Hardness and Steel for PRYING!

H

hp2spare

Joined
May 26, 2006
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I ran into a situation over the 4th of July holiday where the handle of one of my first knives saved my bacon. It was wrapped in Orange Paracord. I needed a "cheater pipe" to help me replace a broken fan belt, but there were no pipes around. I ended up using the handle of my new knife to lash a bar to my torque wrench... and PRESTO! I was back on the road. However, that lead me to think:

What type of steel is best for prying and "cheater bar" duty, and how hard should it be?
 
i like cpm3v others will say L6 and still others........
i know that 3v at 57 Rc 3/16 thick is dam hard to hurt
not sure if this helps
butch
 
Just about any steel would work in a situation like that as long as the thickness is 3/16" or more. My pic would be 5160 or 1095 since they are spring steels. Hardness could be in the high fifties.
Scott
 
mmmm maybe something like this

55-515.jpg


although i still prefer a piece of pipe for a cheater, no sharp edges :D
 
My vote goes to S7 @ 57 HRC. Sure you want toughness, but generally the higher the hardness the higher the strength, which is important for a prybar that you want to keep a reasonable thickness. Lower bainite L6 would also be an interesting candidate.
 
If you want a knife you need about 57-62 hardness but if you want a pry bar you need to be in the 49-52 range. I cringe when using a hard steel knife as a pry bar. If it breaks someone could get seriously hurt.
 
Thanks everybody for the info. I've been giving some thought to a couple of devices that could do prying and belt tensioning. I am glad to hear that 3/16 would do the trick, I was affraid that I'd need something larger than quarter inch. I guess I'm overly pessimistic.
 
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