, and you don't always know what the type of steel is short of having it tested. It's all if's and maybe's when you use scrap. That's why I've always used known. In the same breath, you can use good materials to get steel from, like nicholson files that have made beautiful knives.
 
Speaking of stress fractures,anyone ever hear of "magna fluxing"? I think it involves some ?powder? dusted on top and passing a magnet underneath and the presence of a stress fracture will cause the ?powder? to react somehow???? A spring Mechanic was talking about it the other day?

Anyway....known steel is better !!!! (Even though I do keep an eye out...makes good practice material!! :)

Good luck though!!

Brad
 
I always had my engine blocks for my Mustang magnafluxed when in the middle of a rebuild or stroker build. Surface cracks will create a high level of magnetic flux when placed in a strong magnetic field and this will cause higher concentrations of whatever is used (iron powder or iron oxide containing fluid) to gather at the cracks. You then use a black light to check for the higher concentrations, and thus see the cracks.

--nathan
 
you can also use a dye penetrate to find cracks. You wet the area in a special dye, wipe, then spray on a powder. The cracks hold the dye and it in turn wets and colors the powder displaying the crack.
 
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