blade grinding

Jim Coffee

Jim Coffee

Well-Known Member
hi guy's. i have a question on grinding. what steel is the easiest and most forgiving for a first time grind, on say a 1/8" thick piece. thanks for any help
 
I started with wood - paint sticks, etc.

Then moved on to the high carbon stuff: O1 and 1095. You can buy small amounts of steel at Home Depot and Lowes.

Hope that helps!

BC
 
O1 is pretty hard to screw up.....I've managed to...several times... but it is a very forgiving steel. Easy to cut, grind and drill and responds well to simple heat treat. Also available precision ground at reasonable prices and in any size you can think of.
 
When I 1st strarted making knives there was a guy at work that brought me a piece of O-1 he had profiled to a blade and ask me to grind it for him, I did and told him I'd get it heat trated for him if he wanted me to. He brought it back a few days later ready for finish grind, I ask him how he heat treated it, he said he threw it in the botom of the wood burning stove and used a blow gun with his air compressor on the fire and brought the blade up to color and doused it in a pan of old motor oil. We took it down to machine shop and it rockwelled at 64 so I tempered it for him and did the finish grind.

so yeah, it's real forgiving and easy to heat treat :)
 
As a newb, I love reading posts like this:D Makes me feel a lot better at getting started. Here I think I need to biggest baddest forges/torches etc. When all I need is some fire and some air.....Gotta love it2thumbs

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Les Voorhies said:
When I 1st strarted making knives there was a guy at work that brought me a piece of O-1 he had profiled to a blade and ask me to grind it for him, I did and told him I'd get it heat trated for him if he wanted me to. He brought it back a few days later ready for finish grind, I ask him how he heat treated it, he said he threw it in the botom of the wood burning stove and used a blow gun with his air compressor on the fire and brought the blade up to color and doused it in a pan of old motor oil. We took it down to machine shop and it rockwelled at 64 so I tempered it for him and did the finish grind.

so yeah, it's real forgiving and easy to heat treat :)
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one of the 10xx series is a good one to start with although O1 is like butter compared to some of the more complex steels with a grinder.
 
jamesc330 said:
hi guy's. i have a question on grinding. what steel is the easiest and most forgiving for a first time grind, on say a 1/8" thick piece. thanks for any help
Click to expand...

From My experience I think a good one is 5160 , just my opinion ,although it is very easy to forge or for stock removal , gets like butter .
 
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