Knife steel?

[bodam]

Just started knife making. Just making handles on store bought blade blanks, but I've gotten tools to start cutting and grinding my own blades now.

Where are some good places for low cost blade steel? Especially for someone still learning the craft.

Then the heat treating questions will start coming, lol.....

 

[ugaarguy]

A couple of the resident knife makers here have told me they've bought from NJ Steel Baron and Alpha Knife Supply. Simple carbon steels are going to be your best bets for easy heat treating since you're just starting out.

 

[rcmodel]

Probably not the lowest cost, but I have done business with both these places for a lot of years.

http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/index.php

http://www.knifemaking.com/Default.asp

Here is another one, but I have no personal experience with them.
http://www.knifekits.com/vcom/index.php

rc

 

[bodam]

I buy my blanks from Texas Knife here in Houston. Small shop, not much ever in inventory, and terrible face to face service.

But they are a one stop shop for the most part. I was wondering if there were other good places to buy some steel.

 

[rodinal220]

http://www.admiralsteel.com/shop/

 

[kieranklein]

As stated already new jersey steel baron. Great steel

 

[kieranklein]

Oh yeah. Admiral steel is a good source for thinner 1075 steel. Not sure what their 1095 price is but most other steel seems high on their site.

 

[Sam1911]

NJ Steel Baron. Aldo's great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfB1-JfR16k

 

[hso]

NJ Steel Baron

 

[bikerdoc]

Dont forget to show us your work.

 

[Sam Cade]

I'll join the chorus and sing the praises of New Jersey Steel Baron

http://newjerseysteelbaron.com/

The folks at Alpha Knife Supply are also a pleasure to deal with,m especially for scale material and other sundry parts.

 

[redneck]

I have had great service from these guys. Precision ground is only necessary if you're looking to make folders but O1 can be had pretty cheap,fully annealed and precision ground, and its a pretty forgiving one to learn to heat treat. Some of the hot rolled stuff can require a lot of normalizing etc. and heat treating gets more difficult than if you start with spheroid annealed steel and do stock removal. An added plus is you don't burn up belts taking the bark off.

http://www.flatground.com/index.htm

 

[JShirley]

NJSB is great, and Alpha are nice folks

 

[Valkman]

01 used to be real cheap, I used a lot of it especially when I started. Real easy to HT too. If you order from Admiral be very careful - I had knifemakers warn me away from them because they sent out bent steel but I ordered from them several times and then got some bent bars so I never ordered from them again. I'd get it from Flatground.com, NJSB or Alpha.

 

[Demitrios]

Aldo has been real good to me, his 1084 is top notch and is a great price. Also if you've ever spent any time with him on the phone you'll know almost immediately how passionate he is, the man does not screw around.

 

[bodam]

great info guys. I appreciate it.

 

[bodam]

Basic stuff, but here are a couple that I've done...

 

[bodam]

I like how this one came out. This was my first completed handle.

Having fun, now I want to step up to the big leagues, lol.

 

[Zeke/PA]

When I was making knives, I purchased flat ground stock from Manhattan Supply. I used mostly O-1 and an occasional bar of my favorite D-2.
From a 4 x 18 inch bar, I usually got six full size fixed blades.
I had the heat treating done by a local firm that charged by the pound with no problems and I was especially concerned with the air hardening D-2.
I used Micarta for the slabs and utilized the Bob Loveless style in my knives!
I soldered hilts with Eutectic solder and the low melting point of the said solder did nothing to alter the heat treatment of my blades.

 

[TomADC]

bodam, I have two knife blanks that need to be finished they are as the came off the blank die years ago both are Camillus the far lefthand is stamped with their name the other blank is a M3 blank but not marked, I don't see me finishing these. If you want to give them a try PM me with a reasonable offer. I think the far LH is a pilot knife.

 

[bodam]

I honestly don't even know what to offer to be honest.

 

[TomADC]

PM sent don't want to make this a for sale just trying to help a member out.

 

[bodam]

And I appreciate it! I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I look forward to learning more. Next step is building a small forge...

 

[TomADC]

Need to find out what Camullis used for steel on the pilot and M3 knives. Do a search for wheel hub forges plus I've seen they made using fire brick.
When I was going to do this there was a place you could send your blades to and they would harden them.
If you belong to rimfire central look at the custom knife forum and he has a great how to make a knife thread lots of info and pictures. It's a sticky at the top.
BTW lots of work/fun on these blanks both are close to .190 thick.

 

[bikerdoc]

Gentlemen, I appreciate you taking the buy or trade talk to Pm to avoid violating the selling in the discusion forums rule. Thank you for being good members.