Plow knife

[scott.livesey]

I am currently working on my lecture on cost strategies in knifemaking for Ashokan and part of it includes steel source choices for the hobbyist and professional,

Kevin,
I am a sourcerer, one who finds stuff. you need a brass 1/4-28 buttonhead bolt with left hand threads, i can usually have a quote ready before most folks have figured out what they are looking for. I have found very few sources of "knife grade carbon steel" at a reasonable price. Aldo seems to be the go to source for annealed and clean 1084,1095, and 52100. Victor Machinery still has a bunch of Sheffield O1 that was made 10+ years ago, again at reasonable prices. there are other places, but most of them have large minimum orders. the only "scrap" I have found worthwhile is drops for local machine shop. my latest find was a 7" diameter 1"thick piece of 440C.
on cost, if making a knife from non-stainless steel, sanding belts followed by electricity and machine depreciation seem to be the major costs, the steel for the blade a distant fourth.

one:
I picked HY-80 because it is used for backhoe teeth, snow plows, and submarine hulls. very strong stuff but only 0.15% carbon.


scott

 

[Rey]

I will be keeping them for my own show N tell. A lot of people don't know about knives made from high carbon steels.