Thoughts on buying steel

Niagara is a rolling mill, and a distributor - in fact, THE distributor for many of the manufacturers we’re talking about here. They have a policy geared toward not competing against the people that purchase from them for small quantities - companies like Admiral, Alpha Knife Supply, and NJSB. That’s good business, and is intended to protect the very people you’re buying from.

Also, is there any reason you’re allowed back here? Weren’t you banned from this website? I thought this forum had a zero tolerance policy. Reported, then blocked.



One Armed said:
I'll take trust any day over a few pieces of paper!

Years ago I purchased a piece of 3v from Aldo that was cut slightly undersize width. Called and explained the situation. And had another piece cut to correct size a couple days later. THAT'S earning trust! Don't care about some paper. I guess those papers are the reason Niagar's prises are sometimes 50% higher? HAHA..no thanks.
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One Armed said:
I'll take trust any day over a few pieces of paper!

Years ago I purchased a piece of 3v from Aldo that was cut slightly undersize width. Called and explained the situation. And had another piece cut to correct size a couple days later. THAT'S earning trust! Don't care about some paper. I guess those papers are the reason Niagar's prises are sometimes 50% higher? HAHA..no thanks.
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That’s a pretty obnoxious response. Especially on a thread where an experienced maker is trying to inform other knifemakers of a potential problem.
It’s more than just a couple of pieces of paper, It’s a history of the steel before it gets to your doorstep. Maybe you missed all that in the first post.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Niagara is a rolling mill, and a distributor - in fact, THE distributor for many of the manufacturers we’re talking about here. They have a policy geared toward not competing against the people that purchase from them for small quantities - companies like Admiral, Alpha Knife Supply, and NJSB. That’s good business, and is intended to protect the very people you’re buying from.

Also, is there any reason you’re allowed back here? Weren’t you banned from this website? I thought this forum had a zero tolerance policy. Reported, then blocked.
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I reallly like Chucks 1095 but it's a bit high on Mn for my use. Hardens great everytime though, no fuss.
-Trey
 
I really was trying to avoid vendors being called out, or mentioned. In fact, I only used Niagara because the documentation was going to reveal it, anyway. I’m guessing there’s very few that buy directly from them, here - but many of you DO use steel that’s processed by them. If it came from Niagara, it came with certs. If your vendor chose not to provide them, that’s up the the vendor, and you - the person paying for it.

Please discuss issues with specific steels elsewhere. I know it’s kind of related, because if you did have certs it might make troubleshooting a batch possible, but I’m trying to avoid making this a pile-on.

The whole point of me starting this was to hopefully explain why having this can help in a bad situation, and NO ONE can determine when a bad situation will happen, but we can take measures to find out why, when it does - IF we pay attention to the details.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
I really was trying to avoid vendors being called out, or mentioned. In fact, I only used Niagara because the documentation was going to reveal it, anyway. I’m guessing there’s very few that buy directly from them, here - but many of you DO use steel that’s processed by them. If it came from Niagara, it came with certs. If your vendor chose not to provide them, that’s up the the vendor, and you - the person paying for it.

Please discuss issues with specific steels elsewhere. I know it’s kind of related, because if you did have certs it might make troubleshooting a batch possible, but I’m trying to avoid making this a pile-on.

The whole point of me starting this was to hopefully explain why having this can help in a bad situation, and NO ONE can determine when a bad situation will happen, but we can take measures to find out why, when it does - IF we pay attention to the details.
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Post deleted as I understand not calling out vendors and such. The main point of my post though was that even if the vendor does not supply a cert you can be proactive and get a composition analysis so you at least know what you're working with. The heat # mentioned in your OP is very interesting though so thank you.
To my knowledge I have never been sold bad steel so far, all my issues have been found and corrected within my process.
Stuff does happen as you stated and nobody knows when it may happen so being able to trace your material back to its source is pretty awesome. Wish everyone offered that.
-Trey
 
Good post Matt. There is a lot more to knifemaking than the craft of putting the parts together. There are business aspects as well. Some folks don't pay too much attention to that part of it. Good advice given.

Aldo has the certs. He will provide them if you ask for them. I'm not sure he keeps track of heat numbers. I'll ask him next time I get the chance.
 
comet_sharp said:
being able to trace your material back to its source is pretty awesome. Wish everyone offered that.
-Trey
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That's the thing - in the steel industry, everyone does offer certs, even for mundane grades of steel. Certs (with heat numbers) are the standard procedure for any metal sale. The resellers who don't offer certs are the exception, not the rule.

i4Marc said:
Aldo has the certs. He will provide them if you ask for them. I'm not sure he keeps track of heat numbers. I'll ask him next time I get the chance.
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If you're not keeping track of heat numbers, then your certs are worthless. In fact, the only thing worse than no certs is dubious certs, and I'm sure (from experience) that dubious certs are what you get from a company that doesn't keep track of heat numbers.
 
P.Brewster said:
That's the thing - in the steel industry, everyone does offer certs, even for mundane grades of steel. Certs (with heat numbers) are the standard procedure for any metal sale. The resellers who don't offer certs are the exception, not the rule.



If you're not keeping track of heat numbers, then your certs are worthless. In fact, the only thing worse than no certs is dubious certs, and I'm sure (from experience) that dubious certs are what you get from a company that doesn't keep track of heat numbers.
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...it's hard to believe that we're even having this conversation. But yes. Oh my God. I think this is worth repeating:

"If you're not keeping track of heat numbers, then your certs are worthless. In fact, the only thing worse than no certs is dubious certs"

...FFS...
 
The heat numbers are going to be on the certs. It just depends if there is any tracking on a batch of heat numbers or if the steel is just sorted by grade.

Context is a big deal here. If you are using a lot of recycled materials and are using a forge to heat treat then buying a type of steel is probably just fine. I would think that getting certs and heat numbers is more important once you get into semi production knives since you are going to have a lot of knives out there and a lot to loose if something goes wrong. Sometimes even in industry you buy by chemistry rather than grade and it's good to be able to trace where things go wrong. The big thing is procedure and record keeping. The whole heat number tracking looses a lot of value if you don't also track numbers. That means you are going to have to serialize your knives for maximum value. Probably the biggest advantage of documented traceability in our industry is that having the procedures in place will probably lower the amount of accidents that happen with mislabeling. I'm sure most of the steel suppliers that we use have paperwork and using PMI testing any piece could be traced back to a heat if something was really wrong. I think it would be rare to have a batch recall though.
 
skillgannon said:
Context is a big deal here. If you are using a lot of recycled materials and are using a forge to heat treat then buying a type of steel is probably just fine. I would think that getting certs and heat numbers is more important once you get into semi production knives since you are going to have a lot of knives out there and a lot to loose if something goes wrong. Sometimes even in industry you buy by chemistry rather than grade and it's good to be able to trace where things go wrong. The big thing is procedure and record keeping. The whole heat number tracking looses a lot of value if you don't also track numbers. That means you are going to have to serialize your knives for maximum value. Probably the biggest advantage of documented traceability in our industry is that having the procedures in place will probably lower the amount of accidents that happen with mislabeling. I'm sure most of the steel suppliers that we use have paperwork and using PMI testing any piece could be traced back to a heat if something was really wrong. I think it would be rare to have a batch recall though.
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Well said - I totally agree. To give readers an idea of why certs are a big deal in a small production shop, I'll provide some example numbers. I might buy a $1000 plate of steel. Surface grinding that plate costs another $1000. Waterjet cutting that plate into blanks might be another $1000. Heat-treating those blanks might be $500 with 2-way shipping. At this point I've spent $3500 cash, and if I want to feed my kids and pay my mortgage, I need this batch of knives to be right AND be on time. If I find out at this point that the steel is the wrong grade or otherwise problematic, it's going to take much more than a $1000 refund on the steel to make things right. The bare minimum I would expect from my steel vendor is a refund for the full $3500 - and even if I get that, I'm still not going to be able to feed my kids and pay my mortgage on time. The blow would be so severe that I may not be able to recover. In other words, every time I buy steel and start working on it, I am putting my entire business at risk of going under.

I am not saying that the steel distributor's act of issuing certs constitutes an acceptance of full financial liability - I'm simply saying that as a steel buyer, I want every possible assurance that the steel is good, and I want to send a message to the vendor that I'm holding them accountable. Some mills and distributors are obviously better than others in the area of accepting financial liability. Here is a quoted statement as an example: "At Precision Marshall, we assume complete liability for any costs directly related to a deviation from our published specifications. Any such costs, properly documented, will be reimbursed."
 
If I buy a $1000 plate of steel , first thing I will do is to HT one small piece and make any necessary test to see result !
 
Natlek said:
If I buy a $1000 plate of steel , first thing I will do is to HT one small piece and make any necessary test to see result !
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I'm truck shipping the hypothetical $1000 plate directly from the steel vendor to the surface grinding shop. If I wanted to cut a piece off and test, I would have to truck ship it from the vendor to me, then again from me to the grinding shop. That would add at least $500 to the total cost of the batch.

More importantly, you're missing the entire point of certs - the point is that quality assurance is not the responsibility of the purchaser.
 
generally speaking, I'm not one to resurrect old threads. That said, this is a super important topic that definitely deserves some sunlight. That, and I'm having a bit of an issue myself at the moment.

I bought a small bar of 154CM, which didn't show up with my order. After calling the supplier, they sent me the bar of steel, and then another bar the next day. I let them know that they double shipped the steel and what should I do about it? I haven't heard back yet, so I kept the second bar in its packaging, and got to work cutting down the first bar.

Maaannn! My bandsaw blade packed it in after cutting 3mm into that steel. I didn't know what was going on- there didn't seem to be much in the way of scale, but I ground the surface down to clean metal and tried again. Still, no cutting on that bandsaw. After consulting with my steel guru, it started to sink in that maybe the steel wasn't annealed properly- which is crazy to me, that's just not something I've experienced before. So I looked into whether or not any certification was available and of course there was nothing- no way to track down the history of this steel at all. I literally have to trust that what was written with a sharpie on the steel reflects even what grade of steel it is.

So, I'm stuck with the dilemma of sucking it up and spending time and electricity annealing a decent but mediocre steel, or figuring something else out. I've contacted the supplier to see what they'll do, and also inform them of a problem they might not be aware of, but I thought this experience may deserve to be shared just in case someone else out there can relate.
 
Lorien said:
generally speaking, I'm not one to resurrect old threads. That said, this is a super important topic that definitely deserves some sunlight. That, and I'm having a bit of an issue myself at the moment.

I bought a small bar of 154CM, which didn't show up with my order. After calling the supplier, they sent me the bar of steel, and then another bar the next day. I let them know that they double shipped the steel and what should I do about it? I haven't heard back yet, so I kept the second bar in its packaging, and got to work cutting down the first bar.

Maaannn! My bandsaw blade packed it in after cutting 3mm into that steel. I didn't know what was going on- there didn't seem to be much in the way of scale, but I ground the surface down to clean metal and tried again. Still, no cutting on that bandsaw. After consulting with my steel guru, it started to sink in that maybe the steel wasn't annealed properly- which is crazy to me, that's just not something I've experienced before. So I looked into whether or not any certification was available and of course there was nothing- no way to track down the history of this steel at all. I literally have to trust that what was written with a sharpie on the steel reflects even what grade of steel it is.

So, I'm stuck with the dilemma of sucking it up and spending time and electricity annealing a decent but mediocre steel, or figuring something else out. I've contacted the supplier to see what they'll do, and also inform them of a problem they might not be aware of, but I thought this experience may deserve to be shared just in case someone else out there can relate.
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Please post the suppliers response.
I'm about to order more steel, and it's always best to know who to go to, or avoid....

Thanks.
 
Crag the Brewer said:
Please post the suppliers response.
I'm about to order more steel, and it's always best to know who to go to, or avoid....

Thanks.
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I definitely won't be naming the supplier. I've dealt with them plenty in the past and they've always been top notch when it comes to customer service.
The problem I described here could happen with almost any supplier, which is kind of the whole point of this thread
 
I buy from a few different places. I won't buy from a company labeling one type of steel as another.
 
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