What's going on in your shop?

Its only around $3 more per foot than other cpm stainless steels like CPM154 and the same price as S35VN. CPM 20CV and S90V are both more expensive. Nitro V and AEBL are like half the price for a 4' bar vs the 3' bars of the CPM stuff. I got 10 smaller blades (around 7" ish ) out of my 6' of steel, so with shipping, it is around $15/blade of magnacut.
 
Used my oven for stainless finally! 10 Magnacut blades and 2 AEB-L blades heat treated and cryo'd at home!! Process went well using the foil packets and then the nitrogen. Tempering took a while because I was creeping down on the HRC numbers (Magnacut was 63-65 after the first 300 degree temper, then up to 65-66 after the 2nd temper, AEB-L went to 66-68!) to get them to 64 for the Magnacut and 63 for the AEB-L. Minor warping, but the carbide hammer took care of that pretty quickly. My LN Dewar has "specimen holders" that will fit a blade just shy of 1.5" wide into, so I loaded up 5 blades in each holder for the cryo process, so I didn't clamp them, just put them in...slowly. LN boils fast if you put them in too fast!

Reverse tanto is AEB-L and the other FBBO is Magnacut

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Those look really good. I like how they aren't bright blue or ?. The color is believable and looks alot to me like aged bone. I have a lot of old cutlery/knives with bone scales/handles and the color of these looks alot like some of the ones I own that are 100+ years old.
Good job..................................
P.S. I think the liner you used looks good with the color of the scales as well. thanks for the post, Nice>
 
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Those look really good. I like how they aren't bright blue or ?. The color is believable and looks alot to me like aged bone. I have a lot of old cutlery/knives with bone scales/handles and the color of these looks alot like some of the ones I own that are 100+ years old.
Good job..................................
P.S. I think the liner you used looks good with the color of the scales as well. thanks for the post, Nice>
Thanks. I used the method where you heat up the bone and get the dye as cold as you can. Bone goes in the dye (leather dye in this case) and capillary action does the rest.
 
Thanks. I used the method where you heat up the bone and get the dye as cold as you can. Bone goes in the dye (leather dye in this case) and capillary action does the rest.
Thanks for the info.. I may have to try the hot/cold method myself on an axis deer round that's sanded down to white. Antler is bone but denser I believe. Maybe a winter project...............
 
Did some forging a couple weeks ago. Left 2 are 8670, middle is 52100, right 2 are 144 layer 125CR1/15N20 damascus, and first ladder attempt!

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Nitro V and Vintage Tri Color Canvas Micarta handles, natty micarta pins and lanyard tube:
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And the first 125cr1/15N20 blade! Kevlar guard and Orange AmeraGrip handles. I forged the pieces out again after forging down the ladder, so the pattern isn't quite there, but it looks good otherwise! I gotta make the rungs closer next time.
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Working on the 2nd blade from the same damascus piece! Quick clean up after rough grinding to do a test etch. This one was left a bit thicker and not forged down as much, so the pattern is a bit more consistent and not as smooshed. Not really ladder, but looks cool still!
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Working on these. Orange AmeraGrip on Nitro V and Canvas Micarta and green pins/liners on the Magnacut one.
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Had a 52100 failure. Working on this 6" blade, found some squiggles near the spine, put in a vise and snapped it easily. Guessing from working it too cold?
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But at least I know the refinement cycles left a nice grain other than the stress cracks! I need to keep it hotter when forging 52100. I've been playing with 52100 before I forge some Apex Ultra so I dont mess that stuff up!
 
Working on these. Orange AmeraGrip on Nitro V and Canvas Micarta and green pins/liners on the Magnacut one.
View attachment 85238View attachment 85239

Had a 52100 failure. Working on this 6" blade, found some squiggles near the spine, put in a vise and snapped it easily. Guessing from working it too cold?
View attachment 85241
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But at least I know the refinement cycles left a nice grain other than the stress cracks! I need to keep it hotter when forging 52100. I've been playing with 52100 before I forge some Apex Ultra so I dont mess that stuff up!
I’ve used AU….don’t get it TOO hot while forging. It kinda falls apart.
 
Yeah, I am waiting until I can get more consistent forging results with 52100 before going to the ApexUltra! Heat/hammer control isn't that great yet, so I have been practicing on other steels. The AU I have is around .200" thick, so it's already fairly thin. I want to make a chef knife from it and need to thin it out a bit and widen it as well.
 
Kinda have a funny update for you guys!

Remember this one?463923018_18026856377582960_7367748181875034290_n.jpg

Learned yesterday it was not AEB-L! LOL. I guess I did some blanks in carbon steel and in AEB-L back in 2013 or so. I thought the blanks I pulled to heat treat recently were AEB-L, but I noticed it wasn't as tough as I was expecting. I have been using the blade for a few weeks as a shop knife, and broke the tip off twice and saw it was pretty coarse at the break. I noticed that it started to patina a bit on the handle as well.

Did a snap test on the other blade I thought was AEB-L and the grain was huge. Did a snap test on some of the Magnacut I heat treated.
What I thought was the AEB-L on the left with the coarse grain and the 64 HRC Magnacut on the right.
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So I dunked the blade in Ferric Chloride for 30 seconds and yup, carbon steel!
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Learned to label all of my blades steel wise and not leave it to memory!
 
And that brings up another question! Stainless foil pouch, 1975 for 15 minutes, PLATE QUENCH, then cryo, then tempered at around 375 to get down to 62-63 on what I thought was AEBL. So it looks like a plate quench in a foil packet worked on the carbon steel????
 
And that brings up another question! Stainless foil pouch, 1975 for 15 minutes, PLATE QUENCH, then cryo, then tempered at around 375 to get down to 62-63 on what I thought was AEBL. So it looks like a plate quench in a foil packet worked on the carbon steel????
What carbon steel was it? I’ve done that with air hardening carbon steels
 
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