stupid question about steel hardness/type

Don Hanson III said:
You can put the steel in a wood fire long enough to bring it up to a red or bright red color, not orange. Bring it out and let air cool. This wont hurt the steel and is essentially a normalizing heat. Doesn't mater if it's heat treated or not.

But the best bet is to take polish avenger up on his offer and learn a little while there.
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1+ on this advice. There is nothing like hands experience with someone that has been at it awhile.
Around here if you ask a blacksmith something they act like you might make a share of their money if they give you any advice. So I have pretty much had to learn what I could off the generosity of the guys in this forum. But there is no substitute for someone actually showing how it is done.
 
i'm soaking in white vinegar as we speak. pics of the original metal soon to follow. and you can bet i'm going to take the polish avenger up on his offer! i actually bought a bandsaw off a guy from craigslist last month from vancouver that was into knife making. i wonder how small of a world it really is...

to be continued.
 
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here is the steel in question. after having been in the vinegar for a couple hours i can see something coming off of it. not much but something.

apparently i don't have permission to send private messages. polish avenger, send me an email to tom@floathq.com if you are still up for showing a new guy how your forge works!
 
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I have bought a lot of steel from Pacific Machinery and Tool Steel. They carry HRA 1095. That is Hot Rolled As Rolled and yes it will eat your hacksaw blades. I use a chop saw with an abrasive wheel to cut the 1095 from Pacific. They do carry the blued spring steel also but at a much higher price. Polish avenger can help you out quite a bit I would think. There are a few guys in Portland also that may chime in here. If you get stuck I have been known to help a few also. But you are closer to Vancouver. Good luck.
 
AC richards - what have you found the HRAR to be like grinding? as tough on belts as it is on hacksaws?
 
By the time I grind I have forged and normalized it. I use the 1095 in Damascus. You just need to build a small forge to normalize in.

ETA.. You should not have much problem grinding the HRA. You do not have to worry about getting it too hot right now. You will still need to normalize prior to HT though. Better results.
 
wow, ok...

how did i miss all this info in all the reading i have done. is the stock we buy from knifemaker supply places generally pre normalized and ready to be tooled then heat treated?

for an absolute beginner (me) do you have any suggestions on what style forge i should build? i'll start researching normalizing, i'm sure i can find out WHAT it is, but hopefully the WHY and WHEN isn't elusive, at least in this context. i mean i've read about normalization, but it wasn't quite explained to be used at this stage of the game.
this is exciting. i'm not the most patient man, all i wanna do is go to the shop and make sparks, but so far that's not quite how it's gone. i'm impressed at myself for not wanting to tear out my hair.

hopefully i can find plans and build a small forge for $100 to continue on my quest at making my own knife. my experience thus far has been, buy and assemble what i think i need, only to find out i need something a bit different. hell, even gathering tools has gone like that. i was super intent on getting a wheel grinder, turns out i'll rarely use it.

thanks again for the input.
 
If you are going to be using a forge to heat treat then try ordering some 1084 steel. Much easier to heat treat at home with low cost equipment. Read the stickies as well as the count's post (also in the stickies).
 
I have both a blown forge and atmospheric. For general forging I use the atmospheric. The blown forge is so controllable I use it for heat treating. I am sure PA will give you some great tips. If you would like to see my setup you are welcome to come down. We can beat on some hot steel while your here.
 
"Im impressed with myself for not wanting to tear my hair out". That is hilarious! I like that!

Most of the steel we buy from knife maker supply houses is indeed ready to grind and then harden. That is called CRA, cold rolled and annealed. Sometimes you get HRA, hot rolled, and it is harder to drill/mill/grind. Sometimes with certain steel and certain sizes, like some of Aldo's 15n20, was already at 42HRC (as it was slated for band saw use), and needed to be annealed to work on. But to answer your question, yes, most of the high carbon and tool steels we buy from supply houses are ready to grind/harden. They are in the spheroidized annealed state.

Sometimes a certain steel, like Aldo's 52100, comes heavily spheroidized and really requires a complete normalization to re-set the steel, so to speak. If you were to grind and harden, you will not reach full hardness. So you have to normalize it first.

Normalizing involves heating a steel to about 50 or 75 degrees above it's critical temperature, and then allowing it to air cool. Usually, following a single normalizing, the steel is in a fine pearlite state, and can be drilled, machined, grind, etc. However, high carbon steels benefit greatly from a spheroidized anneal if machining. Spheroidized anneal is a bit softer than lamellar anneal.

If the steel does not need to be normalized, the bladesmith anneal that was mentioned can be used to soften it. Bring to a red heat, air cool, do this several times. Keep your magnet handy. Make sure the steel does NOT go non magnetic for a bladesmith anneal. If you have the equipment to hold at a temperature for a length of time, hold at 1250F for an hour. Either one of those procedures should make it soft enough to work on.

Let's say you bought some O1 from Sheffield. It is ready to grind and harden. No need to normalize or anneal. Let's say you bought some 52100. It is heavily spheroidized (very very soft). You would normalize (and then thermal cycle), and CAN go right to grinding. If you are concerned about the life of your machine tools, you might perform a bladesmith anneal as mentioned, to make it softer than what it would be with simple normalizing. Then you grind, and then harden.

If I was working with mystery steel, I would normalize at around 1600F, then a couple thermal cycles at descending heats (staying non magnetic), then a bladesmith anneal (not entirely necessary with a normalization), then grind, then harden, then temper. Now some guys might even throw in a stress relief right before hardening, not a bad idea.

I know, it can get confusing!!!!
 
Uhurungus, call me at 973-949-4140. Remind me of who you are and I'll send you out a piece of 1084. You'll love it and you will get the knife done quicker than messing around with what you have. Leave the other stuff aside until you're more comfortable working with steel and are more understanding more of what these guy's are trying to teach you.

Aldo
 
Aldo - very generous! much thanks for that offer. i think you just made a regular customer. i just left a message with your receptionist.

also, polish avenger has invited me to his forge to ask hopefully unlimited questions.

i am excited to say the least.
 
This can all be overwhelming at first. There are several ways to get to where you want to be. Aldo's option is the best!

To soften steel: You need to heat the steel in a way to change the structure. Normalizing is heating it above the temp you need to reach to heat treat it. This is typically over 1550f. I use 1650f, (bright red color, but not orange- very unreliable way to judge temperature- I use a kiln) and with a steel with over 0.85C air cool to magnetic. Annealing requires better temp control, and you need to follow the TT chart to do properly. This isn't your option. The third is the subcritical anneal, which is heating above 1200f, but not hot enough to lose magnetism. (Hotter than black, but cooler than bright red.) If you get it dull red, but don't lose magnetism, this will work for you.

The problem with a steel like 1095 is that it has a pretty narrow heat treat temperature, typically 1475f max, down to about 1450f. Without a kiln, or a forge with a pyrometer (about a $100 investment from Auberins) with enough thermal mass to hold a temp for 10min, you will find working with a steel with less than 0.85% carbon much more rewarding. This includes 1084, 1075 and 15N20 which are all regularly available. 15N20 is the hardest to heat treat of the three, as it requires some temp control and a short soak to perform its best. 80CRV2 would be next in line. It has more alloying, and benefits from a soak, but its carbon content is 0.82% so it doesn't have the problems the higher carbon steels have in heat treat. 1080 is basically the same as 1084, but isn't that commonly available anymore.

Any steel above 0.85% carbon requires much more control over the process. There is a benefit in more wear resistance from the formation of carbides, but if nor treated correctly, you will get microfractures in the steel, retained austentite, or even a broken blade in quench. In these cases, you will have lower performance than a lower carbon steel.

Here are the processes for 1095 and 1084.

http://www.cashenblades.com/steel/1095.html

http://www.cashenblades.com/steel/1084.html

http://www.cashenblades.com/heattreatment.html

Props to Aldo. He is the go to guy because we know what we are getting. In Canada, I buy also from a guy who gets most of his steel from Aldo, but it saves me on shipping and exchange. Once you wrap your head around the heat treat, Aldo's W2 is probably the nicest steel I have worked with in the 2.5 years I have been making knives. Great stuff!! :thumbup:
 
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Aldo, we love you, man. What a guy! You are CONSTANTLY doing stuff like this and it says quite a lot. You have made a lifetime customer out of me for sure, and I can firmly say that anyone who wants to buy steel for knife making should have the New Jersey Steel Baron on speed-dial at the top of the list!

One time I had ordered some 1095 and was shipped 15n20 by mistake. Aldo made it right, and then sent MORE 1095 for me to play with. Class act.....all around. Acquiring Blue steel was in and of itself quite awesome. Having W2 tool steel is awesome. Not to mention all the other fine steels he carries.

OK, back to the thread....

It does take some time to learn this stuff. Soon, you'll get the hand of it all and be able to rattle the stuff off the top of your head! Very nice of Polish as well to invite you over! I wish I had someone close by to talk knife talk with!
 
i talked with Aldo for about an hour today on the phone. i learned what he does, why he does it, and why it's important to knife makers. we also both learned that shipping from jersey to oregon isn't cheap. i ended up with 2 x 48" pieces of 1084 on the way. i wanted to buy more but he wouldn't let me. he kept telling me to settle down and have patience. :D thanks aldo!

i also spent a couple hours with polish avenger. we did a couple of thermal cycles on 1 small piece of my steel. 1475 to black, then 1450 to black then a final 1425 and air cool. that did the trick. he also showed me around his shop, showed me some DIY tricks for various things, including a forge. i'll be gathering materials in the near future to build a 5gal propane tank shaped LP forge like his. thanks mark!

when i started this thread i thought i was just fishing for an answer. like here you go, this is why kind of an answer. instead i got many. now i'll just clean my shop real good for the next week while waiting on Aldo's 1084 to arrive.

thanks for all your input. this is a pretty nice community. i'll be sure to post when i actually make something.
 
This thread shows how sharing and great the knife making community is. You've received an outpouring of help from a simple question.

Cheers to Aldo, Polish Avenger, and all the other contributors of great information.

Mike L.
 
Y'know what I love? Enthusiasm. Tom's got lots of it, and it's infectious. He shows up today and has questions out the yin-yang, takes pictures, makes notes....it was great! Waiting for his 1084 to show up is gonna kill him. Glad I could help out today, man...my door is always open.
-Mark
 
Kudos to all. This is one positive thread. Good question and good information. :)
 
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