What kind of steel is this

R

Rod Dewald

Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
21
Ground out a blade from what I thought to be a leaf spring,or should I say carbon steel.To my surprise when I put the blade in my etchant solution which is ferric chloride the blade turned silver instead of the darker tones I was expecting.Is it possible that this is not carbon steel,if so what steel would it be? Thanks for any help
Rod
 
Hello Rod. One question, is the blade heat treated? If it is not, most carbon steels will turn a silvery gray, the hard portion will turn dark on a heat treated knife. If it is heat treated it is possible that it is not a high carbon steel or the blade did not get hard, possibly too low a temperature.
9260 will show a hamon provided you quench it in the right stuff, think parks50.
Brion
 
There are a couple quick basic test you can do to at confirm whether it is a carbon tool-like steel or a mild one. Grind some of it and watch the sparks. Mild and higher carbon steels make different spark patterns. It helps to have a few pieces of known steel around to grind on for comparison to your test piece. There's lots info out there about this kind of test, such as, http://shopswarf.orconhosting.net.nz/spark.html.

Another thing you can try is heating the snot out of it until it is glowing bright red and becomes non-magnetic. You'll have to mount a magnet in some manner so you can do this with the steel blazing hot. Once the magnet no longer sticks to it heat it for a bit longer and quench it into water. If it has much carbon at all it should turn hard. Test it with a file. Clamp it into a vise with a short piece protruding and hit it hard from the side with a hammer to snap the piece off. Get creative with your playing around.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for the advice. I will heat the next one differently. You see I tried heating the edge more and not so much on the spine,probably didnt heat enough.I will give it another try. Thanks again for the help.
Rod
 
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