Junkyard steels

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scs.knives

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Mar 5, 2010
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Does some one have a list of junkyard steels; files,cold chisels,auto springs,etc.. and what steels they are equivalent to 1080,w1.etc..

thanks
 
No but I have a list of people:
Girls 18 to 21 - All are attractive, have 36-24-34 figures, and are nymphomaniacs
Guys 18 to 21 - All are pot heads and pretty much worthless
Women 22 to 40 - All are looking to get married and have a passel of kids
Men 22 to 40 - All are hard working and earn from 75K to 200K
Women 41 to 70 - All are a pain in the rear end....and on their second husband
Men 41 to 70 - All are worn out, too tired for sex, broke, and on their third or fourth wife....did I say Broke?

A steel list will be about as accurate.
 
A decade ago it was possible to make fairly accurate determinations on the specific type(s) of steel that different items were made from.....that's not the case these days. Industry has become so "cost oriented" that it's impossible to make accurate determinations on steel types used for specific items, and often times the same item is produced with a number of different steels.

This is why you will hear most of us touting you to purchase new steel stock. It takes all the guessing out of the material your using, and allows you to concentrate on the tasks at hand, allowing you to have a degree of certainty about what your working with.
 
bladsmth said:
No but I have a list of people:
Girls 18 to 21 - All are attractive, have 36-24-34 figures, and are nymphomaniacs
Guys 18 to 21 - All are pot heads and pretty much worthless
Women 22 to 40 - All are looking to get married and have a passel of kids
Men 22 to 40 - All are hard working and earn from 75K to 200K
Women 41 to 70 - All are a pain in the rear end....and on their second husband
Men 41 to 70 - All are worn out, too tired for sex, broke, and on their third or fourth wife....did I say Broke?
Click to expand...

BRAVO! I have nothing to add to this list of steels.
P.S. I am in the last categogy :(:eek:
 
scs.knives said:
Does some one have a list of junkyard steels; files,cold chisels,auto springs,etc.. and what steels they are equivalent to 1080,w1.etc..

thanks
Click to expand...

The only thing that worth to try IMO is coil springs. Good if you can get one from the passenger train. Leaf spring may have micro and macro cracks. You will discover that later after the HT, or the customer will(wich is even worse).
Cold chisels are not good. Files are Ok, closest quest would be W1-W2.
The closest quess for the coil spring would be 5160, but you are never guaranteed.
 
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bladsmth said:
No but I have a list of people:
Girls 18 to 21 - All are attractive, have 36-24-34 figures, and are nymphomaniacs
Guys 18 to 21 - All are pot heads and pretty much worthless
Women 22 to 40 - All are looking to get married and have a passel of kids
Men 22 to 40 - All are hard working and earn from 75K to 200K
Women 41 to 70 - All are a pain in the rear end....and on their second husband
Men 41 to 70 - All are worn out, too tired for sex, broke, and on their third or fourth wife....did I say Broke?

A steel list will be about as accurate.
Click to expand...

I guarantee I'm not a stoner.... That's my father. And mother. It's amazing I get anything done...

For the OP, yeah, seriously, I tried the same thing but when you work on a piece of 1084 from Aldo you feel a lot better. It's easier and has a better end result.
 
Unless you have some way to verify what the steel is, you are really money and time ahead to just buy good steel.

I used to buy steel from a local lumber mill. A large segment of the knife world still believes that all saw steel is L6. It isn't and hasn't been for some time. A lot around here is Uddeholm 15N20. I verified that. The saw plate from circular saws trhat I have is 8670. I acquired a 5 1.2 foot diameter circular saw blade and couldn't find the mfr, so I had it analyzed. It was 9620, which makes great rifle receivers and lousy knives. That analysis saved me a lot of grief.

Just bite the bullet and by new steel.

Gene
 
Some one here got a large set of old truck leaf springs which by all the junk steel reports should have been 5160. Had it analyzed and it was something else with specs far out of the good blade range. The only thing I would use would be a Nickelson file or farrier's rasp. Files W1, rasp 1095. The only way I would use anything else is if I could get enough of it cheap enough to have it analyzed. After the cost of everything else involved in a good knife and the amount of time invested, a bar of know quality steel is cheap.

When I was younger I spend a lot of money, time and energy finding out all the women under 40 weren't nympo's. Sometimes they looked good, sparked well, but just wouldn't make it no matter what heat treatment I tried.
 
Honestly try forging a knife from "mystery steel" and see how long it takes you. Then decide if you would be happy to throw all that time and effort away.

I have a modest stack of 1084 in my shop but I just forged a small blade out of a york rake tine...guess what happened?? :thumbdn:
 
I find it more cost effective to buy new stock just to have the right starting dimensions. The time you spend thinning down over-size stock usually makes whatever bargain you got on the steel cost you more in labor that you saved buying it. My shop time is too limited now to waste it on a blade that is less than predictable in HT.
 
I started out making knives out of files then I started buying PG O-1 bars to make my knives out of, and other than making some art knives out of crowbars for about 5 years (brand new Woodings -Verona brand only because I figured out a heat treat that worked for whateverthehell those were made of) I used Starrett Precision Ground O-1 for everything I made until I got into making Damascus, and Aldo started selling 1084 and 1095. I have about 500 pounds of scrap steel that I use for making art, fixtures, whatever out of but if I'm going to make a blade I'm not going to throw away 30 bucks in belts, 5 bucks in fuel, 20 hours of shop time, and maybe 50 bucks worth of stag handle material to save the 3-8 bucks I pay Aldo for a knife worth of steel. That would be just F#$#ing stupid!

-Page
 
"if I'm going to make a blade I'm not going to throw away 30 bucks in belts, 5 bucks in fuel, 20 hours of shop time, and maybe 50 bucks worth of stag handle material to save the 3-8 bucks I pay Aldo for a knife worth of steel. That would be just F#$#ing stupid!"

-Page


Amen

"Just bite the bullet and by new steel."

Gene Martin post # 10

"Knifemaking is science - but there's an art to getting the science right!"

KnifeMaker.ca
Proudly Canadian!
 
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