The lowdown on 1084

[Guy Thomas]

While at Blade I made a point to stop and talk to Terry Sumner at the Admiral Steel table about the 1084 situation. He verified that the mills that were producing 1084 have gone bankrupt and it won't be produced anymore. So when the current stocks are gone it's gone, unless someone wants to pay a mill for a special melt of at least 20,000 lbs. of the stuff.

This has been talked over a bit already just thought I'd share my conversation with Terry with you. As has been mentioned before the replacement steel is going to be 1080. So if you have a source of 1084 and like the steel, you might want to stock up on it before the reserves run out. This is frustrating to me because I had just decided to use 1084 as my primary steel for forging, however, I would think the 1080 should be very close if not identical in performance and heat treating.

 

[Joss]

I'm not sure but I think that the 0.04% C difference will be less important than the impact of the various alloying elements. If we could get an absolutely clean - or at least unvarying - grade of 1080, that would be perfect.

JD

 

[Laredo7mm]

Just a thought, but I work in the automotive business and my company buys thousands of tons of steel per week. Granted the steel we use is not plain high carbon, but we do have our own propriatory alloy that we use for various occupant safety products, and the rest of the steel we use is primarily 1008/1010.

I don't think you would be paying the $2 to $3 a pound for the 1084 if you had a special run of 20,000 pounds. I number that sticks in my head is $0.30 per pound. So that special run would be around $6000.

Not too bad if you could split it up between 10 guys. Hmmmm, $600 for a ton of 1084, hell I spent alot more than that last weekend going to the Blade Show.

Anyway, just food for thought.

 

[B . Buxton]

Guy, I've been making damascus using 1084, but this spring I went to 1080. The only difference I was told in the 2 was 1084 has 80/94 C and 1080 has 75/88 C. I would have to agree, I heat treat it the same as 1084 and it appears to yeild a tougher blade to me. I like it and will order more as soon as I use up this first 100#.


Bill