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  #1  
Old 11-23-2016, 07:47 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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steels

Hey guys 2 questions about steel. first has anyone heardof this bright knight steel? when I was at the show I came across a few knives they said were made from bright knight steel. it has a very unique look almost like chome (slightly different but very similar) shinyer than even a polished knife. and unlike a polished knife it doesn't need to be flat and no grind scratches one was said to be ground to 120 grit and you could still see the scratch marks but like I said looked like chrome. I assume there has to be some sort of treatment after grinding to make this. the guy that made them wasn't at the table when I was there his son was and didn't seem to know to much but he did say its cause of this bright knight steel I did some searching online cant find anything about it maybe something new? any one ever heard of it?

second so you guys know I am building a traditional tanto ideally its a step towards doing a full size katana wich was one of my goals when I first started knife making (I thought in the beginning, yeh ill make one or 2 knives then make a katana...haha) anyway there were also 2 tables at the show of guys that make katanas both tables we basicly the same there were 2 guys "selling the swords" and the "master" was sitting there sharpening and polishing blades...it was funny both tables on opisat side of room were doing the exact same thing. well on one table I talked to the guy selling and on the other I talked to the guy selling and the "master" although his English wasn't great...(that was another theme there were a lot of guys from other country's that didn't speak good English) but anyway they all told me the same thing when I told them I was using 1084. they all said no if I am going to do it from a single steel use 1075 instead. ideally you forge 2 steels togather witch I am not going to try that yet as I don't have much forging experience but can anyone explain this why 1075? I though 1084 would be better for that than 1075? oh they also told me not to even go near 1095.. does any one have a idea why ??
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Old 11-23-2016, 08:20 AM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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"Bright Knight" sound suspiciously like a gimmick. I suspect it's something that has been chrome plated, and given a "catchy" name to make it more appealing to those who are less knowledgeable. Its sad, but more and more I see "knifemakers", especially at the amateur level, who use outlandish claims, and catchy names/words in an attempt to sell an inferior product.


I suspect the reason they spoke of 1075 over 1084 as it applies to a katana is the hamon. 1075 is much simpler to achieve a good hamon versus 1084. With a katana, one of the sought after characteristics is toughness..... all things being equal, 1075 will provide a slight advantage in toughness over 1084. Overall, 1075 just lends itself better to the traditional process of producing a katana.

I can't speak to the individual(s) specific reasons for not recommending 1095, but I can tell you that I DO NOT recommend 1095 to anyone, and do not use it in my shop/knives. What's not commonly known is that several years ago, industry quietly changed the specifications on 1095, and didn't make is publicly known. In order to make producing 1095 cheaper, they widened out the Manganese specs. The old spec was .30-.50, and the new spec is .20-.70. The upper end of that spec isn't a problem, but if you happen to get a batch/bar of 1095 with the .20 spec, you have less then one second on the time/temp curve to harden it....what that means is that you have less then one second to get the steel from it's critical temp, to less then 400F, in order to achieve full hardening. For anyone not in a lab type environment, that is physically impossible.

The way I discovered this info was from emails and phone calls from individuals telling me they could not get blades of 1095 to harden, and asking for my help/advice. After researching it, and talking to friends in the steel industry, I discovered the change in 1095 specs. There are still many folks using 1095, and still unaware of the changes in it..... I suspect that with 1095 many are not actually achieving full hardening of the steel, and are just assuming that all is good.


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Old 11-23-2016, 08:31 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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Thanks ed! ya know I was thinking the same thing...the fact I cant find ANYTHING online about it one way or another this guy probilly came up with this himself. you may be right about why he didn't recamend the 1095 stuff, I plan on working my way up to a katana over the next couple months all done in stock removal and hted with clay for a hammon and then if I am sucesfull at the full size then I will start forging and layering steel togather again starting small and working up. this way it will give me time to get more practicing forging and practice grinding something that long I don't want to do all the work forging and mess it up on the grind. so for now doing it stock removal I am going to order some 1075 I think and work my way up with that...its cheaper than 1084 too. not by much tho
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Old 11-23-2016, 08:44 AM
WNC Goater WNC Goater is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Caffrey View Post

I can't speak to the individual(s) specific reasons for not recommending 1095, but I can tell you that I DO NOT recommend 1095 to anyone, and do not use it in my shop/knives. What's not commonly known is that several years ago, industry quietly changed the specifications on 1095, and didn't make is publicly known. In order to make producing 1095 cheaper, they widened out the Manganese specs. The old spec was .30-.50, and the new spec is .20-.70. The upper end of that spec isn't a problem, but if you happen to get a batch/bar of 1095 with the .20 spec, you have less then one second on the time/temp curve to harden it....what that means is that you have less then one second to get the steel from it's critical temp, to less then 400F, in order to achieve full hardening. For anyone not in a lab type environment, that is physically impossible.

The way I discovered this info was from emails and phone calls from individuals telling me they could not get blades of 1095 to harden, and asking for my help/advice. After researching it, and talking to friends in the steel industry, I discovered the change in 1095 specs. There are still many folks using 1095, and still unaware of the changes in it..... I suspect that with 1095 many are not actually achieving full hardening of the steel, and are just assuming that all is good.
Ed, do you know if this applies to 1095 from the NJSB? I know he is popularly used and he focuses on blade steel. It would be really bad if he were producing 1095 with those characteristics and selling it for "blade steel".

That and...I have some 1095 from him. I have not noticed it not hardening though.


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Old 11-23-2016, 11:17 AM
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The ONLY 1095 that I would trust would be from from Aldo! That is IF he's still having it made to his own specs. I've not talked to, or ordered from him in a while, but at one time he was having everything produced in Germany, to his own specs., and having known Aldo for a long time, I doubt he would ever sell anything questionable.

The squirrely part about this whole 1095 thing is that everybody is still sending out the old spec sheets on the stuff, and nobody has publicly disclosed the changes. I suspect that it's because for the majority of industry, the change makes little difference in how they use 1095, but for knifemakers it can be a "make or break" type of thing.
I know when I fussed about it to my contacts in the steel industry, their response was... Knifemakers make up such a small percentage of steel sales that they don't really care what we want.


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Old 11-23-2016, 11:48 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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yeh I get all my stuff from him to everyting has been great but I haven't used 1095 so I cant speak on that. however if what you are saying about him having it all made for him I am not positive but I don't think it is true any more anyway because I know he uses diffent company's because for example all the cpm steels plus 154cm come from crucible however the 440 (at least the stuff I got from him a few times) was said to be from Latrobe. so that's 2 different manufactures right there I don't know about the rest of the steels but I would think if it was being made for him....maybe but I don't think its from the same place. like I said I cant speak for steel I haven't used but that what I was told when looking for spec sheets.

speaking of spec sheets any one seen any on this 1075 steeL???
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Old 11-23-2016, 11:55 AM
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Ed didn't mean Aldo had all the steel he sells made to his order, only the 1095.

Treat the 1075 the same as 1080 or 1084, do your testing and make adjustments as needed ...


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Old 11-23-2016, 12:56 PM
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Quote:
Ed didn't mean Aldo had all the steel he sells made to his order, only the 1095.
EXACTLY! To clarify what I said....IF Aldo is having a given steel produced, to his specifications, then I would totally trust it. It's up to each individual to find out for themselves if a specific steel type that Aldo is selling, is being produced for him, to his specifications, or if he is just purchasing the steel from a distributor, and reselling it.

It's difficult to quantify, but today, compared to as little as a decade ago, "good" steel is harder and harder to find. There are a LOT of outfits selling steel, who are selling "seconds" (usually indicated by a cheaper selling price then other places offering the same steel type).

Personally, I attribute this to the fact that for many applications "variances" are not a big deal. But, to a Bladesmith/Knifemaker, it's the difference between creating a quality blade, versus a failure.

As I mentioned previously, we as Bladesmith/Knifemakers are such a small percentage of steel buyers that what we want/need is generally ignored by steel producers.....their whole goal is to make money, and if they can get away with cheaper production costs, that don't affect the majority of their buyers, they are gona do it. It's the smaller percentage of buyers (read that as irrelevant) that it causes grief for.


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Old 11-23-2016, 01:31 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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Oh ok I had thought you ment all of his steel was made for him ....my bad.....thanks ray I was planning to do testing anyway as with any steel but needed a starting point
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Old 11-23-2016, 05:24 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Be aware that forge welding two dissimilar steels bars together to show a pattern is not the traditional way of making a Japanese blade. The bladesmiths started out with what they considered high carbon sections of a steel bloom, forged these out into wafers, forge welded these together, and then forged these out into a billet that was then folded back on itself as it was forged to remove impurities. The steel for the low carbon core or spine was formed in a like manner. After these two billets were formed they were combined in a number of different ways and then forged out into a blade. At the risk of starting an argument, mono steel blades are superior to forge welded blades. Forge welding does not produce a complete weld along the whole interface between the layers of steel.

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Old 11-23-2016, 06:41 PM
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From a quick web search it appears that Bright Knight is a line of swords - and a specific metal and HTing process - from Angel Swords. 'High carbon' plus a cryo treatment is all the detail I could find on exactly what Bright Knight is composed of. Interestingly, they do stock removal for their sword blades rather than forging ...


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Old 11-23-2016, 09:55 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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I'm with Ed on the Bright Knight steel sounding like it was plated especially since you could see the grind lines and it was still shiny. I've been to many a chrome plating shop and they polish the parts before plating, but don't if you tell them it doesn't matter. Could be silver plated or nickel plated or tin plated as well if you say it didn't quite look like chrome Dave. There are different ways to plate something too. They can copper plate and then chrome plate if the metal has other elements in it like nickel or even chromium containing stainless knife steels won't chrome plate without the copper plate first. They can also put a heavy coat of chrome onto a knife to hide those scratches, but it would be costly to do that and would crack if bent. I don't know if stainless would nickel plate, but a layer of copper would fix that too. Tin plating would be very bright too and would not look like chrome, nickel is not as bright, but would look closer to chrome. Silver plate would be brightest of all. It also wouldn't be hard to build your own plating tank either. Sounds like Ed said a gimmick.

A lot of sword makers use 1055, 1060 or 5160 as well as 1070. You see tomahawks made from 4140 as well with only 0.40% carbon in it. It tops out at I believe RC57-56 on hardness and tempers to 52. 4140 gets a little harder than 1045 does because of the chrome-moly in it. They are made for throwing and hardness isn't a big issue unless you want to chop wood too.
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Old 11-24-2016, 09:19 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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Doug. yeh I know the forge weld like a thousand lil pieces togather, but short of doing that I figured a high carbon and low carbon combination would be the best compromise and a lot of the sword makers today do it like that.

ray...that was also the first thing I came across when I looked for bright knight but that is not what I saw and the 2 knives that had this name were small knives. idk probbily some plate or something

jim...yeh I tend to think you guys are right mainly cause I cant find anything on them. the kid therewas saying like it was a certain steel but as I said he didn't make them his father did (who wasn't there) and he didn't really seem like he knew what he was talking about.

I ordered some 1075 I think when I get this tanto sized blade I will go up to a large wakisazhi or maybe even jump to a katana size however I think I am going to do it stock removal first just because I have never ground something that big so I would be priity mad if I did all the forging just to mess it up on the grinder. so ill do it stock removal then go and forge a small one and work up again....this will done in free time as there is a couple other things I have to do first so I work on this process when I have time in between....almost done with this tanto tho
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Old 11-24-2016, 10:40 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Sounds like a good way to go Dave. You don't want to jump into something new head first anyway. It's the way I'd do it. A 36 inch Katana is quite a challenge. I would perfect what you're doing now before tackling something that big. I have never made a blade that big outside of a machined blade for cutting paper. I have a fair Idea of the straightening hassle and it is significant. I had the advantage of a pin point TIG welder to apply heat well away from the edge to counter warp the blades plus years of warp repair experience. I've seen pictures of old swords and they all tend to be bent a little. It is very hard to get something that long hardened and straight. Good luck Dave if you decide to try.
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Old 11-25-2016, 12:53 AM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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The problem with using A36 for practice making any blade is that you can't really practice hardening and tempering it. It's got a bit of everything in it including chromed steel and electrical wire that was shredded with car bodies. The carbon content is also rather low and doesn't lend itself to making blades. The 1075 is not going to be that much more expensive.

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