mystery stainless, help!

L

L.K.Smithy

Joined
May 22, 2007
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273
i have a round bar of ss i scrounged a while back. its about 6 feet long, maybe an inch or inch 1.25 in dia. my problem is, i dont know how to guess at what kind it is and if its usable for knives. can i spark test it? if i make a trial blade, how should i quench it to test for hardenability? any help would be great. if it works ill have ss to last me for years.
-Lou
 
If it is non magnetic or if it has very good rust resistance it is probably something like 304 and it won't harden.

If you want to see if it is capable of hardening, you could heat a little piece to yellow hot, hold it at that heat for at least five minutes (preferably 15) and quench it by setting it on a cool metal surface. This is no way to HT a blade, but it should work fine for a sample piece to see if it is martensitic.
 
Lou,
Being round bar it is probably common general purpose 'structural' stainless such as 304/ 304L/316/316L, which isnt going to be good to make a knife with.

Lang
 
Plus I think your not going to like forging stainless very much unless you have a power hammer. Most of it is very red hard which means it is still fairly hard when red hot.
 
thanks. thats kinda what i expected. its way rust resistant, its been outside for a year and not a hint of discoloration.
 
LKS and responders, Thanks.
I have a sheet of either stainless of could have been Ti.

When ground it sparks orange as in steel, so it can't be Ti.
But it is virtually non-magnetic.....I have never ordered .125 sheet in a 304 or any 3xx stainless that I can remember. It may have been mixed in accidentally with 410 or 416 that I have purchased a number of times.....
I will assume it is 304 or something like it and probably put it on the bottom of the stack of SS.and mark to probably not use....
Thanks again!
 
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