5160 warped bar

[Blkst]

Hi,

I bought a 5160 bar from Texas Knife and it has a noticable warp in it.
Is that normal and if so how do I straighten it ... ?

Thanks

[Ray Rogers]

It's not unusual for 5160 since a lot of it is recycled springs. The bar you have is probably not annealed either, meaning it will be difficult to cut or drill.

Since you asked the question I have to guess that you are planning to do stock removal to make your blade since, if you were forging, you'd just straighten it in the forge. If that is the case, my best recommendation is to put that bar away until you have a forge or a heat treat oven so that you can either forge it or anneal it. Buy a bar of some 10xx steel instead which will already be annealed and pretty close to straight.

Even so, with 5160 or 10xx steels and no forge or heat treat oven you'll have to find someone to heat treat the blade for you. There are a few places that will do it but most commercial outfits don't do carbon steels. To make things simpler, you might reconsider and use 440C which you can then send back to TX Knifemakers for a very economical heat treat.

Finally, to avoid all these assumptions and the inevitable errors and wasted time they cause you might want to fill out your profile so we know who you are and where you are. That can help a lot with hooking up with makers in your area. And, of course, knowing something about your experience level and the tools you have available would eliminate a lot of guesswork.....

[Blkst]

Thank you for your reply

Stock removal for sure... Just beginning.

I have a drill press, vise, set of files and a hack saw. No forge but am looking into building a small brick forge.

Is it possible to straighten the bar using a vise and a mapp tourch ?

[Ray Rogers]

Possible, maybe just barely, but not advisable. You would then have a straight bar full of stresses that would manifest themselves as soon as you started grinding. The end result would likely be a warped blade before you even go to the point of heat treating. And, for proper heat treating, the steel should be annealed before you begin the HT. So, to avoid a lot of frustration and making things more difficult than they need to be for the sake of $5 or less in steel I strongly suggest that you consider the alternate approaches I suggested in the last post. If at all possible, we would like for your first knife making experience to be a positive one but you're definitely swimming upstream with your current approach .....

[Blkst]

Thanks for the advise... I'll order a bar of 10xx and put this one up for another day

[samuraibill]

you can try find a local spring shop, and they will generally have a ton of scrap both from old cars and new pieces. I am sure they will let you look through their junk pile.

[Ray Rogers]

That's how he got into the trouble he's in now, Bill. He bought a recycled spring but has no way to anneal it ......

[Blkst]

I've been reading about different types of steel since I posted ( other than 5160 ) 01 seems to be a good choice for beginners like myself according to what I read. I found a source for O1 Steel Ground Flat Stock that is delivered annealed.

What do you think about using 01 ?

I read a post about heat treating 01 and think I can handle it
http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4506

I made a pattern for a camp knife 9 1/4 x 1 1/2 and will be using files only. Dont have a grinder ( yet ).

Thanks for all your help

Mike

[Ray Rogers]

O1 is an excellent steel for blades, possibly the best all around steel there is.....if you can heat treat it correctly. The great thing about O1 for beginners is that even if you do a half baked job on the HT you are still likely to get a very usable blade even though it will not be anywhere near the maximum potential of the steel. So, O1 would be better for you than the 5160 you have.

That said, 1080 or 1065 or most any 10xx steel between 1050 and 1084 (let's skip 1095 for now) would still be better. These steels should be less expensive, they work just as easily as O1, but they are easier to HT well using crude methods such as torches and one brick forges. I wouldn't say 'no' to O1 but I still think you'd be better off with one of these other simple carbon steels ....

[samuraibill]

Originally Posted by Ray Rogers

That's how he got into the trouble he's in now, Bill. He bought a recycled spring but has no way to anneal it ......

Yeah but he bought third party through texas knife makers. What i was suggesting that if he wants to use that steel, pick it out himself at the spring shop. that way he could avoid the warped pieces.

[Crex]

Mike
Good advice above on trying other steels first time around. 1080 series are the easiest to learn and HT. Like, Ray I personally prefer O1 for several reasons. It's a pretty forgiving steel, but much more pricey.
Based on your comment that it came from Texas Knife (Supply?), the 5160 should have come in the annealed state and is probably just mechanically bent, not heat or stressed warped as in a actual leaf spring. You should be able to straighten it out in a vise with minimal effort. A couple of three normalizing cycles before you do the actual heat treatment should take care of any stress from the bending and should be done anyway to relieve the stresses from grinding/filing.

Study up before you get into the HTng part of the game. There's a lot of thermal physics going on in the process and it's different for different steels. IF you can handle HTng O1 to it's highest potential, you can pretty much HT any of the standard high carbon steels. Not as easy to nail as one might think.
As mentioned you can probably get decent results from O1 just bungling around the HT process, it does forgive you many sins. However, developing disciplined HTng procedures up front will make your progress in this game much more rewarding.

[Blkst]

Carl,

Thanks for the reply and advise...

After reading about 10xx and 01 steels I ordered some 01 stock. The 01 I ordered is annealed and precision ground. A little expensive but compared to some other hobbies
it's dirt cheap.

Also ordered Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised. I'll be limited to the primitive method of HT for a while and that seemed like a good book to start with.

I've made a pattern for a drop point utility knife and plan to go step by step through all the processes studying each step along the way.


With the 5160 I have ...can I heat it with a torch ( in the vise ) to straighten it normalize and anneal it... and it be good ? I have an idea I'll make a throwing knife with that steel any way.

Perhaps a good HT study...


Thank you again

Mike

[samuraibill]

Wayne Goddard's book is a must have. It was the first book that I picked up. Lots of useful tips. good luck.

[Crex]

**With the 5160 I have ...can I heat it with a torch ( in the vise ) to straighten it normalize and anneal it... and it be good ? I have an idea I'll make a throwing knife with that steel any way.**

Yes, you can heat and straighten with the assit of a torch (probably won't need it, unless it's thicker than 1/4"). While you might be able to effectively normalize the 5160 with a torch, you will most likely not be able to acheive a full annealling process. As you do more research and gain more experience, the difference in the two processes will become more obvious. I would only be concerned about annealing the 5160 if I knew it was a spring before I got it, which is not likely considering your source.
Normalizing is just good sense discipline whether you forge, file or grind. Wayne explains the whys and hows in the book you're getting.

Just a side note: While Wayne's approach in his book is low budget and low tech, keeping it simple and doable, it is far from "primitive". There is hard science behind all of it. Read carefully.

Above all enjoy the process, this is fun and challenging at the same time.

[Ray Rogers]

My take on it in my original post was that the 5160 was already a spring, i.e., recycled steel. It isn't warped, it's curved for use as a spring. I bought some 5160 from Sheffield's Knife Supply where this was the case so it seems just as possible that TX Knifemakers also had some.

But, instead of all this guessing, just put the 5160 in your vise and try to bend it. If you bend it - by hand and without heating - and it stays bent then it's annealed and you're good to go. Straighten it out and make a knife. But, I don't think it will stay bent, not even if you use a cheater bar to bend it. It's a spring and it's going to stay a spring until it gets annealed or forged.....