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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 09-17-2012, 05:28 PM
Josh LeGoueff Josh LeGoueff is offline
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Cultivator blade steel

Hey guys, does anyone know what type of steel cultivator blades are made of? It's good steel, but I have a lot of it so it would be nice to know.
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  #2  
Old 09-17-2012, 05:48 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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How do you know it's good steel? Good for what? Good at being a cultivator blade, no doubt but good as a knife blade? Maybe. Possibly. Probably, or then again maybe not, sort of depends on when it was made and who made it.

Bottom line here is: no one can tell you with any serious degree of certainty and that most likely includes the factory that made it if you happen to know who that is. Best advice I can offer is to put it aside until you've learned enough about heat treating and made enough blades that you know how to test the steel with confidence and determine if it really is blade worthy or just as waste of time and energy ....


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  #3  
Old 09-17-2012, 07:12 PM
Josh LeGoueff Josh LeGoueff is offline
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I see what you mean. I figured it would work because they are designed to cut through earth and root and they need to take a beating. I have 4 blanks, maybe my best bet is to heat treat them and test them. It's all I got so I hope it works lol. If not then at least I got to practice. I plan to order some 1080 soon, then I know what I'm getting into when it come time to heat treat. Thanks for taking the time to help me out Ray.
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Old 09-17-2012, 07:54 PM
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If you already know how to heat treat and test them then you've got a fighting chance. That stuff is tough, as you pointed out, but knife blades need to be hard first and then tough. That steel may be capable of hardening more, or maybe not. Actually, I think there's a good chance it will be OK but not really any better than 1080. The sad news is, 1080 is so cheap that the fuel, supplies, and time you will expend on converting those blades will probably exceed the cost of buying the 1080 ....


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  #5  
Old 09-17-2012, 09:12 PM
Josh LeGoueff Josh LeGoueff is offline
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Oh, so 1080 it is lmao. I didn't think of it that way. I figured junkyard steel = less money but if it doesn't take to HT it becomes more than just time lost. I'll stop being a newb one day lol. I've never done HT, I don't have the equiptment to do it but I have done hours and hours of research. Once I get the equiptment needed I can start using what I've learned. Thanks again Ray.
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  #6  
Old 01-25-2013, 08:05 AM
chuckmc chuckmc is offline
 
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I got a question for you Ray, I'm newer to knife making than most Guys on here. I too have cultivator or disk blades. I did a test on a piece of the disk and a lawn mower blade. I heated both of them to non magnatic did a quench in oil. Bacon grease. I then placed each one in vise. I hit with hammer lawn mower blade bent to a 90 degree ther about. The disk blade broke like off. What does that prove. My opinion the disk blade will make a good knife. I would welcome other in put. I have searched this form for an answer to this question so I wouldn't worry anyone but couldn't find it. Thanks Chuck
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Old 01-25-2013, 09:47 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Well, it doesn't prove anything but it does indicate that the likelihood of getting a serviceable blade from the disc is pretty good. Lawnmower blades generally won't work well, they are made to bend easily (mild steel). Anyway, I bet it smells great when you quench in that bacon grease. You must eat a LOT of bacon to have that much grease around!

But, bacon grease can solidify which can be inconvenient because you don't want to quench when it's solid. And, it can catch fire fairly easily. You might want to consider getting some hydraulic fluid or ATF to use for quenching (assuming you're not ready to spend the money for some Parks 50 just yet) ....


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Old 01-25-2013, 10:55 AM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Once upon a time there was as fair chance that law mower blades were 1095, or something close. That experiment that you did quenching in hot grease doesn't rule it out due to a couple of things, both having to do with the shallow hardening of the alloy. First of all the warm grease might have cooled the steel too slowly for it to form martensite, the hard stuff increases wear resistance. The second is that the section of blade that you checked could have been too thick to quench harden, especially with bacon grease. Actually there are a couple of other flies that can get into the ointment.

You might not have gotten that piece of lawn mower blade hot enough. I know that you said that you got it to non-magnetic, but you actually need to get it just a little hotter to get the iron crystals of the steel to change phase. The other is that you didn't hold it long enough at heat to dissolve the carbon into the austinite to form martensite upon quenching. This is something that the cultivator disc wouldn't be bothered with, at least the latter issue, because of it's lower carbon content, assuming something like 1080 for an alloy. You just have to get it hot enough all the way through and quench.

I don't know if you have Wayne Goddard's The $50 Knife Shop where he talks of all the steel objects that you can repurpose into a knife blades. The list he gives in that book are out of date and he actually advocates the use of known steel, which he brings out in his other book, The Wonder of Knife Making. Do yourself a favor and get bars of known steel. As Ray said, they will be much easier to deal with. If the idea of taking an old steel something and turning into a knife really rings your chimes then put those discs and blades aside and learn how to deal with known alloys and come back to them later. You need to learn the finer points of knife making and heat treating first.

Doug


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  #9  
Old 01-25-2013, 09:55 PM
chuckmc chuckmc is offline
 
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Well thanks guys for the good advice. I will order me some 1080 as soon as I can. I also got some leaf springs that I've forged knives out of. My forge is run by a leaf blower with a damper in the pipe to slow the air down. It still burns way to much of my fuel or charcole up. I am making a smaller forge and using a hair dryer this time. It worked out today when I tested it out on my big forge. Wish I could get a old crank blower but not been able to and ones I found cost to much.
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  #10  
Old 01-25-2013, 09:57 PM
chuckmc chuckmc is offline
 
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Oh by the way I have both of Wayne Goddards books and the bacon greas I got stright out of his book. If I read it right.
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  #11  
Old 01-25-2013, 09:58 PM
thales thales is offline
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I guess the question is price of labor vs. price of materials. Cultivator blades need to be both tough and abrasion resistant, so they could possibly make a pretty good knife steel. But you don't know the composition of the alloy or how it should be annealed, normalized, stress relieved, hardened, etc. If you have lots of cultivator blades, and want to make lots of knives, you could always take a sample to an analytical lab and find the composition (which could cost a bit), then back track that to the alloy designation and find out how to heat treat, etc., that way. Or you could ask the manufacturer of the blades what kind of steel they use, and then find forming and heat treating recommendations. Maybe they can tell you accurately, maybe not.

If you have a bunch of scrap cultivator blades, you probably live in a farming community. There is likely to be an equipment repair guy within an easy drive who can tell you and show you a lot about that kind of steel. You have to backyard network that. Or you could spend quite a bit of time at your back yard forge and heat treating oven figuring it out on your own. If none of those work out, you would probably be better off just buying known steel.

But the back yard testing may be worthwhile anyway, like how to get good results from forge, anvil, quench, and oven. You can't fail to learn something, and that's the important thing here, isn't it? That post from chuckmc was informative. It's hard to tell if his steel is the same as your steel, but at least it tells you that cultivator blade steel, in general, can be hardened until it is brittle. Using a file for hardness testing could give even better information. Using small samples for temper drawing vs. hardness might be a good way to go. If you have plenty of time on your hands, that is.
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  #12  
Old 01-25-2013, 10:16 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Your post sounded like you had been reading The $50 Knife Shop. I tried a variation on "Goddard's Goop" early on too. Remember that he developed it primarily so that he could transport it without risking sloshing it all over the trunk of his car. A pot of canola or peanut oil will be a little faster. Some steels are so shallow hardening that you might need to quench in water or brine. I started out with some 1095 that just wouldn't harden in the "Goop" and I resorted to brine to get the job done. A fast commercial quenching oil might have gotten the job done too.

Doug


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  #13  
Old 01-26-2013, 07:31 AM
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Not all cultivator disc are "equal"....different mfgr-different specs even within the same brand name. Just be aware of that. They do make great birdbaths and campfire/grill woks with a little creative welding.
The hardening test you did just proved that you could harden the disc but not the mower blade with the technique you used, but that's all. I think Doug explained that quite well.
Labor vs time is subjective to the individual so you have to work the numbers based on your particular lifestyle and not someone elses.
I think a lot of us have used some of the techniques from WG's books, but you have to read "all" of the book. He pretty much says what has been said here. Can and will work in some instances won't in others and he's up front about that.
If you are having fun then have fun. It's an adventure working mystery steels, but you must be prepared for a lot of disappointing results and have a lot of "extra" time on your hands. If you have adequate tools and skills the time/labor issue is reduced appreciably.
I have mixed feelings about mower blades. I've talked to factory techs and the general consensous is that the modern composition (still seems to be a "Top Secret" issue) is a milder type of steel that will bend instead of break due to liability issues. This seems to be true for the homeowner type mower blade (BigBox if you will). Played around with the HT on a few just for grins and got moderate to poor results....mostly poor (even with a 1095 HT as Doug mentioned). Not saying you won't get good results with yours, just did not with the ones I tested.....again, they are not all made at the same place with the same specs.

That being said, I have done some pretty extensive testing of some comercial mower blades supplied by and for Husquvarna commercial mowers. These are serious blades. I ran several different HT approaches and found that they responded best to HT rec's that Aldo Bruno prescribes for his 1084. Spark test are also almost identical with just a subtle difference in color, but patterned the same. By no means definitive, just an indication. The test blades performed equal to Aldo's 1084, with a slightly better edge retention in the cuttting category. I have a few hundred pounds of these courtesy of a good friend that all have the same lot #. But alas, Husky has changed design and #'s to match their new mower models, so not sure what the new blades will yeild. May never get around to playing around with them. Husky is tight mouthed as well.
FWIW


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  #14  
Old 01-26-2013, 09:08 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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I also have a tub of Goop. But you said bacon grease and that's only one component of the Goop. It also contains paraffin and quite a bit of ATF. As has already been said, the point of Goop is that it will solidify so that it is easy to carry around. MY point was that it needs to be liquified before you quench in it even if your goop is pure bacon grease (dang! I'm hungry now)...


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Old 01-27-2013, 04:47 AM
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Think that makes you hungry Ray, I used to get used olive oil from a Greek resturant. Sure wish he hadn't closed! Who ever thought the process of quenching blades would lead to weight gain?


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