HRS and CRS

jonathan creason

Well-Known Member
Ok, another dumb newbie question. I've got a few various HRS and CRS bars laying around the garage. Is there any way to know exactly what type of steel these are? I figured if nothing else it might be something to beat on until I get a little experience under my belt, but I don't want to waste much time and effort on something that will be completely unusable.
 
If you got these from a hardware store they are by all probability structural steel without enough carbon to hold an edge. The only way to know is to have it analysed. Good steel is cheap, and while you can practice forging and grinding with structural steel, you cannot use it to practice heat treating. Heat treating is the most critical part of knife making. Check with Aldo at The New Jersey Steel Baron. His 10XX steels are quite reasonable, easy to forge, and simple to heat treat. Save the structural stuff for when you want to put guards on your blades or to make tools.

Doug
 
HRS/Hot Rolled Steel=Mild steel with scale
CRS/Cold Rolled Steel=Mild steel without scale

Both are mild steel and will not harden for anything. When I started I was fearful of destroying good steel and tried grinding one "practice" knife out of CRS. You will notice that it does not grind very well as compared to an inexpensive tool steel like o1. There are a lot more impurities and the steel is more "gummy" for lack of a better term. I could not develop crisp grind lines. So I threw it in the scrap bin and never looked back.

David Sharp
Sharpwerks
 
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