My Admiral Steel 13C26 order just came and all my bars are bent and warped.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

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Jul 4, 2009
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I dont typically buy blade steel. I've bought a random small bar or two in the past from different suppliers, which have all come 100% straight as an arrow.

I finally decided to "stock up" on sandvic stainless from admiral.

It's not the biggest order, just eight or so 6' bars of various widths and thicknesses. My $400 order arrived the other day and I opened it up today.

All the bars are warped, bowed and in some instances extremely curved on the ends. This is the first time this has ever happened regardless of what I've ordered. All brass, copper, stainless (non-blade) and other metals have come in perfectly straight as an arrow.

This stuff was far more expensive and honestly it's going to be a huge pain to try to straighten it and even if I get it close, I'm very concerned about it bending right back to where it was when I get it heat treated.

So - is this something that I need to expect all the time and learn to deal with, or should I return the order or demand that Admiral send me stock that is straight and immediately ready to go for grinding? Am I needlessly worried about bending this stuff to straight in a cold state?

What say you, fellow forumites?
 
I have only ordered from Admiral a few times and everytime I had to straighten out the steel. The bars I got looked like they had been sheared from a sheet on a poorly set up shear which caused the warping. I would suggest contacting them and letting them know you are not satisfied with the service/product.
 
By all means I would contact them and get it resolved.
 
Call em. With a couple of annealing/normalizing cycles you might removes the stresses but that's not 100% if it's as bad as you say,

I wouldn't waste time and belts on something that may warp when you're finished with it.
 
good luck with admiral customer service. i'm still waiting for a response... they sent me the wrong alloy entirely
 
Unfortunately, threads like this about this particular company are not uncommon. Originally I figured they didn't care much about their sales to knifemakers (most steel suppliers don't, small potatoes) but considering their website and presence at the blade show apparently they do care about their sales to makers. Just not enough to provide quality service.

I can think of no other supplier in our industry with as poor of a reputation. They really need to try harder.

Metal is frequently straightened by stretching it to its yield point. That way the entire cross section has a uniform strain on it. Minor bends can be straightened by bending in the opposite direction with little risk of reappearing in HT. But significant bends will probably show up again unless you stress relieve.

When stress relieving, you probably shouldn't heat stainless and other complex steels above non magnetic in an attempt to "normalize" unless you have a specific recipe because it may effect future heat treat. I'd keep it under 1300.
 
jll346 said:
By all means I would contact them and get it resolved.
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By all means contact them. Give them a chance to resolve this and then if they don't do you right!!!
Then get on here and open up a can of trash and bash, because that is exactly what these kind of threads end up being. :eek:
Most that respond to a thread like this have never even bought from Admiral it's just somthing they heard in another thread like this. I have bought from Admiral and my steel was shipped in a very heavy cardbord tubes and was always pristene.
In this day and time a company that won't honor a shipment won't last till next Tue. This company has been around for a while. If there is a problem pick up the phone and call them!
 
Dixieblade57 said:
By all means contact them. Give them a chance to resolve this and then if they don't do you right!!!
Then get on here and open up a can of trash and bash, because that is exactly what these kind of threads end up being. :eek:
Most that respond to a thread like this have never even bought from Admiral it's just somthing they heard in another thread like this. I have bought from Admiral and my steel was shipped in a very heavy cardbord tubes and was always pristene.
In this day and time a company that won't honor a shipment won't last till next Tue. This company has been around for a while. If there is a problem pick up the phone and call them!
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Whoa. Take it easy, partner.

They are closed on the weekends. I'll see what I can do on Monday over the phone, in the meantime I don't see a problem with asking a question and everyone giving me their insight on how to work with the steel I have. My question was simple. If I straighten it myself, will I see problems down the line? Seems Nathan (a name I've learned to trust as I continue to read his posts) thinks that I could run into problems later. What that means is Admiral sent me material that I would be smart to not work with.

I will update this thread with new information as it comes to me. In the mean time, I strongly encourage everyone to post their experiences and advice , good or bad on the subject.
 
69_knives said:
Sorry to go OT a bit with this but has anybody bought any of Admiral's "Box Sale" boxes? and if so, are they decent with selection of material?

http://www.admiralsteel.com/pdf/sale.pdf
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I tried to order a 'Box" and they told me they had been sold out for about a year.

In other words the Box Sale sold out a year ago and they never bothered to update it

Crazy....
 
I'm reasonably sure that they mostly deal with structural steel, low carbon fabrication stuff that if it gets to the buyer and it's bent slightly, the buyer takes a hammer to it and straightens it 99.9% of the time so they may simply not be aware of the issues with knife blade steel, especially if they're not made aware of it.

The 1095 I buy from them usually has a very slight arc but I forge so it really is not an issue.

Edited to add, that the arc is really, really slight, like noticeable only if you lay a 6' bar on edge, if they are laying flat it is not noticeable.
 
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Fletch Helical said:
I ordered 3 bars of their 1/4 x 1 1/4" 1084 a little while ago. Shipped quick and the bars look fine to me.
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I have a bunch of that stuff too, it is quite nice actually. I should have been more specific and mentioned the Stainless in my query... I'm thinking about crossing over to the dark side. :)
 
IIRC, there are certain people within Admiral that deal with knife steels (and are knowledgeable about them), but not all of those are involved with sales and shipping.

When you call, try to talk to someone that deals specifically with their cutlery steels. I think that person might be more amenable than one of their sales reps/managers who is used to dealing with their other products (and who doesn't feel like their time is being wasted by a measly $400 sale).
 
not a bash fest from me but they had cost me $ before the last order (said in stock and then was out of stock for 2 months )

the only reason i tried one more time was they were the last place that had cpm154 in the size i needed
 
butcher_block said:
not a bash fest from me but they had cost me $ before the last order (said in stock and then was out of stock for 2 months )

the only reason i tried one more time was they were the last place that had cpm154 in the size i needed
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Did you straighten it and did that work? Or did you send it back to them?
 
i used the steel as it was not bad but i sure didnt like cutting it off the shipping board and seeing it spring a arc
since it was for kitchen knives and i plate quench i got it mostly right then part ground it and let the Al plates take care of the rest
 
The problem with the Sandvik steels (13C26 &19C27) is that they come in rolls....it is shipped to the U.S. on a huge "spool". I'm in no way defending Admiral...they really should take more care and effort with what they ship out. I recently had a run of EBKs waterjetted from 13C26...EVERY blade had a slight warp to it, and had to be straightened by hand...which added a lot of time and effort to each piece.

The problem is that currently Admiral is the only place in the U.S. that offers the Sandvik steels in small quantities.....and they know it.
 
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