NJSB 52100 vs Jantz?

[Leon Husock]

I see people talking sometimes about the steel from one supplier being better than from another. Does anyone know anything about the 52100 round stock they sell at Jantz vs the bar stock NJSB sells? I don't have the kind of equipment I'd need to test these myself (all I've got is a set of hardness testing files and a barrel furnace for heat treating).

 

[DevinT]

The differences are the as received condition or the chemical makeup. If the chemical composition of the round bar is within specifications, you can control the pre-heat treat condition.

52100 is pretty uniform across many mills because they make bearings out of it. The correct annealed condition for knives can be reached with round or flat bar with proper normalizing and annealing. Some suppliers sell material ready for hardening and tempering, others need to be cycled. I’m not sure about the two you are asking about.

Hoss

 

[Leon Husock]

Thanks, Devin. Either way I'm forging my knives, and in the case of round bar there's a lot of forging to do so I imagine whatever molecular structure the steel comes in will be pretty well messed up by the time I'm done with the forging anyway. Now it's just a question of whether it's still cheaper once I've used all that propane to smoosh it down from round stock into flat stock.