Type of Steel help

C

Cburr84

Joined
Feb 27, 2019
Messages
29
Hello,
Still pretty new to this and I’m looking for material to make a blade for my uncle for Christmas, money’s tight. My black & decker le750 (edger) has quit on me, and I’m wondering if I can use the blade from it to make a neck knife? I’ve heard of making knives from saw blades etc. I’m just wondering if anyone knows if the edger blade possibly has carbon in it? Thanks guys.
-Clay
 
I'm guessing you'll have better luck in the Knife Maker's General Discussion area.

My bet is on yes, since the blade must cut and hardening will help that. The question is how much carbon. B&D says it is hardened, but it must also be resilient enough to deal with going through some soil and such. It might be <0.5%, a general cut off point.
Now you have me curious, a light Googling didn't help.
 
Ourorboros said:
I'm guessing you'll have better luck in the Knife Maker's General Discussion area.

My bet is on yes, since the blade must cut and hardening will help that. The question is how much carbon. B&D says it is hardened, but it must also be resilient enough to deal with going through some soil and such. It might be <0.5%, a general cut off point.
Now you have me curious, a light Googling didn't help.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick response! I agree there must be some carbon in it making it more than a typical piece of angle iron, but how much carbon would there need to be to make I knife. More than .5%? I’m trying to remember back, is 2-3% high carbon? I’m a noob, that might not even be close to right. Did some light searching on google myself and wound up reading amazon reviews of the blade, still not enough to go on. Probably just roll with it? Any other thoughts? Thanks.
*oh, and how to I put this in the “knife makers general discussion area”? Still kind of new to this forum as well.
 
Cburr84 said:
Hello,
Still pretty new to this and I’m looking for material to make a blade for my uncle for Christmas, money’s tight. My black & decker le750 (edger) has quit on me, and I’m wondering if I can use the blade from it to make a neck knife? I’ve heard of making knives from saw blades etc. I’m just wondering if anyone knows if the edger blade possibly has carbon in it? Thanks guys.
-Clay
Click to expand...

Cut off a piece then heat it about white hot and quench it to see if you can get it hardened to a brittle state where it'll break when you hit it with a hammer.
Try both with oil and with water because there are oil hardening and water hardening steels out there and you never know what may have been used.

With stuff like this you don't really need to get hung up on steel composition, especially for a neck knife.
As long as you can actually harden it to a brittle state you can temper it back a bit and have a fine neck knife.

I'm no expert but have played around with making small knives over the past 10 years and have pretty much gone through what you are.
Finding stuff that may or may not make a usable knife and often times just going for it to see what happens. The " shatter test " as I hear it called has been my go-to.
 
Last edited:
Hickory n steel said:
Cut off a piece then heat it about white hot and quench it to see if you can get it hardened to a brittle state where it'll break when you hit it with a hammer.
Try both with oil and with water because there are oil hardening and water hardening steels out there and you never know what may have been used.

With stuff like this you don't really need to get hung up on steel composition, especially for a neck knife.
As long as you can actually harden it to a brittle state you can temper it back a bit and have a fine neck knife.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your response. I’ll proceed as I would 1084. After quenching in the oil, a file should skate and I should know at that point I suppose. Thank you
 
A few other places to look for free or very cheap items.
1. Craigslist. Free scrap metal or very cheap Nicholson files or saw blades.
2. Thrift stores. I routinely check mine, also a good source of cheap leather for strops.
3. Junkyards. Leaf springs used to be 5160 IIRC. A partially broken leaf spring might be very cheap or free if you tell what you are working on.

Good luck on your project.
 
Cburr84 said:
Thank you for your response. I’ll proceed as I would 1084. After quenching in the oil, a file should skate and I should know at that point I suppose. Thank you
Click to expand...
Are you kidding us ? Piece of 1084 to make knife cost five bucks ..............
 
gazz98 said:
A few other places to look for free or very cheap items.
1. Craigslist. Free scrap metal or very cheap Nicholson files or saw blades.
2. Thrift stores. I routinely check mine, also a good source of cheap leather for strops.
3. Junkyards. Leaf springs used to be 5160 IIRC. A partially broken leaf spring might be very cheap or free if you tell what you are working on.

Good luck on your project.
Click to expand...
Thank you. I have a junkyard close to where I work. Didn’t even think about that.
 
You can get good quality steel for cheap. In my opinion it's better to pay for the cheap steel from a good steel provider than taking a risk with mystery steel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top