Does Anybody Get Their Steel Barstock at Admiral Steel?

[redsquid2]

I guess this would be a question for people around the south side of Chicago, like me. I placed an order on the phone and then drove the 20 minutes to Alsip, and a nice receptionist brought out my order - it was the beginning of the pandemic, so they weren't allowing people inside the sales office. I have not been there since, so it's been about 2 1/2 years. The bars were a little bent but not that hard to straighten. I could tell it was annealed, but I don't know if all of their products are annealed or not.They might offer to cut pieces down to shorter length, but on the Website they list pieces from 36" to 72". It seems like their shortest barstock is 36".

If you've done business with them, what do you think? I got CPM154 and it was a pleasant experience.

 

[seanj]

I haven't ordered from them in a while. But I had very good service when I did. I order most of my steel from Alpha Knife Supply now. Mostly because they are closer to me, so shipping is less. For certain items I would order again from Admiral.

 

[Seedy Lot]

I bought a bunch of 14C28N from them, 2 different orders. They shipped 6 foot long stock for resonable price and seemed to be easy people to deal with.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I used to order from them. They had a sales rep who would come see me, IIRC.
Now, I order mostly from Pop's, AKS, NJSB, and USA Knifemakers.

 

[Joshua Fisher]

I stopped ordering from admiral after hearing and seeing them sub materials without notifying the customer. The last order I put in with them I called after placing the order to see if I could get material sheets for what I ordered and they said they didn’t keep any spec sheets or certificates and couldn’t provide them. Now I get majority of my steel from Popsknifesupply, they have always had great prices and I can order everything I need from them without having to shop around with 3-4 different vendors.

 

[12345678910]

I stopped ordering from admiral after hearing and seeing them sub materials without notifying the customer. The last order I put in with them I called after placing the order to see if I could get material sheets for what I ordered and they said they didn’t keep any spec sheets or certificates and couldn’t provide them. Now I get majority of my steel from Popsknifesupply, they have always had great prices and I can order everything I need from them without having to shop around with 3-4 different vendors.

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There was a big deal a while back about S7 that wasn't.

They shear cut and don't like to adjust the shear, so it's more warped and twisted that it has to be.

Other suppliers are more reliable, they care about specs, they saw cut.

Alpha and Aldo are top notch,
Alpha really stands out on small material sizes, titanium, micartia/laminates and one off orders.

 

[Storm W]

I guess this would be a question for people around the south side of Chicago, like me. I placed an order on the phone and then drove the 20 minutes to Alsip, and a nice receptionist brought out my order - it was the beginning of the pandemic, so they weren't allowing people inside the sales office. I have not been there since, so it's been about 2 1/2 years. The bars were a little bent but not that hard to straighten. I could tell it was annealed, but I don't know if all of their products are annealed or not.They might offer to cut pieces down to shorter length, but on the Website they list pieces from 36" to 72". It seems like their shortest barstock is 36".

If you've done business with them, what do you think? I got CPM154 and it was a pleasant experience.

My experience has been that the best supplier for both service and price is Pop's. The new owners have brought in a lot more steel including getting the new stuff like Magnacut and Apex Ultra. The only place I have ever seen better prices for knife supplies from a company is Atlas Billiards has good prices on some handle material. For both belts and steel they are MUCH lower than anyone else with amazing service and they even refund any shipping overcharge when they send out your shipping package. If you get steel they actually call you and ask if you want them to do custom cuts so it will fit in a less expensive package. Who takes the time to do that. That sort of service gets my loyalty.


AKS is professional and has good service but tends to have weird sized pieces that create more waste at least for me.

NJSB is one of the primary suppliers for blade steels and many of the other suppliers are sourced through them. You get New Jersey style service and business style. As a person who hated living and especially working in NJ it doesn't make me a fan and I have had bad experiences there. I will give them credit for the effort they have out in to make blade steel available and they are now using proper steel storage practices so you can get certs with your steel and they are probably even the correct ones. Check the certs for what you got rather than rely on what was listed and you will probably be ok. They give less care for the mills and the condition of the steel than others do but if you want larger pieces of CPM steels they are the main place.

Admiral is more of an industrial steel supplier that has a catalog of blade steel and will sell in small quantities and is probably best for large pieces of industrial grades but isn't the best for high end stuff. The do stock 203e that while perhaps not a very pure high end grade is interesting for cladding on San Mai blades because of all the banding. When etches there is so much banding it almost looks like wrought iron and could be a cool blade.

 

[Seedy Lot]

I guess this would be a question for people around the south side of Chicago, like me. I placed an order on the phone and then drove the 20 minutes to Alsip, and a nice receptionist brought out my order - it was the beginning of the pandemic, so they weren't allowing people inside the sales office. I have not been there since, so it's been about 2 1/2 years. The bars were a little bent but not that hard to straighten. I could tell it was annealed, but I don't know if all of their products are annealed or not.They might offer to cut pieces down to shorter length, but on the Website they list pieces from 36" to 72". It seems like their shortest barstock is 36".

If you've done business with them, what do you think? I got CPM154 and it was a pleasant experience.

If you can drive 20 minutes and pick up knife steel I would say it is maybe the best supplier for you.

 

[J Lensmire]

I order CPM154 from Admiral. Never had an issue and good customer service. I wish I could go pick up the product rather then pay for shipping. I just have to coordinate my trips to Wisconsin at same time I ned steel, so I can stop in Chicago area on way through from Ohio.
I found them to have the best price per square inch for CPM154 but I will have to revisit pricing since shipping costs have increased.

 

[fitzo]

Hopefully they have never repeated the error wherein all the customers' credit card information was exposed because some pages that should have only been on the local, internal 'net made it to the Internet and was visible to all for an unknown period of time. Folks sure were pissed. LOL. That was quite a while ago.

I ordered a lot of 440C, 154CM, 15n20 and 1084 in 6 foot bars from them 20 years ago and usually had good purchases, though the mention is accurate about sheared vs sawed and subsequent twists and curves in the steel. I also remember a situation where the L6 wasn't L6, but a substitute that they failed to mention until busted.

It's a big business that also handles small-customer orders. We often have different requirements than industry.

Caveat emptor. Ask your questions up front to avoid surprises.

 

[Drew Riley]

I live about an hour south east of Admiral. I've ordered from them before without any issues. One reason I don't use them more often is that they're a bit limited on thinner steel stock in the relatively limited selection of blade steels that they do have.
99% of the time, I prefer AKS. The rest of the time, I'll order from NJSB.
FWIW, it looks like NJSB has adjusted their shipping prices to be a bit more reasonable on smaller orders.

 

[J. Hoffman]

I've never ordered from them because when I checked their prices in the past, they were pretty high. Selling steel that is different than represented is not just an issue with Admiral. There are other dealers I won't use also for that reason.