Doug Lester
Well-Known Member
The most important tool you can have is a good library, both books and videos. Get a good set of hand tools. Even with a belt grinder you will still need them. I would have to disagree about the 4X36" sander used as a make shift grinder. If you have one already you might as well get some grinding belts and give it a try but they are poor substitues for a real grinder and the $100 or so could be better spent elsewhere. From my experience, draw filing is not much slower than the 4X36 sander and a lot more flexable.
For grinding, O-1 is fine but I wouldn't start out with it for forging, though there are those who did start out with it and like it. Besides the higher end of the 10XX steels, there are steels like 5160, 9260, and L-6 that can be had in flat stock. Leave the A and D series steels and stainless steels, all air quenching, for later. They are more expensive and can pose some heat treating problems.
It's just as good to start out with pure stock removal even if you think that you could eventually move on into forging. Forging involves stock removal, we just call it grinding, to go from a roughed out blade to the finished product.
Doug Lester
For grinding, O-1 is fine but I wouldn't start out with it for forging, though there are those who did start out with it and like it. Besides the higher end of the 10XX steels, there are steels like 5160, 9260, and L-6 that can be had in flat stock. Leave the A and D series steels and stainless steels, all air quenching, for later. They are more expensive and can pose some heat treating problems.
It's just as good to start out with pure stock removal even if you think that you could eventually move on into forging. Forging involves stock removal, we just call it grinding, to go from a roughed out blade to the finished product.
Doug Lester