[TheForge] Stainless steel skate blades

[Ries Niemi]

newer blades are often titanium.
mid price blades are usually 440c stainless.
You can find some vids on youtube about heat treating 440c.
many cheaper blades are just better mild steel- usually 1075.
but you need to figure out what you have, before you can figure out how to heat treat them.

ries


On Sep 12, 2016, at 10:20 AM, Paul M Dunphy <paul73 at ve1dx.net> wrote:

>    I recently was given a couple dozen stainless steel skate blades:
> 
> <http://www.blacksmith.ve1dx.net/skate/>
> 
>    They are 12 inches long and a little over 1/2 inch wide and 1/8 inch thick, or thereabouts.  Does anyone have any suggestions what they could be used for (they are new, having come from a sports shop that used to replace worn out skate blades with new ones.)
> 
>    I make "OK" knives from old files and tool steel (1084 and 1095) as well as a few from pre-made Damascus billets.  I bought the Damascus because I can't pattern weld yet, if ever!  But I digress.
> 
>    I tried a couple of knives from the skate blades and both times I cracked them trying to forge them.  The third time I used more care, and I now have a rough knife blade shaped.  It still needs to be ground to a proper finish and heat treated.
> 
>    Several web sites on knife making mention stainless steel with some variation of "Don't even think about it!"  The reason given is the alloys are unpredictable and to properly harden/temper them you need to have +-10 degrees temperature control.
> 
>    All I have is a dual burner propane forge.  It gets mild and tool steel hot enough to forge weld.  Working and heat treating tool steel into blades isn't hard . . . I can do it by eye.  I can't control the temperature +- 10 degrees without a thermocouple or the like.
> 
>    The questions for the experts on this list is:
> 
> (1) Is it really that hard to make blades from stainless steel?
> 
> (2) If it requires more precision/expertise than the average hobbyist smith has, is there any other use for these than knife blades?
> 
>    I don't want to make a lot of knives with them.  I'm hoping I can pull off one or two.  If not, maybe I can use them for an unrelated blacksmith project.  I'm not really a blade-smith, but it was a good place to start learning the craft of working with steel.
> 
>    Anybody have any suggestions?  What would one quench them with . . . oil or brine or something in between?  They didn't cost me anything so if I waste a few experimenting, or find out they really have no practical use, it's no big deal.
> 
> -- 
> - Paul
> 
> ------------------
> 
> Paul M Dunphy
> Lake Echo, Nova Scotia
> 
> www.ve1dx.net  <--- Weather
> www.blacksmith.ve1dx.net  <--- Blacksmithing
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> TheForge mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:TheForge at mailman.qth.net
> 
> TheForge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.shutterfly.com
> Login: blacksmithblacksmith at hotmail.com
> Password: anvil
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to ries at riesniemi.com

Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
WWW.RiesNiemi.com