using steel found around the house

C

Chris S

Joined
Jan 22, 1999
Messages
35

Are there any other good steels that I can dig up from around my house, other than saw blades (I've already used all of them), that work well for knife making?? I'm waiting for my admiral order to get through the mail and I want to do something while im waiting!!!

Thanks!! Chris S
 
Well Chris, you could always take a chance on using a file for steel, thats what I used when I first got started. But.....I've been getting a lot of people saying that the newer files are really hit and miss in terms of if the steel in the newer ones are usable.


Have fun and keep it sharp
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KSwinamer
 
Saw blades, springs, the cheaper files are good and the same with power hacksaw blades -- the high-alloy exotic steels that don't heat-treat the same are expensive, avoid them -- although you can use high-speed steel to make a knife if you don't mind it being a bit brittle and don't mind grinding it hard (it's not so easy to anneal high-speed steel at home). It'll hold an edge like the dickens.

Try a spark test on anything you think might be usable and see if it looks the same as steels you're familiar with. Try annealing it and hardening it, and try a file on it after you harden it. Some of the scrap you find might be water-hardening steels, but most of it should be oil-hardening. If quenching it in oil doesn't harden it try water or brine. Use the magnet test; it's more reliable with unknown steels than going by color.

Using scrap when you don't know what kind of steel it is can be a gamble, but many amateur blacksmiths use nothing else to make all kinds of tools, and some pros use a lot of found scrap too. Just test the steel before you make anything crucial out of it....

It isn't just to save money; it's fun! Besides it isn't PC to throw things away -- recycle!

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Thanks for the quick responce guys!! But lawn mower blades?? Arent they just plain ol' steel like welding stock? They seem awefully soft to me???
I got an idea making diner last night of using an old stainless steel butter knife and grinding it out and sharpening it out to a more attractive and usable blade. Curiosity got me and I tested one that I had by bending it to about 75 deg. and it sprung back to within about one or two degrees! It seems good?! What do you think??

Thanks guys!! Chris S
a.k.a. I.B. Newbie
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P.S.Spark test?? Please explain??
 
Lawn mower blades are absolutely great pieces of steel. If I remember correctly they're made of 5160, and boy do they make a tough knife
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I wouldn't even bother with the butter knives A: they are the lowest grade of stainless you can get and B:do you have the facilities to heat treat stainless? What the spark test means is(roughly), when you put a piece of steel against a grinder it produces sparks(duh
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) if you look closely at the pattern you can usually determine what grade of steel it is. A.K.A. the more complex of a pattern, such as many "branches" of sparks in long archs usually means a high carbon, low chromium steel(O-1, 5160 etc). Hope this helps.


Have fun and keep it sharp.

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KSwinamer
 
That butter knife won't hold an edge at all; you'd be wasting your time.

The spark test doesn't really prove much -- if the sparks from two pieces of steel look the same they still could be quite different steels, but at least if the sparks don't look the same you know they're different. It's worth doing, only takes a second (assuming you have a grinder). If you've never done it before try it on everything you have around or can get your hands on. It's easy to tell if a piece of scrap is mild steel or something you might be able to make a knife out of -- the sparks from mild steel hardly branch at all. The sparks from a high-carbon steel make little explosions.

 
Another test you can do is heat the mystery metal up to critical(non-magnetic) quench it in warm oil and put it in a vice and give it a tap.(wear safety glasses!!Trust me on this one
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) If it breaks clean, it's probably a high carbon and usable for knives, if it's still springy, its probably a mild steel.


Have fun and keep it sharp.

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KSwinamer
 
ok guys... thanks for all of the tips btu i have one more thing to run by yall about this butter knife idea. See i was going to make this knife to carry in my shooting bag for by black powder rifle . It primary use would be for cutting excess patch material from around the ball witch is realy no more than lubricated T-shirt material.
For the edge I was thinking of just putting a "file sharp" edge on the blade that ends up having verry tiny serations along the edge from the cutting pattern of the file. Its not like a razor but believe me it will leave a nasty deap cut i fyou arent careful like i was once.
so what do you thing guys?????

Thanks again! Chris S
 
I still have aprehensions about using the butter knife, you may be sawing at the excess patch for a while even with the "serrations". I don't claim to know anything about re-enactment groups or the such(draw back to growing up on the east coast of Canada I guess
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), but I would think if you made a patch knife out of a file, it would give you an added touch, because if I remember correctly that's what they used to use(if they couldn't afford an "official" knife.
Just my 2 cents(in the U.S. thats only 1.5)

Have fun and keep it sharp

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KSwinamer
 
Yes, Kisu, you are right about the use of files. They also used barrel bands, rail road spikes and other scraps. Also fortunately for me I finaly got my charcoal forge built today and I plan on attacking a file this weekend sometime. I'll update how well my back-woods hill-billy style enginering works.
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Thanks al!! Chris S

P.S. I got a wild hair out of boredome and made a 2.25 in. miniature!! It makes one hell-of-a conversation enducing necklace!!
 
A traditional way to make a patch knife is to grind it out of an old half-round file.

If you're really bent on using that stainless butter knife (I can understand why you would be; I'm sure it'd be easy to turn into a patch knife) I suppose it doesn't really matter how often a patch knife needs to be sharpened; it should last through a range session ... or if it doesn't you can carry a file in your possibles bag to touch it up with.... I'm afraid you're going to find the edgeholding pathetic even for a patch knife, though.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
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