Forging 416 SS?

Self Made Knives

Self Made Knives

Well-Known Member
I'm sure this has been brought up, but the search function isn't helping me. Can you forge 416 into guard material? I saw some octagon bars that seemed a lot cheaper than flat stock that knife supply places carry.

I like the look of nickel silver ok, but it's expensive too. Just trying to find a good source for guard material that doesn't cost so much. I've used the 300 series stainless steels for bolsters before, just hate machining those steels. I've got copper and brass on hand, but not my favorite look.

Am I being too cheap? Probably.
 
Technically, I think that just about all steels can be forged but that doesn't mean that they can be forged easily. When you get up into to complex steels you generally find that the temperature range is rather narrow. Too cool and the steel will crack and too hot and it will crumble like cottage cheese. In the long run the flat bar will probably be your best bet.

Doug
 
416 is one of the more forgiving, easy to for "stainless" steels. It's not overly sensitive to forging temp ranges. Where the problem for most comes is annealing it after forging. Heating it and going into vermiculite or similar simply won't work. If you own a heat treat oven...use it to anneal 416. Set the oven for 1350F, and a 2 hour soak, and then allow the 416 to cool overnight in the oven. It'll come out as annealed as it can possibly be.

416 barstock is getting harder and harder to find..... but it's still pretty available in rounds...... I have a supply of rounds that I forge to size for knife furniture.
 
Cool Ed, that's kind of what I was hoping to hear. I've got an Evenheat, annealing's not a problem. I'm super green when it comes to forging anything, only have two forged blades under my belt so far. Like Doug said, I thought I'd heard it was hard to forge SS. The octagon bars would really only need to be partially flattened, so maybe this doable. Thanks.
 
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