Are any of you experienced with this steel? I bought an 8'long x 1" dia rod at the scrapyard.

I have not but it made me curious so i googled it.REading through the data and trying to translate into my sho and my capabilities I see that it is can be forged at a seemingly difficult for me to attain heat range. It is a toiugh steel and that to me means It will take a lot of belts to roiuugh it out and finish it. The heat treat data indicates a need for temperatures that woiuld be hard for me to maintain in my gasser. And the tempering range exceeds that abilitie of my home oven for that purpose and again my gasser is not adjustable for heat range. I send all of my stainless blades out for heat treat and are done in a package of blades from a lot of makers. This steel has different heat requirements that the others I use so it would need to be run as a separate batch and would cost the minimum fee,,,,wayy over what i would want to pay.
I like the looks of this steel on paper but do not see any of it coming through my shop.
I have never used a blade steel with that much carbon but if the rest worked out for me I would try it. If i had a bar like you do I would try some test pieces and see wot it will do with wot I have to do with. May be really cool. Let us know.

I take it this is a 10% vanadium alloy?

From my time in hard facing classes I learned high vanadium alloys have a very specific lifespan at heat. X mins at X temp, THEN it fails. There were complex charts reminiscent of eutectoid phase charts to determine just how much time at what heat a crusher drum would withstand and just how many times you could run a hardfacing pass over it. Change the vanadium content 1/4% and get out a different chart.

Very VERY touchy stuff but that was for high wear resistant equipment like crushers, dozer blades, buckets and our specialty drill tools. Of which we had none made with vanadium alloys. . . Of course.

What you have may have different properties all together, I'll be interested in finding out what you learn.

Frosty