Looking for the right steel.

Brian.Evans said:
Prefect practice makes perfect.
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I agree with that 100% I just screwed around for my first year of knife making until I met some local knife makers that taught me not to be an idiot, while i have seen people who work pat time with profeisional makers who start selling in less than a year. so it does make a huge difrence.
 
Brian.Evans said:
Bo T, I tried to subtly tell you this on another post. Now I'm going to be rather blunt. Stop. Giving. Wrong. Advice. You don't know what you're talking about. Please stop. He isn't listening to good advice. Don't confuse him by making him sort through downright bad advice as well. Please.
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Brian, I'll be completely blunt, also. The OP has a set of criteria that are frankly (at best) difficult to attain. I am assuming OP is serious about making a knife. The scenario of making a crowbar into a knife is to allow the conceptualization of the contrary nature of flex and pry. The suggestion of using the Green River blades was to allow the OP a low cost (in terms of time and money) avenue to test some of his ideas about heat treating steel at home. The hope is that the OP will modify the original criteria to something that is more doable. So, yes I do know what I am talking about. I have confidence in the OPs ability to weed through information and select that which is most useful.
 
Ok, point taken. I apologize for sounding like an ass. I still don't agree with you, but I took my frustration at the op out on you and that was wrong. I absolutely don't think grinding a pry bar into a knife shaped object conceptualizes anything other than how to make a knife shaped object. I may still be missing the point of your post, if so please elucidate. I am not being passive/aggressive, if like to understand your point of view.

***edit***I just went back and reread your post. I get it now. I really am very sorry. I didn't get that you were trying to prove to him what he was trying to do were at cross purposes. I wish he'd just listen to reason, but sometimes experience comes with making bad choices. Again, sorry. Btw, for full disclosure I'm not editing any of my other posts. If I come off like an ass, I come off like an ass. ***edit over***

Smurf, go to alphaknifesupply.com. They have a $25 minimum order so that will work really well for you. Get a piece of 1080 around 1/8" thick. Grab some 1/4" g10 and some pin stock. Figure out what else you can buy to make up $25. Maybe a piece of some sort of stainless? Then make a knife, any knife. You have shown you aren't liable to take any advice, so don't bother posting initial sketches or anything for feedback before you start cutting steel. Then, try to figure out what you need to change to make the next one better. Keep doing that until you get to where you want to go.
 
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Bo, out of curiosity, what kind of chemist are you? Kind of off topic, I just wondered. The only thing I remember from chem is Avagadro's number. I wish I could find an online refresher. I hate not knowing something so basic.
 
Brian.Evans said:
See, this is a good post. I'd have said something like "Stop being a freaking idiot and listen to people who know more than you!" However, your way is probably more politic. Probably good I didn't say that.
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Being a teen. Its all one big exercise in making stuff sound polite.
 
Brian, You are absolutely correct on a crowbar making a poor knife shaped object. Especially if the crowbar attributes are kept. The converse is also true, a well made knife makes a poor crowbar. This is a discussion, no harm, no foul, no apology necessary.

Analytical by training, educational by profession.
 
I think some of you are taking this with a little to much offense. I am sorry if that is how I have come off. My original point of making this thread was merely to see if such a metal existed. I assume the answer is no; such a metal does not exist.

Perhaps you could tell me what Stainless Steel is easiest to Treat under basic Heat treatment methods. Meaning; Simple oil or water quenching and Tempering in a simple oven. If that metal exists. Please keep in mind this is a project that will more than likely not even get started until Spring and it might be later than that. Again I am doing this more as a hobby not to make money. So, I am really in no rush to start throwing out steel ASAP. But, seems how I am quite new to this I would like to start with materials I can process easily in the home, without high-end equipment.

Thank you for your Response.

Smurf


P.S. Smurf is a gaming handle I have used on and off for years. I use it because it makes me feel a little safer on the web not from anyone on this website per say. But, from the internet at large. Their are tons of people out their that might look at little things I have said currently or in the past and try to use them against me. It has happened before when I was younger. Perhaps in the past I have taken the internet to loosely. At any rate if someone wanted to find out my real name I do not hide it that well. I do not have the time to do so. So, I am sure you could. But, for the level of our current relationship Smurf should be fine.
 
I tried to do something similar to what you describe in the knife you want to build. You're going to be dissatisfied with what you come up with from one aspect or another when you start using this thing.

Going to be difficult to make a proficient chopper that can act as a pry bar and kitchen knife...

Make yourself 2 knives, a small hunter and a chopper. Or get a nice hudson bay hatchet to carry along with the hunter you make..

Just my experiences....
 
Look man, we weren't offended by the question, but by your seemingly bullheaded unwillingness to listen to simple truthful sentences by people who know something about what they speak. Also, speaking for myself, your inane adherence to just plain asinine specifications (that you were unable or unwilling to justify) of this magic steel you seek was part of my frustration.

There is no stainless you can heat treat at home without an oven. For instance, the ht regimen for CPM154, a pretty common, mid range stainless, calls for austenizing temperature of 1900 to 2000° F, hold AT TEMPERATURE for 30-60 minutes. Hard (impossible?) to hold temp within that specific range for that long without a heat treating oven. Know who can? One of the many fine heat treating services around the country. If you're going to play with ht with simple equipment, stick with low alloy steel. Like 1080 or 1084. Why you ask? Read the stickies. It's in there.

I said the comment about the screen names to underscore a point. The people giving you advice aren't fake wanna be's. They are real people. Real, knowledgeable people. Stacy Apelt, the mod of this sub forum has over 50 years of experience making knives. These guys know what they are talking about.

Darrin Sanders, one of the guys that posted, has the best heat treat of 52100 I've ever seen. Seriously, it's amazing. He charges a fair price and has quick turn around. Why not buy a piece of 52100 and send it to him? Heat treat is the heart of a knife. Don't try to learn all at once. Why not limit your variables to the fewest possible?
 
Well, if this is going to be allowed to slide way off topic-

...am I the only one that thinks the guys at Zombie Tools are awesome? Let's see, they're enjoying what they're doing, they openly admit that although everything they make is pretty tough, it's also a hell of a lot of fun, they're not taking stuff too seriously, and they are MAKING THE KNIVES THEY THINK THEY SHOULD BE MAKING.

No room for haters, guys. I do it too much, myself. I went to that site just to see what the hell our new pal Smurf was talking about, and those guys are too funny, and doing it right - true to themselves. What more can you really ask of someone?

Smurf, the moral of this thread isn't that you can't make the knife you're asking for. It should be, why are you asking for that knife? I've been known to go outside and play every once in a while, and sometimes to places Moms wouldn't approve of. I'm quite confident that my knives would carry me through an uncomfortable situation, as would many of the knives made by makers that have posted in this thread. Perhaps you're simply viewing the problem from the wrong perspective, and you just need to regroup and reassess.

Just some thoughts. Welcome to Bladeforums, here's your helmet!:D
 
Smurf,

You live in the US, therefore you have a vast number of advantages going for you making your first knife, don't blow them off for jollies or because you think you will save money. You are more fortunate than you know!! You can get steel you can treat at home, and you can get steel that you can send away, and have a choice of places to send it. Don't go screwing up by trying to use a steel you should send away, and then trying to do it all at home. You will waste money and time, yours and other peoples'.

What is your experience with hiking, hunting, camping, wilderness skills and such outdoor stuff? What sort of country do you intend to use this knife in? How many days do you plan to be out at a time? You say you have other knives to be getting on with, do you have other cutting tools that you carry with you when out?

The reason I am asking all this is that I am wondering whether you are setting yourself an overly complicated challenge for your first knife. My own experience has been that smaller 4" and 5" blades are a lot more useful and a lot more used than big heavy "survival" knives. They are also a LOT easier to design well, and a lot easier to cut, grind, heat treat and finish. Hoping to make a good big knife right out of the gate is setting the bar a lot higher than making a good small knife. After years of lusting after a camp knife, I finally made one and took it for 10 days of winter camping in Canada where it got some use splitting stove wood and food prep. You know what, the axe was better for fire wood, and a small knife was better at food prep! Getting the handle right so that it worked well for chopping was a whole lot more technically demanding than making handles that work for skinning, gutting, slicing and carving.

There is certainly a romance involved in the acquisition of outdoor gear. Often times one is enthralled with the idea, the imagined possibilities, associated with a bit of gear. You see pictures of people in far flung places you would like to visit, looking intrepid, wearing, carrying or holding some bit of kit, and you imagine that with such gear, you too might find yourself in such a place. Its fun to think that way, but it is mostly an illusion. If you aren't already out there, the acquisition of the gear won't get you there. The guys that I know that do in fact get out there a lot don't have much use for the kind of knife that you describe in your opening post.

So, if I were you, I would take the advice offered and go for 1084, or a stainless to send away, and not bother with 5160 simply because the thinnest stock Aldo offers is 0.25", which will end up as a big, heavy "survival" knife that you won't actually get to use all that much because it is big, heavy and gets left at home ;)

Good luck

Chris
 
Knifemakersmurf said:
Perhaps you could tell me what Stainless Steel is easiest to Treat under basic Heat treatment methods. Meaning; Simple oil or water quenching and Tempering in a simple oven.
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None. It just doesn't work that way. No matter how many times you ask the same questions, the correct answers aren't going to change.

Matthew Gregory said:
This thread is pure awesome.
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That's one word for it.

Matthew Gregory said:
...am I the only one that thinks the guys at Zombie Tools are awesome? Let's see, they're enjoying what they're doing, they openly admit that although everything they make is pretty tough, it's also a hell of a lot of fun, they're not taking stuff too seriously, and they are MAKING THE KNIVES THEY THINK THEY SHOULD BE MAKING.
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Nope; I have no problem with them either, for the same reasons you outlined. Their stuff is not really my cup of tea, but more power to 'em :)
 
OK... actual helpful answer... or at least an example of how a very good knife can be made with a minimum of fuss.

Last spring I helped teach a grind-in at a gathering of outdoorsy types, with a couple other experienced makers. Nearly all the participants (15 or 16 of them, as I recall) had zero knifemaking experience. Most had never so much as taken a high school shop class.

Every single one of them left that day with their very own, cut, ground, drilled, heat-treated and tempered, sharpened blade ready to put scales on or wrap with cord. All these folks - ranging from 14yrs old to well past retirement age - started the day with a raw bar of steel and were happily cutting stuff by sundown, with a blade they made themselves..

Why? Partly because we kept things simple - 1080 and 1084 steel, HT'ed with a simple propane forge (a charcoal grill would work too if you were careful), quenched in canola oil and tempered in a beat-up old toaster oven.

But also because they actually listened to the experienced guys trying to teach them. ;)

ShopTalk is like a 24/7 grind-in, chock full of decades of experience from every style of knifemaking you can think of. We will bend over backwards to help you... if you let us. If not, you'll just get frustrated and fade away like so many others that have come and gone.
 
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