Question for you hammer folks.

E

Easyjack

Joined
Dec 30, 2011
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I was thinking to practice my hammer forging skills, which are ok, but i want to get better at guards and choils and stuff. I would use the barstock steel from orchselins and other hardware stores, I know it's mild, but i don't think it could be any worse than what they had back in like the frontier days.
 
If your making a knife, make it from high carbon steel. Steel with enough carbon to make a knife moves different under the hammer. It burns at lower temps, It cracks at higher temps. You can pound on low carbon steel and make KSO all day and still know nothing about forging high carbon. You will spend more money on fule than steel.
 
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Sorry the question was unclear, i was asking what you guys thought of using mild steel for practicing forging, but i can see its not a good idea. I'll just use old files.
 
Good steel is cheap and files are like mild steel IMO, a waste of time unless you are wanting to make a knife from a file that could just be case hardened mild steel. Do yourself a favor and order some quality forging steel.
 
If you are just wanting to practice your hammering technique, use whatever is available... mild or not. If you want to practice heat treating get some high carbon "known" steel.
 
Practice is practice is practice.......and you will get what you "pay for" - time + money + effort. Practicing with mild steel will help you get better with mild steel, if that's what you want.
Good practice will give "good" results and suits those that the phrase "good enough" satisfies.
Most experienced bladesmiths are metal artist and strive for perfection.
Perfect practice will produce "perfect" results and that's where using the best materials comes into play. "Perfect" is a realtive term here - really not attainable by mortal man. There is only one "Perfect" and we don't come close.

BikerMike is right, different steels feel/work different under the hammer and temps affect each differently as well.
Not all Nicholson files are 1095...that is a flawed assumption. Research has born that out time and again, "search" and read.

That being said you will do what you're gonna do so do it. Let us know how it works out for you. Keep it fun.
 
The thing you have to be carful about with mild steel from Home Depot, etc, is that a fair amount of it is zinc plated. Zinc + forging heat=not good.
 
If you really want to forge HC steel then go to the junk yard and find old leaf springs from trucks. They are thick enough to give you a lot of practice and teach you patience. You might even make a good enough knife to keep and use. It might have problems cuch as hairline cracks from the springs already being used, but if you just want to find a HC steel to forge with, old leaf springs are easiest to get. You could even call your local mechanic. They usually have them laying around and will give you one if you tell him what you are doing.
Jason
 
1075/1080 3/16" x 1" x 60" from admiril steel $10.89, Thats 6 nice big knives at $1.82 each in steel cost. I know that I spend more than that on fuel weather gas or coke.
Practiceing on low carb still only teaches you how low carb behaves.
 
Hmmm.... seems to me the OP wants to practice his forging, choils and guards. Mild steel would be fine for this. It can be heated over and over without worrying about burning up carbon or ruining good blade steel. If he wanted to practice heat treating, that would be a different story. Mild vs High Carbon steel forge the same. One may move slower(ie 52100) but the flow under the hammer is the same. Whether you are forging O1, 1084, 1060, 1020 or modeling clay... the behaviour is the same.

Just get on the anvil and practice.
 
I agree that steels feel differently under the hammer. However, I do believe that practicing with mild steel will give you a great base on hammer control. I had to work mild for 16 hours before my mentor allowed me to move to high carbon. It was a great beginning. Using mild for guards is fine and can take some really nice colors. I would recommend getting 1018 as it is a bit more consistent over some of the other mild steel (a36)..
 
gets some old leaf springs, coil spring, files, sawblades, and have at it... lot of people started out with that
it was free
 
If you want to practice knife forging for cheap (and as was pointed out, simple knife steels like 1084 and 5160 tend to be fairly cheap), I vote car spring. It is *usually* an alloy that will make a good blade, though you do need to do a hardening test before you invest a lot of time in making a tool from it. It will move under your hammer like a blade steel, and when you are finished you should be able to heat treat it and have a tool that will serve well.

Some folks have good luck using salvaged steel, some don't. I have had good luck in general, but as I began getting more and more sales of my work, I moved away from using it. One blade in particular helped push me to make that decision, a bush sword forged out of leaf spring for a customer who was also a student of mine. I was helping to clear some brush on his land, and handed over the bush sword when I showed up to help one morning. He used it a bit, then began cutting some oak branches. All of a sudden, it was missing *huge* chunks out of the edge. It shouldn't have broken out like that if he was hitting rocks! I was shocked. I looked at the blade and noticed a weird wave pattern running along the blade, somthing I had never seen before. I still have no idea what caused that, but it was a good thing he was a sympathetic customer. I got rid of all of the spring from that stack of leaves, made him a new bush sword, and have been buying new 5160 since then.

But I would bet you there are more working knives in the third world made from car spring than any other source. You can do a lot to learn with it, and it can range from scrap prices to free.

I've forged Nicholson files as well, and they move much more stiffly under the hammer and have a smaller working range of temperature.
 
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