On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:11:20 -0400, JohnM wrote:


Was thinking of pulling the diagonal down to make a sharp tip actually. I
forget what the blade was, a chisel or something. Probably 1080 or so.

You could nick the edge back for a tanto tip..

I've made scrapers from old wood chisels, nice steel in some of them.



For the next one, pound out some Damascus from steel banding- I think
that'd make a very nice blade.


Haven't had some in a while, but isn't that like 1040-1060 or so? Would at
least need to be carburized then.


It's pretty soft as is but I thought it had a goodly carbon content..
maybe it is just soft stuff, if so there might be little to be done with
it. There's a lot of cool sources for edged tools that if one weren't
ideal just try something else; some piston rings seem interesting, steel
cable, spring steel, the shifting stick in out of a pickup or truck
transmission, files, etc. I've got some interesting stuff, I was told it
was a low carbon spring steel. It's strange to forge, it seems to get
pretty soft around 900F and then harder again up to around 1500F (if I
try to bend it, it'd rather bend back where it's not red).. Tough stuff,
someday I'm going to make a blade from it. Tried a piece for a cutting
tool in the lathe- fuel oil quench with no temper worked pretty good..

John

Pick up a few used power hacksaw blades. They make excellent knives.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner