NovakTheForgeMan

Spring steel, assuming it's 5160 like most leaf springs and suspension steel, has a fairly high chromium content (1% by weight for 5160). The issues with this is that chromium is incredibly reactive as compared to iron and carbon and withh very quickly form chrome oxide when heated even to forge welding heat, let alone to the melting point of spring steel (1350 - 1450 degrees celcius if I remember correctly). These oxide prevent the growth of the iron crystals that make up iron and steel and will result in a very crumbly and brittle metal if you where to cast it. Of course there are ways to do it, however for a home shop it is very much out of the question. As some have brought up, you could canister weld it together to form a solid piece from all the offcuts and bits you have, however you'd need to be very careful in keeping the amount of oxygen that gets into the canister to as close to zero as possible. You're best off using the offcuts to forge small projects and if you plan on making folding knives, beating them down into plates and using them as springs. If you do want to start looking into making your own steel however, I'd look into making an aristotle furnace. They're small and reletivly quick to build, as compared to a full bloomery, and they produce a high carbon bloom as opposed to the low carbon iron that's generally produced in a bloomery. You can also look into the case hardening and cementation process, which allows you to take mild steel (1020, generally what you get from the hardware store) and bring it up to a 1065 (good for longer blades, axes and strike faces on tooling) or even 1090 (edge material for cutting tools).