onbohio Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Hi. I am not a blacksmith, nor do I play one on tv. It is something I want to try. My question is what types of scrap would have the strongest steel? I did a search of the forum and found lots of suggestions about where to look, but not as many about the strength of the scrap. I saw suggestions for coil springs, sway bars, timing chains, and rr spikes. Out of these which one would be made of the strongest steel? I would like to start off with making knives, and swords eventually. So I guees I would need something strong/hard to hold an edge right? Also I was watching this video of a guy making a sword, and he started with all these like 3" pieces he welded together and heated up and the pounded out. Does this make the steel stronger than starting with a pc closer to the actual length of the blade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 welcome to the forum there is a lot to read here, and if you take some time you will find a lot of opnions about that make good steels, there is no one good answer. also we have a full section dedicated to blade work, with posts from all over the world, so stating a general location may help because if you are in Canada, a person in Great Britan cant give you as good a resources that you can use as well as another Canadian could. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 what types of scrap would have the strongest steel, coil springs, sway bars, timing chains, and rr spikes?I would like to start off with making knives, and swords eventually. Steel is formulated for many different properties, do you want strong tinsel strength, strong abrasion resistance, strong in what area? Others have gone before you and figured it out, so there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. If you are going to make a knife or sword, than use a proven metal for making knives or swords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altusjg Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Welcome to IFI!!! If you intend to make knives, coil spring or leaf spring steel is a good starting point and is fairly easily obtained at scrap yards or suspension shops. I went to a local off road suspension shop and talked to the manager about picking up there scrap coil spings and he told me to check back with him around the end of each month and i can have the pick of the scrap pile..... no charge! To the best of my knowledge, coil/leaf spring steel is generaly 5160 and hardens well and hold an edge well. There are those who say RR spikes can be hardened in special quench mediums but from what i've read, the general concensus is that they are not good for knives. Railroad spikes have a low carbon content and do not harden or hold an edge well. In my opinion they are good to practice your hammer control and color/temperature range recognition on. Fair warning though, it has been said often on this site that walking RR tracks in the U.S. is illegal and after 911 is considered a terrorist threat.... so be careful. As far as swords go... many people here who know a great deal more than i do will tell you to practice making knives and advance your knowledge and skill set before you even attempt a sword. This recomendation is mainly for your own safety as the steel used and the process is apparently quite different than knife making. Not to mention that if not properly forged, hardened and tempered, a sword can shatter while in use and cause serious injury if not death. So take it slow and learn as much as possible while enjoying your new hobbie. Hope this helps a bit. Good Luck!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Spend a couple years learning to forge and get really familiar with how metal moves under a hammer when it is hot,,mild steel is all you need for that,,,This takes forever to get skills and moves developed so you can advance. In between forging sessions,,and I mean a lot of shop time...research more about steels and what they are used for and why. Knife stickies are a great sounce. You can cut a lot of time out of the learning curve if you get with someone that know how to forge and is willing and able to impact your skills, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fluidsteel Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 First, fill out your profile. Where you are from will help as there are many knifemakers and by and large all of them are happy to help a newbie out. Steel for making knives and swords is generally the same, it's usually the tempering that's different. You usually want your swords drawn back to the low, mid fifties in hardness(HRC)...knives 59,60, and maybe even up to 61 for kitchen knives/slicers...All general terms here. Use 1080/1084 steel to learn to make knives 1080/1084 are eutectoid steels. In general terms this means with a homemade heat treatment setup, they will be the easiest steels to get hard, and temper without problems.... Spring steel, like leaf spring is generally 5160 in older springs leaf springs. 5160, is usually available new and easily found at Machine and tool steel suppliers... In my opinion, working with steel for knives should be done with known steel. knife steel, like 1080 is cheap. I recently purchased 32' of 1/8" and 3/16" in various widths for 112 dollars, free shipping.... Look in the knife forum here. Lot's of advice there.... Brian Ayres ABS Apprentice Bladesmith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Howdy! If you are going to be making swords you will need to have "The Complete Bladesmith". If you are in the USA you should be able to ILL it from your local library and read it and make the decision to buy a copy for yourself. In other countries this may not be an option. It will cover various alloys and what they are good for in the way of blades. You do realize that a high tech alloy requiring a high level of skill to work and expensive computerized heat treating but producing a superb blade can end up worse than a simple steel easily worked when a beginner tries to forge it. I generally advise my students to "make their weight in knives" before trying swords as the fast turn around on the smaller blades means that your beginner's mistakes get worked out in weeks rather than years---big blades take a lot longer to make! Also when you have your failures it's more of a "there goes a Saturday" than "there goes 3 months!" As mentioned there are a lot of components in "strongest". Having a blade that gets exceptionally hard and takes an exquisite edge doesn't do much good if it shatters like glass if it's dropped or hits anything---and yes you can do this with steel! (BTW if you are in the USA the American Bladesmiths Society has classes on bladesmithing that can really rocket you along the learning curve!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onbohio Posted August 9, 2011 Author Share Posted August 9, 2011 Hey thanks for all the responses. I am from Girard, Ohio. It's near Youngstown. I may never get around to the swords if I'm no good with the knives. Just something I would like to try someday. I like mideval(sp) knives and swords, and would like to make some things that look a little "rough"/primitive. Heading to the profile page now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Of course medieval swords would not look "rough and primitive" Sort of like saying you want a million dollar sports car that looks poorly made...Even the munition work was pretty well done. Will you be at Quad-State Blacksmiths Round-Up in Troy Ohio the last full weekend of September? There is always a knifemaking demo by a "name" maker and all the equipment one would dream of in the tailgating area. You can camp on-site leaving more money for shopping and a bunch of the old KeenJunk crowd always gets together for a potluck or two. I'm driving in from New Mexico for it, it's that good! If you can only do one day then Saturday is the one to shoot for. I hope to come in on Wednesday and be drooling at the gate as tailgating stuff arrives... http://www.sofasounds.com/conference2011/2011index.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onbohio Posted August 10, 2011 Author Share Posted August 10, 2011 Never heard of that event before. Might check it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Sort of like saying that you play football but never heard of the Super Bowl! I envy how close you are. I think the only time I missed a Quad-State when I lived in Columbus OH for 15 years was when I was out of the country on a business trip. I'll be driving close to 1500 miles each way in an un-airconditioned, no cruise control 22 year old pick-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Carnecchia Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 If you insist on scrap then coil springs will work well for blades. I have found leaf springs a little harder to forge.Old files are good too. If you end up getting into this you will want to buy steel, it isn't that expensive, and when you heat treat you will know exactly what you have. I have cracked knives because I thought I had water hardening steel and in fact it was oil hardening. After a day of forging and grinding to get a blade ready to quench it is heartbreaking to have it break because you didn't know what you were using. The cost of new steel is much less than the cost of a day of forging wasted on a cracked blade. When heat treating quench in oil, canola will work fine, this will harden oil hardening steels and water hardining steels and won't crack the blade. If you look up the late Bob Engnath's web site he has a page on spark testing for carbon content. For knive you will want between .5% and 1%. If you don't have an anvil find hunk of steel with a flat surface, the surface only needs to be as big as the hammers face. I use a piece of railroad track stood on end in a bucket of sand. Do you have a forge? There is lots of information on building forges out there, if you want to use gas, Ron Reil's sight is a good place to start. Personally I jumped right in and built a forge, got a hammer at the hardware store and started beating on some old files. I cracked my first blade during quenching. Cracked the second trying to straighten it during tempering, but the third was a decent little knife and hold a good edge, even if it's not pretty to look at. Check Don Fogg's Bladesmith forum, as well as his web site. There is a ton of info on bladesmithing you just have to look for it. When you hit a snag post a question, but you shouldn't count on forums to tell you everything. Hope this helps get you in the right direction, -Justin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 Unknown steel you need to experiment some with before using, so you know how to treat it. For tough, one of my professors had some threaded studs from mounting battleship guns to the turrets post WWII, things the size of my arm, easily 3 inch diameter. He worked for a company that tested some of them for strength and plastic deformation....broke some presses doing so, the studs were "fine" Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 11, 2011 Share Posted August 11, 2011 Yes when using unknown steel you *MUST* forge a test piece FIRST to try out quench mediums and tempering temps *before* you throw away your time on a blade! Since the test section doesn't need to be as large as the blade or as finely finished it is cheap insurance for your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onbohio Posted August 11, 2011 Author Share Posted August 11, 2011 No I have not built a forge yet, still in the investigative stage of all this. How will buying the steel tell me what I have? Why do you oil quench some steel and water quench another? So if I get a coil spring or file heat up just the tip and test it out? By the way I work in a pipe mill, I never even considered it before because somewhere in my memory someone told me the steel we use isn't very hard. Does that sound right? Never gave it much thought till now, but I guess that would be because we basically bend into a circle shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Some steels AIR quench. This is a function of the alloy and carbon contents. Pipe steel, like black pipe, is a structural specification probably similar to A36, which is considered "mild" steel (not enough carbon content to harden in water). The only problem with practicing with pipe is, well, it is pipe. You can split the pipe and then have thin flat sheets, and after you learn to weld you can pile a stack together and weld to make heavier sections - a lot of work, and a lot of fuel used for limited gain. Learning to weld is probably important though you can be successful without ever welding. Before you make blades, you need to make other things. Ultimately you need to learn to control the hot material under the hammer. Practicing on mild scrap steel is the best way since it is cheap, and you can make useful or decorative items while developing skills for bladesmithing. Phil PS: NEVER quench pipe unless you have a specific setup to make it safe. You will boil the water and have a jet of live steam and boiling water directed at you. Very dangerous. Using a watering can on the outside only is the easiest "safer" setup. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 How will buying steel tell you what it is? Well when you go and ask them |"Give me 3' of 1/4" by 2" O-1" you usually know you are getting O-1, same for 440C, D2, W1, W2,... If you hunt for "testing of scrap steel or junkyard steel" you may find long posts on the subject, I'm kind of tired of re-typing it once a week for years! Basically you cut off some of the excess metal from your piece and roughly forge it to approximate cross section that you will be trying to achieve. Then you heat to above non magnetic and quench in warm oil and check for hardness with a new file. File skates off then you are hard (if the piece shatters in the quench then it's too hard! May be an air quenching steel in that cross section!). File bites in, then reheat and try quenching in water or brine and check hardness. Still not hard enough to skate a file then it's not a good alloy for knives using blacksmithing heat treats (possible may be some weird alloy requiring precise heat treating in computer controlled systems---unlikely but possible. Most likely it's a low carbon steel.) You don't do this on the piece you are going to use because if it shatters you have induced such stresses in the piece you were going to work and it should be discarded. That's the first step. Second step is learning the correct tempering temp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzom Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 onbohio: You said you are near Youngstown, I'm was born and grew up in New Castle, PA. Just a stones throw over the border. Welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onbohio Posted August 12, 2011 Author Share Posted August 12, 2011 Thomas, you lost me with all those numbers. Which one of those is the high carbon steel? Hey panzom. I work with some guys from New Castle. I work at the Wheatland tube in Warren, Ohio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 Thomas, you lost me with all those numbers. Which one of those is the high carbon steel? Hey panzom. I work with some guys from New Castle. I work at the Wheatland tube in Warren, Ohio. They all are, those steels have about 1% carbon content. They also have a slew of alloy content and require vastly different heat treat processes to get good to excellent results from them. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 12, 2011 Share Posted August 12, 2011 you lost me with all those numbers. Which one of those is the high carbon steel? If you read up a bit you will find a lot of numbers, they are how we tell what is in our steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattBower Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Thomas, you lost me with all those numbers. Which one of those is the high carbon steel? As Phil said, they all are. There are easily hundreds of steel alloys, if not thousands, and dozens to hundreds of them are suitable for making knives. Learning to make sense of bladesmithing discussions is going to require that you get fluent with the lingo, which includes the designations for various steels. Here are a few links to get you started.http://swordforum.com/metallurgy/ites.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_steelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_steelhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy_steel If you want to keep it simple, go buy a bar of 1084 (that's a fairly simple carbon steel containing about 0.84% carbon by weight) from Aldo Bruno, http://njsteelbaron.com/, or another vendor of your choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted August 13, 2011 Share Posted August 13, 2011 Before you go buy metal, take whatever scrap you have on hand and determine if you can make a taper make a bend straighten stock without reducing it make stock that is round square make stock that is square round then try making a leaf key fob (or a few dozen) how about an S hook (another dozen) some simple scrolls, such to decorate the S hook ends (another dozen) Yes, this is just "stuff" and what exactly you make for the first 5-10 times you light up the forge doesn't really matter, as long as basic principles are practiced. I hate exercises, so making something is what I have to do. Now about this time you should have an understanding how metal moves and how your forge works and how hot is hot. Make some tools, you will need tongs, chisels, punches, etc. These can be made out of coil or leaf spring, and should be properly heat treat. Do they work well? Now you might be ready to start with forming a blade. Since you have already researched that scrap spring, and determined how to properly heat treat it, start with that. Make a "smith's knife" it is very similar to the key fob leaf you should have made a dozen of, but bigger. The handle is very similar to the scrolls you put on the second batch of S hooks. Heat treat it properly, pickle it in vinegar overnight, rinse it with dilute ammonia, wash with dish soap and a stiff brush, oil, bevel and hone. How did it come out? Look up the American Blade Smith Journeyman test. Does the blade pass? At least the non-destructive tests? I hope it does, but I doubt you will take these early blades all the way to the limit of the test, since it destroys the blade. Do you feel satisfaction, utility and pride about your blade? I hope so. I use my first knife regularly in the garage. I might even take a picture of it because it was several blademaking attempts later that I made something else worthy of a photograph. I feel a little more pride for my handy little gasket scraper utility knife. Now you should feel confident and ready to proceed onto more specialized materials, that you may pay real money for. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 15, 2011 Share Posted August 15, 2011 You may remember I suggested getting a copy of "The Complete Bladesmith" it has a listing of appropriate steels for blademaking and how they should be forged and tempered. You should be able to ILL a copy at the desk of your local public library---your taxes pay for libraries---go get your money's worth! Once you know this you might be able to strike up a conversation from someone working in the maintenance and repair shop where you work and ask about buying some scrap known alloy tool steel and *know* what A2 or D2 is and if you would be able to work it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlissStreet Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 *snip* Do you feel satisfaction, utility and pride about your blade? I hope so. *snip* Now you should feel confident and ready to proceed onto more specialized materials, that you may pay real money for. Phil Phil, it can be difficult to express the need for basics without sounding condescending. Your post not only does this, but actually adds a tone of encouragement. Thank you, from some one starting out. You passed on some great advice that I intend to heed. It's this sort of guidance that makes me glad I joined this community. Matthias Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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