Should I buy steel now?

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KennyB

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Jan 19, 2010
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Should I buy some steel stock now and just keep it stored for when I'm ready to use it? I'm saving up for some hand tools to start metal working, but I don't want to wind up buying them and have to wait for steel as well.

I'm going to be using 1080 or 1084 (I've been planning on 1084, but whatever's most available I guess ) and I'm a little confused on what I'll need to do to the stock. Do most people sell it already normalized and annealed, or is that something I will have to do at home prior to hardening and tempering?

So, I'd like to buy a length of stock that would be ready to start shaping and ready for hardening/tempering beforehand.

Is there any reason I should wait until I have my tools? Well, other than the frustration I'll have with possessing a bunch of steel stock and nothing to work it...
 
your question leaves me with a question .

If you do not have the patience to wait one week for steel to arrive , how will you have the patience to file and sand hours and hours ?

Yes , the steel comes annealed .
 
First decide what knife you want to make, then decide how you want to make it.
(filing, grinding, forging)
Now you have a clear plan, and dimentions, collect the materials and tools you need.
Just buy a few essential tools and only buy more tools if you actualy need them.

That would be the most economic way to get started.
 
ONeill said:
your question leaves me with a question .

If you do not have the patience to wait one week for steel to arrive , how will you have the patience to file and sand hours and hours ?

Yes , the steel comes annealed .
Click to expand...
I've got plenty of patience for metalworking. Just not any patience for sitting around on my ass not doing anything. I figured I could familiarize myself with the stock purchasing process since I never did any of that. I studied in a machining trade shop; lots of experience buying and working with tools, none so far as ordering and choosing stock.

Plus, I'm on a really tight budget, so I'll be waiting more than a week between the purchases. The tools are spendier though, and as I said I already know how to shop for those, so I figured I could do myself a service by learning how to order steel stock and leaving myself more room in the budget this month.

Anyway, I've basically already followed the steps Hangelo mentioned and I'm just choosing on tools and material. My main question ( other than what heat treatment I'll need to apply to the steel when I get it ) was whether there's something obvious I'm over looking about buying steel before the tools, but there doesn't really seem to be.

Is there anything else someone would caution me to consider before purchasing the steel? Just trying to cover all of my bases here.
 
Well you gould get a nagging GF/wife for continuely dragging a tape covered piece of steel around and altering the knife drawings on them all the time and bottering her with it.
This could also happen with blocks of wood, bones and pieces of antler.
Ask mine :D

But the best advice in knife making is just go for it and don't be afraid to experiment and ask questions.
 
It is nice to have a selection of steel on hand, since you are using 1084 or another simple carbon steel you can order a few different sizes. The most important is the thickness, You may what to get some different thickness, you can alway cut lenth and width. I suggenst you check Alpha Knife Supply they have small blade size pieces so you can buy several pretty cheap.

The steel is annealed ready to work, and 1084 is one of the easier to heat treat. If you are not going to do your own heat treat there are only a few places that will do an oil quench you may want to start making arrangements so you have a place to send your blade.

Good Luck
 
keep in mind that even though you're getting annealed steel that doesn't mean it's stress free by the time you've started shaping, or that it's flat. I got some 1080 from admiral steel (great place to buy from in my experience) and while it's MOSTLY flat and pretty clean it isn't flat enough to just start working on. I surface grind it a bit to get it flat enough my grinder leaves scratches the full length of the steel rather than only hitting high spots. That's not perfect, but good enough to start with. I do this after a very rough profiling so I don't waste time and belts grinding steel that's not going to be involved in the knife.

I've only done two so far with this steel, and the second is still in the tempering process. The first is excellent but I couldn't bring myself to really abuse it too much in testing. This second one is getting the rougher treatment to see how my HT and the steel are working together.
 
One suggestion is to cut some test pieces from your scrap and put it through the same HT process (close as possible) for testing. I will break a piece after hardening to see the grain (and get a laugh) and then test again after temper. I will also grind a small piece to an edge and sharpen to get some idea of what the edge will be like. This way if the first two, hard and tempered dont turn out well you can redo the HT and try to fix your issues.

My experience from admiral is about the same, it all has a bit of a bow. I cut to the length for my blade and then use three points in a vice to straighten, this works pretty well and then I will grind flat. Just saves a little grinding.
 
yup, both of these were small knives, and it's only 1/8" stock, so I just ground out the bend, but I was thinking I'd do a mechanical "unbend" on the next one since it will be more substantial.

I also tossed in a pair of normalizing heats after rough profiling because of all the heat generated while cutting and hogging out that much material. I didn't do that on the first one, just a triple run before HT. I don't know if it really made a huge difference, but this one doesn't appear to have warped or cracked or any other issues at ALL, despite my having gone too thin up near the point and not being willing to grind off that much metal. I figured I'd chance it and it seems to have paid off. I was careful about not overheating the tip and post HT pretemper inspection didn't show any issues there.
eta: the first had a warp, but I think the HT only increased a slight curve I'd never completely gotten out. It didn't crack or have any other HT issues either. Figured I better clear that up since my phrasing wasn't very obvious.
 
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