Yeah it seems it isnt worth the effort. Thanks for the information. Looks like finding scrap is going to be the way to go. In that vein, any ideas people have for finding scrap would be great.

Tool steel is at your doorstep, and delivered by the BBT (Big Brown Truck).

MSC Industrial, and McMaster Carr will ship tool steel to you.MSC has specials , and I have seen O-1, and W-1 recently in the flier.

I have been using speedymetals.com service is good, shipping is expensive though. Smaller orders can cost more to ship than larger orders.

If you are ordering a whole truckload for business I am sure that the price comes WAY down, but that is silly for many of us.

Finding a supplier that is within driving distance is even better.

Phil

As long as we're going the Internet route, there's also onlinemetals.com. You can sometimes find tool and alloy steel drops on eBay cheap -- but not always cheap, so shop around. (Business & Industrial > Manufacturing & Metalworking > Metals & Alloys) Don't forget to check the "Fire Sale" items at speedymetals.com, too.

i like that. and it is true. anything you've never done is easy. best bet is get an old set of chrome/vanadium wrenches. make fantastic knives, if thats what yorue going for. and now that i say that ill have to try pattern welding my broken 12mm craftsman box end wrench some stainless scrap i have and maybe a scrap leaf spring.
and thus the journey begins. lol.

Even in the foundry's making it they do not just add chromium to the steel melt, they have to use a chromium containing compound as the chrome by itself wont mix in they way we need it too.

A Metallurgical degree isnt a just 6 week course at a community college either, its a lot of work according to the friends I have that have gotten one, but even at our level as smiths, the information about the basics of smelting is readily available. These details have been covered, and one would think a person serious about doing this would have looked it up before attempting to do it? Maybe just more Xbox smiths thinking the game is reality ?

Where does it say chromium prevents rust? In constructional alloy steels, chromium is added to the melt "to increase hardenability, provide improved abrasion resistance, and promote carburization." * You need to get above 12%, preferably 18% chromium and combine it with nickel to get a stainless quality. And there are probably 80 more different alloys of just stainless.

*"Modern Steels and their Properties: Carbon and Alloy Steel Bars and Rods" Seventh Edition, Handbook 2757, 1972. Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

This thread is quite a blast from the past!

Stainlesss steels are iron-base alloys that contain a minimum of approximately 11% Cr, the amount needed to prevent the formation of rust in unpolluted atmospheres (hence the designation stainless) . . . They achieve their stainless characteristics through the formation of an invisible and adherent chromium-rich oxide surface film.

Joseph R. Davis, ed., Stainless Steels (Materials Park, Ohio: ASM International, 1994), 3.

Most stainless steels have nickel in them, but many of the martensitic grades (like 440A, B and C, S30V, ATS-34, 154 CM) don't. Nickel does improve corrosion resistance in some environments, Joseph R. Davis, ed., Nickel, Cobalt and Their Alloys, (Materials Park, Ohio, ASM International, 2000), 7, and it has other effects that are beneficial in some applications, but it isn't essential to making steel that's classified as stainless.

One of the most fun ways to buy alloys is to attend a smithing conference. I bought/traded for H-13 and 1095 at the last Quad-State.

(I've started building up my ballpeen stash again from the local fleamarket...)