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Crazy pricing on D2 and other steels


Jclonts82

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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...

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  • 3 weeks later...

It is possible someone got a bunch of offcut scrap from a shop that dose not save it 

as i work in a toolsteel warehouse if i rescue anything from tge scrap hopper i only pay the price the scrap dealer gives us 

i once bought 100 8” pieces of 1/2 square 6150 for $4.50.

it helps evrything in the building is colorcoded by alloy

but the shipping cost would make this silly cheap.

good luck 

du

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When I lived in Ohio there was one scrapyard that got a lot of their "fancy" scrap from a single place and knew the colour code for that company!

Unfortunately different companies use different colour codes and I know of a LOT of examples where folks have made unwarranted assumptions.  If I have a known good source I tend to load up and pass it on at meetings and conferences.

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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"IMG_9091.thumb.jpg.2b3b97539abb6ff84824c78859b6004c.jpg

 

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!

 

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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)

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As an example of how this sometimes happens....round bar usually comes in either random 12' or random 20' in the USA when you are buying commercial quantities.  Say you need 8' bars for your process and buy 20's...that leaves you a 4 foot drop.  No use for your process and scrap value  on something like that is the effectively same as old rusty fence posts.  It means you can sell the drop for just about any price and make money.

I am ignoring shipping costs here as well as packaging but that's basically what often happens.  In my plant it is a common "issue" on several diameters of round bar.  We have a lot of T304 stainless shorts that end up being scrapped because of this...or given away.   Check my garden and you'll find all stainless steel plant stakes because it was only a small scrap value and we'd already priced the drops into the final product costs.

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I bought the overage from a 4" rule retrofit at a local large apartment  complex:  a goodly number of 1/2" sq stock  in 20' sticks; as I was taking to the guy (very happy for someone to take *all* of it and pay cash to boot!) he asked if I was interested in the drops---200 22" section of 1/2" for US$10.  I didn't tell him I was happier to have them than the long pieces.  Lots of stuff you can do with a 22" piece without the bother of cutting down a 20' one!  (and at a nickel a piece....far lower than scrap rate---30 cents a piece at my local cheap scrapyard!)

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