Free unlimited steel supply?

Austin, here are the thickness I like and what I use them for. Others may want to chime in so that you can see various opinions and preferences. It will be very interesting to see what other makers use as guidelines. Keep in mind, I tend heavily toward thin slicers and kitchen knives.


Approximations:

.070 - fillet knives, paring knives, slicers up to 6 inches where you want blade flex

.110 - pocket knives, utility knives (edc, neck knives) with blades up to 4 inches, kitchen knives of any length that need to chop (all of mine get a distal taper, meaning they will be .110 at the handle and taper to nothing at the tip)

.125 to .165 - fixed blade hunting knives (.125 for blades up to 4 inches, .165 for blades up to 6 inches or a hidden tang that needs a slotted guard)

.200 - camp choppers

.250 to .375 - big bowies to really big bowies to brush clearing blades
 
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The thinner 01 would make great chef knives and Smaller Hunting and EDCs. But I would probably do them material removal forging blades under 3/16" is a pain!! I would also H/T prior to grinding to avoid warping. Good luck!!
 
Gliden07 said:
The thinner 01 would make great chef knives and Smaller Hunting and EDCs. But I would probably do them material removal forging blades under 3/16" is a pain!! I would also H/T prior to grinding to avoid warping. Good luck!!
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Almost everything I do is stock removal so I’m good there.
 
Austin what John is referring to most likely your Purchasing Agent or Shop manager will have. They were very big on certs where I worked.
 
Still need to ask someone but I suspect that I can find the info I need by going straight through the steel manufacturer -maybe on their website by using the info on this tag in the heat info number.4D902B11-B448-4F4D-9B40-C945E7EC6219.jpeg
Im not concerned about asking just thinking that there’s a good chance they will not know, knowing the people that work here lol.
 
Well, I just found out about the steel today. I’ve been working on getting the property for about a month now. It’s almost ready and so am I! Out there I won’t have to worry about the neighbors complaining about my dog or the chickens lol
 
You should be able to call Crawford Steel and get the specifics from them. I'd be pretty shocked if your purchasing and engineering folks didn't require certs for the material as well.
 
tkroenlein said:
You should be able to call Crawford Steel and get the specifics from them. I'd be pretty shocked if your purchasing and engineering folks didn't require certs for the material as well.
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They may not be willing to give the MTR without him being the purchaser of the material. Your employer should have the MTR's, if you are making any sort of finished product they need traceability to protect themselves.

The tag gives you all kinds of good information. The coil is cold rolled, strip mill finished. Full hard means it has not been annealed. On the the spec portion of the tag it has the info you really need. MS1405/SAE J403 GR. 1074 is the spec the mill has to hold in order to classify it as 1074. If you Google it you should be able to find out how tight the tolerance is on that specific grade of steel. You would surprised how loose they can be. One melt may be closer to 1060, the next might be 1080.
 
To illustrate on the difference in the alloy certs. One supplier that is often used carries 1095 with low manganese (I think about 0.4%) which makes it shallow hardening and good for hamons. Another supplier sells their 1095 with about 0.7%-0.8% manganese which increases hardenability and makes hamons less easy. That's why we would like to see specs on the 1050 and the 1070 to get a better idea of how they might perform.

Doug
 
J. Doyle said:
I could be mistaken but wouldn't that MN content put that completely outside of spec for 1095?
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I just glanced at a couple of the online certs. The spec range is given as .4%-.7%, though though actual analysis for each of the heats is in the upper .4% range.

AKS even has a note on how ridiculously wide the spec range is.
 
Since it appears that the strip is not being annealed after cold rolling ("full hard"), you may need to do some additional processing in order to machine the steel (cut, drill, etc...). You can work around this a little bit with carbide drills, abrasive or plasma cutting, etc... but you may still want to normalize each blade at the very least before its final heat treat.
 
Yeah I’m not sure how difficult it’ll be to drill at RC 32.8. I can anneal it if it won’t drill.

Drew Riley said:
Since it appears that the strip is not being annealed after cold rolling ("full hard"), you may need to do some additional processing in order to machine the steel (cut, drill, etc...). You can work around this a little bit with carbide drills, abrasive or plasma cutting, etc... but you may still want to normalize each blade at the very least before its final heat treat.
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