Late night heresy on the subject of recycled steel

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elementfe

Joined
May 3, 2008
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I'm just like the rest of you when it comes to trying to make the best knife I can, using the best materials, but I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking of what the life of a bandsaw blade or a file, or a sawmill disk is like BEFORE it becomes a kitchen knife, and after.

Yeah, any steel can consider itself moved to Phoenix and living on a pension in retirement paradise once it's made into a knife, unless it's a knife made for destructive testing. What does it have to do, slice a tomato?

"You mean I'm not cutting steel pipe six hours at a stretch, tightened up to several hundred pounds of tension and run over wheels, bending and unbending thousands of times an hour, for a month at a time?" "Oh, you think that's bad? I had to hold a truck up in the air, and flex a thousand times an hour with several tons on my back. For half a million miles. Yeah, retiring to camping duty is sounding real easy."
"Oh, yeah? Try spinning at several thousand RPM, cutting trees to bits!"

We act like it's tough duty...relative to size, I do think that small pocketknives have a tough job, especially if they're part of a Leatherman, but most knives are overbuilt- especially kitchen knives. They come to me broke or bent from prying drawers open, not from slicing ham.
A machete is a possible exception, though I bet the vast majority of machetes in the world are made out of truck doors or other scrap...they're much more common in Africa and Central America than here.

I've got a D2 disk I might use at some point, it was an shear from a paper mill- those things go from about three feet in diameter down to about two, just from wear and resharpening. 24 hrs a day of trimming rolls. I'm guessing it can clean a few dozen fish a year.

Just my perverse side coming out in the middle of the night.
 
Although I am not totally against using recycled steel if you can figure out appox. what type it is and work out a heat treat that suits it well. Your analogy about retiring to Phoenix has some flaws. I have been down in that area visiting in a retirement community and although some are in good shape, some are not. I know that having spent most of my life working under a load that I have a few places that have work hardened, a couple of stress fractures and some "metal fatigue"and I have just recently found out my pedigree is not quite what I thought it was and I have been alloyed with some native American. I think a lot of using recycled steel boils down to knowledge/ability to deal with the possible type and possible problems. I have a collection of old files, sawmill bandsaw blade and railroad rail. The bandsaw blade has been tested as 15n20, the files are all quality files mostly Nicholson, and if I use some of the rail for blades I will start out treating it like 1080 and do some testing. But, mostly it is safer and easier to just buy new steel that is what I want/need in the appox size and alloy I want.

The biggest thing I see with the "Can I make a knife out of a file/spring/axle/lawn mower blade?" type threads is that most of the people asking have no experience level at all when it come to steel ID, HT methods and lack most of the basic equipment. By starting out with an unknown steel, they are putting themselves way behind the 8 ball. Much better they start with a known annealed steel. If some one with lots of experience decides to use a recycled steel they have already experienced many of the HT and design pitfalls and are far better able to deal with them. A knife made out of an old truck spring by some one like Don Hanson would in all likely hood be excellent. One made by a complete newbie would suck 99% of the time. He would have a far better chance of coming up wit a decent blade with a new piece of 1080.
 
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Yup.
Plus if you buy new steel you don't have to spend all that time cleaning and straightening and so on. Fun the first time, but if your time is worth anything not so fun on a daily basis.
 
SteelSlaver said:
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The biggest thing I see with the "Can I make a knife out of a file/spring/axle/lawn mower blade?" type threads is that most of the people asking have no experience level at all when it come to steel ID, HT methods and lack most of the basic equipment. By starting out with an unknown steel, they are putting themselves way behind the 8 ball. Much better they start with a known annealed steel. If some one with lots of experience decides to use a recycled steel they have already experienced many of the HT and design pitfalls and are far better able to deal with them. A knife made out of an old truck spring by some one like Don Hanson would in all likely hood be excellent. One made by a complete newbie would suck 99% of the time. He would have a far better chance of coming up wit a decent blade with a new piece of 1080.
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This is what I try to tell new people, but someone with twenty years of experience will always chime in and say, "I have made over 1000 knives from files/saws/leaf springs/etc, and they are good knives."
 
Great. Now some newb is going to dig this up and start flogging the proverbial dead horse again. Thanks a lot! ;)

SteelSlaver said:
By starting out with an unknown steel, they are putting themselves way behind the 8 ball.
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Indeed.

elementfe said:
We act like it's tough duty...
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It's not so much that a typical knife sees "tough duty" compared to a bandsaw blade or spring, it's that it's different duty.

Mechanical stresses, microfractures and metal fatigue are nothing to sneer at, either. 'bending and unbending thousands of times an hour, for a month at a time?" "Oh, you think that's bad? I had to hold a truck up in the air, and flex a thousand times an hour with several tons on my back' is not exactly good for any steel, and taking a piece that's been subjected to that sort of use and re-hardening it up to 58 or 60 Rc is going to result in problems eventually.

With some exceptions, you don't really know what the heck you're dealing with anyway; even if the steel is NOS and was never HT'ed or subjected to load, it could be any of a number of different alloys. Worst case scenario is the fellow who reads that "Leaf springs are sometimes made of 5160, and saw blades are sometimes made of L6, and files are made of W1" and assumes they all are. That's simply not the case.

New steel just isn't that expensive. In fact, sometimes it's free for the asking, for a new guy wanting to get started. Stacy alone has probably given away more brand-new, high quality cutlery steel than most hobbyists ever use.
 
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Aldo would have named one of his kids afte me if he had known how much of his steel I was going to giva away. :)
 
I started making knives out of recycled steel. I quickly moved to known steels because the HT was so inconsistent. Working with known steels, I can see differences in performance with just 25deg difference in temp with the heat treat and tempering with the same batch of steel. Not knowing what the best temps for the steel are is just too big of a question mark. Your biggest expense is your time, and to put all that work into a knife, and have it not hold an edge is too frustrating.
 
I will repeat a story I have posted before.

I went to an estate sale. In conversation, it came out that the old chap who had died made knives. I asked if he had any equipment, and was told that a friend of his had taken all the shop stuff, but we could take a look and see if I was interested in any of the stuff he didn't take . Most was just odds and ends, the place was pretty cleaned out. In a cabinet was a box of handle wood, that was sort of plain, but usable. Next to it was a nice dovetailed wooden box with a slide top. It was labeled "Knife Steel". I opened it and inside was filled with four dozen bars of 18" of shiny, obviously stainless, steel. There was no info, but I bought both boxes for $20. I sent a sample of the steel for analysis...it came back as very high in nickel and chromium....and near ZERO carbon. If I had gone ahead and made some knives, I would have wasted a lot of time and effort and the knives would have never hardened.
 
bladsmth said:
This is what I try to tell new people, but someone with twenty years of experience will always chime in and say, "I have made over 1000 knives from files/saws/leaf springs/etc, and they are good knives."
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I'm new to knifemaking, but not metalworking and fabrication. I'm right at twenty years in fact. It might be partly due to my chosen industry (aerospace), but the thought of using an unknown material just gives me the shivers. Actually, it makes me want to lock myself in a closet and sit whimpering in the fetal position.

In fact, there were many times that remnants got thrown away at my old work if someone hadn't marked them, because they were too small to cost-effectively have tested, and too dangerous to use without knowing for sure what they were. That was in a shop where we all had enough experience that we could tell between probably 50 different alloys just by the tint of the metal and how it comes from the mill, as well as how it machines/finishes.

All I know is that if a shop with a few centuries in combined experience is scared of unknowns, then so should be anyone new to knifemaking or even more so if new to metalworking in general
 
LOL! Great story.
I totally get what you're saying, Stacy, and as always it carries a lot of weght- but it doesn't hurt a beginning maker any to just dive in and make every mistake in the book and learn by making wierd s*** out of junk...we all did it, right? Some of us outgrew it sooner than others. :)
I don't know if there's any way to KEEP the noob from trying all that, and there's some value in it. The ones who give up when a file knife cracks were going to give up anyway.
Thanks for all the replies,
Andy G.
 
.....- but it doesn't hurt a beginning maker any to just dive in and make every mistake in the book and learn by making ................

Well, not really true.

Learning by making all the mistakes isn't going to teach you how to do it right....just how to do it wrong.
It also won't show you where there is a range of how well something works. Lets say you quench in old motor oil. It made the steel harder, so it must be a good method - Right?....hardly so!

I can't count the number of times I have received and email, read on the forums, or talked with someone who has started using a good steel and doing the HT right making the same comment - "Holy Cow, this gets the knife so much harder and the edge is way better!" Just because it "Worked for Me", doesn't mean it is the best way, or sometimes even a good way.
The reason many folks cringe when some of us suggest tempering 1084 at 400-450F is that they never fully hardened their 1084 ( due to poor temperature control or poor quenchant). Fully hardened 1084 needs to be tempered at 450F to drop to around Rc 60-61. Those who improperly harden their 1084 may barely get Rc 60 as quenched. Anyone filing on hardened steel ( is not properly hardening it.


Don, I am glad you saw the light. It is about time you stopped making those ugly oversized knives with all those blotches on the blades. Get some 1084 and try making a drop point hunter :)
Actually, you are the perfect example of someone who picks his steel and HT to get the very max...not get OK knives from whatever can be found on the cheap.
 
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bladsmth said:
Don, I am glad you saw the light. It is about time you stopped making those ugly oversized knives with all those blotches on the blades. Get some 1084 and try making a drop point hunter :)
Actually, you are the perfect example of someone who picks his steel and HT to get the very max...not get OK knives from whatever can be found on the cheap.
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10-4 Stacy...

I need to start doing something new. 1084 drop points hunters it is. Thanks man! :D
 
it doesn't hurt a beginning maker any to just dive in and make every mistake in the book and learn by making wierd s*** out of junk..
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Honestly, I think it does far more damage than it does good. To date, nobody has ever shown me the benefit of reinventing the wheel, making all the same mistakes as your predecessors.

1) Most unknown or found steel comes in a shape that requires you to do extensive modification to get it to the size of a knife blank. Even lawnmower blades and files require work that you wouldn't have to do if you'd simply purchased a stick of the right dimensions to begin with.

2) Frustration can kill the dream. But frustration that is easily avoided is simply stupid. While you had to hunt for information in the old days, the internet can reasonably teach you everything you want to know about basic knife building.... and the information comes straight from the professionals that do it for a living.

Having said that, I am always leery of getting involved with people that want to know about making knives out of found metal. To me, it's not a question of making the metal work, but that the person asking the question can't take ten minutes out of their day to do the research on forums like this..... and find out quickly why it's considered a not-so-good idea. In my estimation, it doesn't speak well of them.

A short length of known steel costs pennies to get. What possible savings in time and money could there be by using a mower blade? Get a piece of XYZ in the same basic dimensions as a mower blade and you have enough metal to make at least two good knives, and you save yourself considerable angst.
 
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I still like old saw blade steel...

I also made a knife from a old Little Giant power hammer die. Tested out great! :cool:
 
I am also sure that if an piece of old saw blade steel wasn't acting like it was supposed to you would figure out there was something wrong and know how to check further. Same thing with the power hammer die. By the time you had heated it, hammered into something like a knife and ground on it a bit you were pretty sure about what it was. You may have even test hardened a piece before starting. Guys like you have tons of experience and experience tweaks little things in your brain as you work. Like I said nothing wrong with found steel IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
 
Thanks for all the replies, lots of good points of view there!
Stacy, your time and attention as mod is greatly appreciated, and if I've increased your workload by encouraging people to use (s)crap, mea mucho mucho culpa!
I've had a lot of fun doing recycled stuff - part of the magic of this work for me is learning as much as can about all the different uses for different alloys, way beyond the knife world. The fact that some of those alloys make good knives is kind of remarkable too, for a beginner.

It changes a lot when making knives becomes an occupation, then it really gets tiresome dealing with all the issues that recycling brings with it. When there's only so much time in a week or a month to make some really good stuff for folks who are waiting, forget that (s)crap pile.

That said my current Big Problem is CPM154 warping during the subzero quench. I'm about ready to jump on the Send it Out for Treating wagon for stainless.

And speaking of steel, does anyone have W1 or -2? Aldo's website still says out of stock.
 
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