Shear Steel?

Chuck, I've got a double shear steel knife I bought from Wayne Goddard a couple years ago that has the stamp still on it. My intent and still is to someday refinish it and do the same etch that I've been doing with the saw steel. I have no doubts that the saw steel I've been calling shear is exactly that. I just wish it had been a whole blade and not just a piece. Working almost 30 years as a carpenter and finding that old piece of saw steel was the high lite of that career.

Mark, When I do get the press that will definatly be something I plan on playing with. The press will be here soon. I had expected it months ago but Bowie's health going south has really slowed things up. The main reason for adding onto the shop was because of the press. Now its so full of crap I may have to do another addition....... :D
 
I worked in a saw mill at age 15 35 years ago and the main saw was
made with steel inserts we'd get one now and again wiz by our heads :eek:
those I'm sure were not 100 years old but they were of good steel
the perpose then was the replacement of the teath without consern of the blade it self since then they've found cheeper ways to make more bucks for them selves. if someone wanted to go on an ingot hunt with me I'm sure we could find pig iron ingots.
we have whats left of a smelting furnace near by
back then they hauled it by wagon and when they got stuck they would unload the wagon
and fill the holes with the ingots where has to be tons of it up there.
then the Rail road came in and then it was shiped by them.
I and my wife did a history thing for her colage paper a few years back and I put it on line ( since then I've taken it off.)

what we did on line was a lot better than this is but it give you a look at the
furnace
http://www.maine.com/users/publius/almanac/encycweb/htm/katahdiw.htm

Pig iron ingots were first hauled to Bangor by horse or oxen. Returning wagons brought lime from Rockland. After 1869, shipments were made by rail from Dover and Milo. The railroad reached the Iron Works in 1882 and operated until 1922
 
Wild rose,I am in agreement with you that shear steel was used long after foundry steel was a regular thing.The thing I was referring to was that it may have been in common use in Sheffield for knives and cutlery,but saw blades are a different thing.I would be stunned if the blade was true shear steel.As said be the others it may well be the only example around if it is.
The plow blades of the period I referred to were often wrought iron.I would love to find an intact blade for making guards and hardware.I have several horse drawn plows ,some from the late 1800's they all appear not to be wrought iron.
 
Stacy, If you have a copy of Wayne Goddard's book "The Wonder of Knivemaking" there's a not so good black and white picture of a shear steel in it on page 20. Read the first couple pages of chapter 2 and it goes into the making of shear steel. Wayne was the first person I contacted when I first started seeing the pattern in the blades I was making out of the old saw steel. He was the one that first said it could very well be shear steel and that he had also run across it in saw steel. I'll go with what he has to say......
 
we made blister steel at my hammerin this yr
i will take that and forge it into sheer steel
i will post pics
harley
sheer possum
 
around the area i live, there was alot of water powered lumber mills. and some of the saw blades ive come across look really old, like 100 years or more, and there really really big. the surface has deep pitts from what i can tell by scraping all the rust of a section of it. id say 1900 or before based on the fact that they had been kept in a dry barn for as long as everyone can remember. the teeth are part of the blade, not added HC or carbide teeth. i havent taken it to a grinder yet so i cant be sure if its HC all the way through. you guys think this might be shear steel?
cant a heat treating place make blister steel by baking the steel in a furnace inside a carbon filled box(not sure of the name, but its a box filled with carbon) my grandfather has told me of this being done. and i always thought itd be an exeptional way to make a japanese style blade, because you could just let the surface absorb carbon, and leave the inner core like iron, or mild steel. it would basically eliminate the need for welding a HC layer around an iron core, saving time and money, but still producing a quality blade.
 
hmmm i may have found some..... i'll let you know when i get my hands on it. really old cutlery. says shear steel on the inside cover of the box.
 
I've got some shear steel knives from e-bay a few years back. Never etched one to see what it looks like. Ray, what are you using to etch?
 
Mark, I'm using FC. The double shear steel knife I got from Wayne I finally finished off one side of it. Very disappointing to say the least. I've been working on some sheaths and darn near forgot I had it in the etch. All I'm seeing so far is just layers real simular to a low layer damascus. No swearls or nothing cute. Now its got me wonder if the double shear is something totally different from the saw steel. I don't believe the knife is any older than 100 years. It also says hand forged on it but I really doubt that. Looks to me like it was stamped like the old Green River knives.
 
Ray - what is the maker's name - I'll see if I can't find the dates for them. Also does your original look anything like this:

1850-60's Shear steel by Robert Mosley...
real-mccoy-3.jpg

The back half of this blade is still silver plated (and yes I ddid sand all the plating off before etching :) )
 
That's more like what I would expect to see Chuck. More of a high/low carbon layering as opposed to a matrix.
 
both pieces I have look layered as well, one piece is amazing in consistency, looks just like damascus, doesn't evenn have feathering between the layers, it is marked shear steel. The other piece I have looks similar, but the layers are more feathered together (If that makes sense) I'll try to get a few photos in a day or two.

Tony
 
Chuck, Here's a picture of the knife blade that you made the sheath for. Its got the lines on it close to the bolster simular to the picture you showed. I'll take a picture of the double shear steel one that I got from Wayne when I head back out to the shop.
 

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Here's a picture of the double shear steel knife. Its pretty disapointing. Chuck, I can't quite make out the last name of the maker. It looks like Joseph Eluqt & Sons.
 

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This "Shear" steel you guys are showing is sure nice. You can see the simularities in the pieces, especially that "blistering" look. I wish I had some of that! The oldest thing in my boneyard is a sorgum mill, circa 1849. Probably mostly cast iron, but does have a few steel parts. I'll take a close look at it later on. (probably wrought if nothing else).
 
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