Has anyone tried blowing pure oxygen into a steel melt to remove the excess carbon? I am curious if this works on a small scale.

Kelly predated Bessemer's experiments using refractory lined barrels; of course he was blowing air into molten cast iron to make steel. Blowing pure O2 into molten steel should work but may be quite exciting as the temp will rise as a side effect.

Wouldn't it be extremely much simpler/cheaper to just start with low carbon steel to melt?  Perhaps 1018 would work?  They make some ultra low carbon alloys for extreme malleability work as well.

Oh it definitely would. I am just looking for ways to control the steel so I could use steel scrap. Oxygen blowing might allow me to salvage messed up melts as well where the steel absorbed carbon from its evironment

 

Still may be cheaper to buy known good steel!

 

You are probably right. I should probably just buy steel alloy as shot and melt it from there

That is probably the expensive way too.  Much steel is remelt from scrap and then adjusted in the furnace to meet the spec needed.  What would be nice would be steel scrap from a industrial process that used that alloy.

You're probably right. I will see what my local scrapyard has. Thanks for all your help. 

Go upstream from the scrapyard!  Most scrapyards have unsorted scrap.