Thou Shalt Not STEEL?

Franco32 · Dec 30, 2007

Sorry if that sounds corny....I wanted to catch everyone's attention...I was wondering where I could find out information about what scrap steel out there are good for making knife blades. Leaf springs, sway bars, chains, bearings, things like that. Carbon content, nickle, etc... I'm sure it varies by manufacturer but I want to forge my own blades and am considering damascus also. Can a person use cast iron? Any help would be appreciated. If I try much longer to find it on my own, my wife says she might have to strap a keyboard onto herself so I'll pay attention to her

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Thanks, Franco

47 knuckle · Dec 30, 2007

Not to sound rude, but the search feature on this website will yield you more information than you can imagine. Don't really think the cast iron thing will work for you. Basic membership is only ten bucks, and it is definitely worth it for the information you can get here. You could spend a lot of money on knifemaking books, which is also not a bad investment, but you can get the same info. here, from experts. And they will answer your questions for you as you get started in the process. Happy Holidays, 47 Knuck

sunshadow · Dec 30, 2007

Dude,
first step, fill out your profile so people know where you are, there may be somene down the street who might be willing to help you out. look at the stickies at the top of this thread, there's a lot of good info there. That said, a good starting question is do you have any experience working with metal? cast iron is not usable for forging. leaf springs, torsion bars etc can be. I use crowbars for fun knives sometimes, but for a beginner starting out I would reccommend if you can afford it to buy some of the 1inch wide 1084 from Mace and Aldo if they still have any. that stuff moves like playdough, and heat treats beautifully
-Page

Will52100 · Dec 30, 2007

For the most part I suggest buying steel of a known quality, but it is fun to experiment and you can learn a lot about heat treating playing with scrap steel. I don't use much scrap anymore, with a few exceptions such as a bunch of large roller bearings(the rollers were about 1 1/2" dia.) all out of the same Timken bearing and I tested to be 52100. I sometimes mix nickleson files and saw blade in with damascus, but I don't clame that it's got 1095 and L-6, just that it's saw blade and file steel in the mix. Roller or saw chain? Who knows? I've forged some that when tested didn't have enough carbon to make a decent blade so I added some file steel and 15&20 to the mix to bring the carbon up enough to make a decent blade.

The thing is unless the manufature tells you(and I wouldn't necesarily believe them) or you have it tested you wont' know for sure what your using.

Probably the best for sure scrap is used John Deer load shafts, there high grade 5160 and at one time our own Dan Grey was selling cut-offs of unused load shafts. I've got about 10' of it and it works great.

Play with differant steels, but treat it as a leaning experiance or class. You can make a great knife from recycled steel, but it's a lot easier to use steel you know that works and heat treats exactly the same everytime.

Oh, I don't know about cast iron. Never tried it. Might make for an interesting experiment.

butcher_block · Dec 30, 2007

yep tons of info
get a profile and see if any makers around you

best advice on steel tho is
good steel is about 3-5 bucks a pound (stainless is more)
just buy a few bars and get to work save the scrap steel for later when you get some heat treating under your belt and you can play

edit to add you guys are fast

Franco32 · Dec 31, 2007

Thanks Everyone...I updated my profile if that might help. Things being tight right after Christmas but I still plan on being a paying member soon...franco

Larrin · Dec 31, 2007

47 knuckle said:
Not to sound rude, but the search feature on this website will yield you more information than you can imagine. Don't really think the cast iron thing will work for you. Basic membership is only ten bucks, and it is definitely worth it for the information you can get here. You could spend a lot of money on knifemaking books, which is also not a bad investment, but you can get the same info. here, from experts. And they will answer your questions for you as you get started in the process. Happy Holidays, 47 Knuck

The search feature is now only available to paying members.

3wolves · Dec 31, 2007

Well im in the process of making a knife out of a file. The guys said it's fine for begining knife making, but you should use nicholson files because the steel is good quality.