[TheForge] A8

[MRScherm at aol.com]

We are one of the largest users of A8 in the US, we use it for steel mill 
rolls that need to resist fatigue and spalling in use.  Hardness may be a problem 
to you, as I assume that you have purchased already hardened tooling, that 
must first be annealed before you make "whatever", then re-austenitized and 
quenched.  You will find that because in annealing, you will lose the secondary 
carbides produced when the steel maker hot rolled the steel, you will lose a 
couple of rockwell points when you harden, and will not get much more than HRC 56 
at best.  A8 is a terrific material and another big industrial use is for 
swaging dies in automatic swagers used to neck-down the ends of steel bars before 
rolling.  I think it will make good tooling for tops and bottoms as well as 
punches and drifts.
Mike Schermerhorn

In a message dated 5/23/2004 1:39:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ayen at homeport.org writes:
So it sounds like it should be good for tooling, and is probably OK for
knives.