Jclonts82

I’m hand sanding the first knife I have made from D2 and at 320 grit I’m starting to see an odd pattern in the steel. It almost looks like what you see on galvanized steel, but smaller crystal boundaries and less regular. I don’t know what it is. I’m planning on going to a mirror finish, but if this is what D2 just looks like, it may be a wasted effort to keep hand sanding. I just don’t have any hands on experience with this steel to know... just what I could research. any ideas? Because it might matter, it might not, my heat treat (evenheat oven) was this: A 15 minute soak in a SS foil wrap at 1850 F. Then took out and aluminum plate quenched the blade portion until about 120 F. Then as slowly and controlled as I could I dropped the temp with N2 . I floated blade on styrofoam raft and slowly added nitrogen to bottom of the container until it stayed liquid, then raised the level until it just almost touched the spine, slowly added until submerged, goal was about -10F/minute. I was fairly close. Then soaked in the N2 dewar for 50 hours. Tempered to 500F, 2 x 1hr cycles. Pictures don’t show it terribly well, but you can kinda see it. Might try a video moving it with light reflections, in the reflecting of light it seems to show up the most.

Today I pulled my first cryo treated knife out of the LN2. Tempered, and started the long slow hand sanding process... at 180, still a ways to go. D2 kitchen knife.

Another thing to consider is your skill level and accuracy and depth of hammer blows. When I first started about 1.5 years ago, I forged really thick and ground it thin, because I had a few errant hammer blows that I would have to grind down everything else around it to erase the divot from that blow. NOW I hand forge my bevels all the way to about a nickel thickness in the cutting edge without having to grind much to get the steel flat. All that is better hammer control. If I wanted a blade that was 3/16th thick, I would probably start at 1/4. If I wanted a knife 2" wide, I could easily pull a bevel down to meet that width from 1.5" x 1/4" bar. I could probably, If i was careful do it from 1.25" stock, and it would be a REAL stretch for ME to pull it from 1" stock. I'm sure others could do that easily, I'm also sure there are those that absolutely would NOT be able to cleanly and evenly pull that edge down. Also consider distal tapers, you need less length in your starting bar if you are capable enough to forge in the distal taper, if you're wanting one. Probably not the exact answer you wanted, but the answer to this particular question is unique for every smith.

I did this exact thing for the heat treatment of my first straight razor. Worked perfectly. Almost zero scale.

Latticino, you... are a smart man. I just looked and I can get a 12" X 0.375" round of nickel 200 for about the same price as a 12" X 1..5" X 1/16. I can easily forge that square and its More bang for the buck. I will look for thicker wire in a spool too if I can find it the thickness I need. Thanks Kozzy, I'm planning on making types of damascus mosiacs with nickel and Carbon-steel. Think of a picture made of pixels, but using nickel and steel strips/powder carefully layered to form a black/white image. Forge-welded solid into a bar, cut into pieces then used for various projects. Any distortion on the edges can be cleaned up a bit if needed. I need to do lots of experiments before I start with the expensive stuff. I'm researching ALL methods and practicing technique first.

I wanting to cut some strips of various nickel alloys (1/16 to 1/8 inches thick) by about 2 inches wide for now, maybe wider in the future. But I need the cut piece to be square in dimension. IE, I have a 12 inch flat strip that is 2" wide X 1/16th thick , and I want to cut it into small 1/16 square pieces that are 2" long. Since nickel alloys are fairly expensive, I want save on material loss that would otherwise come from a band-saw or even a jewlers saw cutting the strips by hand. I imagine a shear-type tool will fit the bill. However I have NO experience using one at all, and would like some recommendations. I can get a Baileigh MPS-8G shear for about $200. anyone have experience cutting this small/accurately with a shear? and would something like this meet my needs, or any other alternatives would be appreciated. If my project works and doesn't frustrate me to no end, I will be doing a LOT of this in the future, so tool cost-investment is worth it to me. Thanks

I have researched quite a bit, and have found that about a 20% solution is generally as strong as you want to get. you can go lower and etch longer until you get the desired effect. its more careful that way too. In my world of pharmaceuticals, the shortcut i use for making anything with pure powder is this: 1% = 1gm in 100mls. 20% = 20grams in 100mls. expanded out to a liter: 200 grams in 1000mls = 20% if starting with ~60% liquid, adding an equal volume would cut the percentage in half. ie 250mls 60% concentrate + 250mls H2O = 500 mls of 30% concentration. I buy the 60% and mix 100mls concentrate to 300 mls water for a final concentration of about 15%

I would suggest that *MOST* of your ordered stock will come annealed from the mill. Any home brew heat you try to do in a forge will likely leave it harder than it came shipped. Of all the steels to try first, I would have saved the 52100 for last. Its more picky on the heat treat. Plus it has a reasonable amount of Chrome in it, that forms chrome carbides which are very hard, and likely what killed your saw blades. The 5160 and 1080 are much more forgiving in my humble opinion. I like seeing the meticulousness of your approach! Good work, and keep at it. Don't be afraid to ask specific questions if you cant find the answers yourself.

I would get a (eventually many) good file. It is amazing how much work you can get done with a file, also some C-clamps, small cheapos are fine. Clamp the piece to a piece of wood, a bench etc... if you dont have a vice. The good thing about using files is you can get a pretty straight bevel/flatness to the work, and its more controllable than an angle grinder.

With that remark, I imagine a banana for scale in the picture might be appropriate? Unless I'm way off the mark, in which case, disregard this comment completely.

Is the chair leaning against the stand with the tie plates & hammers an emergency #2 station? I do see what looks like scorch/blast marks? lol

This was my guess as well; drops for slightly above the price of scrap. it was $53 TOTAL shipped. I see now its at ~$47. With amazon prime, its free shipping. Either a drop, or someone missed a number typing in the price! lol

I found it on amazon oddly enough. I'm planning on taking about a 1/2-3/4" cut and using some power to forge it into a kitchen knife. Because it will take a mighty force to move a 2" thick chunk of this stuff. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007RRTCLW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Well it came in, and I tested it, and I do indeed believe I got a 42#bar of D2. The toddler wanted to hold 'daddy's BIIIIIG heavy steel" I have a KNOWN bar of D2 I bought from NJ baron, and I compared the two. I took a 1/4 slice of the round and did a spark test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTeLpKm-zwI) video is wobbly because the phone is in shirt pocket and the grinder moves me I guess, lol... known bar on left, round on the right. Same color temp, same spark pattern and length. I also heated up a small section of each and hammered on it to see how they felt under the hammer... I thought 52100 was tough... This doesn't move unless its what is orange to my eyes... then I heated both to to 1850 and let them air cool in still air. For the samples I didn't bother with anoxic atmosphere /SS foil. Rockwell files put both samples between 60 and 65. I guess its the real deal, or for my amateur purposes, close enough!

more surface area contact can mean more drag?

Anyang 88#. Decided I needed a road trip, so picked up in person rather than ship. BIGGUNDOCTOR, Alvord Texas. Just outside Ft Worth. James Johnson is the Anyang-USA dealer, and FANTASTIC to work with.

4000 lbs of thumpity thump! HMMMMM... probably could have thrown some more straps on it.. somewhere...

My shop area is a 17' x 22' covered area, open walls attached to the side of a 40' shipping container. Inside the container I keep the evenheat oven, wet hand-sanding setup, and drill press with a window AC unit I installed. Outside where the real work happens, I set up 2X 30" cheap, noisy, box type fans from tractor supply and each one has a mister attached to the hose spraying right above it. The fan picks it up and kinda creates an evaporate cooling effect. with this upcoming forecast though... I doubt I will be doing much daytime work, wait until 7:00 pm when it finally drops below 100

I'm somewhat doubtful/suspicious as to the quality (meeting standards for composition) BUT while looking for something completely unrelated I saw D2, O1, and 52100 steel rounds on Amazon for prices that didn't seem right. For example, I just ordered a 2 1/4 inch diameter, 36 inch bar of D2 with Prime shipping for $53 delivered... by my math that bar is roughly 40lbs. I imagine the shipping alone costs $30... maybe someone forgot to put in a zero on the price? But looking around I saw other large diameter knife-grade steels for crazy low costs. It will take some mighty force to work that diameter into something more manageable though. I do have a bar of KNOWN D2 with its spectrum composition verified from Aldo, I will do some tests when the big ole bar gets in to see if they behave the same, and post any results here. Just saying, it might be a steal...

Master Smith Ray Rybar lives up there, not 2 miles from pieh tool, teaches blade-smithing classes at the shop every now and then. He has done some UNBELIEVABLE things with damascus. Try to lok him up if you can, I have no contact info, and he stays out of all internet forums. If he is home, he might give you a tour of his shop, he might not... he is an awful good crumudgeon. He has an impressive collection (10-15?) of different sized power hammers too.

like this, from a drill press. You can move the belt to change the ratios and thus the final drive speed.

here is an over-scientifically set of rebound tests: basically measuring what percentage a ball bearing (hardened steel ball) will bounce back. check all over the face, not just one spot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ne7n_nnqko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WGgo1ldhu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuhhYdA9EyQ

If the insignia is a gold palm, and his service is one of: Navy, Coast guard, NOAA, USPHS, then yes! and the abbreviation is generally Lt Cdr

^ that lamp is awesome! I need to do more stuff like that instead of mainly knives. Tested out my new toy today.