Rebar

Rebar, is it any good?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 1 3.8%

  • No.

    Votes: 21 80.8%

  • Don't know.

    Votes: 3 11.5%

  • What's rebar?

    Votes: 1 3.8%
  • Total voters
    26
No.
You can use it to forge hooks, leaves and other ornamentals. It will not properly harden for a knife blade.
 
My Boss swears it will make a decent skinner and can take an edge, but I have been skeptical of that claim.
 
I dont have any experience making knives from rebar. i have a bit of experience with rebar as its meant to be used.

the problem is you dont know what is in it, and every peice could be different - it might make a decent knife, it might not. I'd hate to put in the work for nothing
 
Rebar is relatively soft in knifemaking terms, even the grade 75 or 80 rebar that is becoming more common. If you find some threadbar like Dywidag then that could be used but wouldn't be optimum. That stuff is grade 150 or 160. There used to be some companies that made PT reinforcing in 1/4" diameter wire form, about grade 240. That was pretty hard stuff. I found a short piece at a research lab where I was working, I couldn't cut it with a hacksaw. I finally cut off a short piece of it with a bench grinder and carefully ground flats in both ends to make a straight slot screwdriver bit that I could use in my drill.
 
Its right there alongside railway spikes as excellent knife making material.
Makes great letter openers, sword baskets, display oddities, etc. etc... But a real knife, no...
 
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Just an FYI, the grades on rebar are not the carbon content, they are yield strength.

Rebar has variable carbon content and all of it is low. It won't make a good knife.
 
Other day I was walking back from the neighbor's to my shop. She's recovering from surgery and needed help opening their garage door. As I rounded the corner of her garage I saw an old lawnmower blade sitting on a bucket from when her husband had just changed out blades on their mower. Ya know, didn't even break stride. I wasn't over come by any urge to heat it up and pound it into a knife shaped object, just none at all. Kept on walking, have knife steel and know where to get more.
 
I've used plenty of grade 70 rebar in the past for forge practice, and the stuff I've been getting recently will harden up pretty nicely actually. but at best it's a crap-shoot, and at worse it's no better than mild. Just buy known steel. You can get drill rod blanks on Amazon for practically nothing.
 
forge it, leave enough so the buyer knows its rebar. say it was from a famous local building just torn down. laugh all the way to the bank. same as using railroad spikes or horseshoes, they fly out of the seller's booth.
 
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Rebar is made to physical properties , not to chemical content ! So you could have a group of rebar pieces all meeting physical specs but all having different chemistry !
 
I thought this was a joke at first. But yeah it makes good handles to be welded onto Damascus billets.
 
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