Steel Carabiners?

[dwilks]

does anybody know what kind of steel, steel carabiners are made  of? I have access to a good amount of retired rescue carabiners and wondering if they are useful for knife blades.

[ThomasPowers]

Probably not Knifeblades need to be hard to take a really good edge. In steel; hardness is correlated with brittleness.  Do you want a brittle carabiner? I would think they are most likely to be a tough medium carbon steel.  But like any steel from the scrap stream you are thinking of using TEST IT.  Take one heat to above nonmagnetic and quench in a 5 gallon bucket of water---fast!  Then try to break it with a hammer  wearing PPE!  If it shatters then you are in luck; if it breaks only grudgingly or just bends you are not.

Note a manufacturer can change the alloy used 3 times a day as long as it meets the strength specs; so no guarantee that any two will be made from the same stuff...

[Daswulf]

And if they are marked with a manufacturer name, or the supplier can tell you, you could try to contact them and ask.

Other than that, Thomas' suggestion.

[Steve Sells]

why post this in non ferrous ? I will move it <Sigh>

 

[dwilks]

thanks yall! I was planning on testing just figured I would throw it out there and see if anybody had some info. didn't think of asking the manufacturer. I'll look into that, and test myself.

[Ranchmanben]

14 hours ago, Steve Sells said:

why post this in non ferrous ? I will move it <Sigh>

This made me chuckle. I can imagine the sketch in your avatar hanging his head and wearily shaking it.