New carbon steel for forging/toolmaking?

Re: New carbon steel for forging/toolmaking?

Jim in Burlington On

>If your going to make plane blades and other sharp edge tools for woodworking I have bought some 1095 high carbon steel from the Metal Supermarket. It's fairly easy to heat treat. I use a toaster oven to heat treat it and a old electric frypan with oil to heat treat 01.

Re: New carbon steel for forging/toolmaking?

Fred Krow

>I checked several sources for O-1 tool steel, your price is competitive, most are higher for squares or rounds.

Tool steel is in short supply commercially and the prices have jumped 3x to 4x in the last year.

You will pay additional for flat ground stock, try and find a source of cold drawn squares or plate cut to your size requirements.

I agree in investing into the correct steel for quality and then you are certain of the heat treat temperatures.

Regards,

Fred Krow

Steel prices are going north

jim reed @ tallahassee

>quickly!! Maybe related to energy costs or demand or both. Either way O-1 is way up from last year.

Re: New carbon steel for forging/toolmaking?

Thom D

>The first thing you can do to lower your O1 cost is to buy wider stock. You will find at most suppliers that the O1 prices rise marginally by width, not in direct relationship. So if you buy a 4 inch wide piece it might only be 20 dollars more. Of course you have to be willing/able to cut up the wider stock.

If prices keep rising, maybe you should consider forge welding your cutting edges to iron. If you keep your ears pricked you can usually come across people who trip over very special iron, and they parcel the stock up to the comunity. Unfortunately I can't take advantage of these deals since the cost to Can is too high, but in the US, nice grainy iron seems comon.

E-bay

Bob Hackett

>

Re: Steel prices are going north

Dave Anderson Chester, NH

>I buy a fair amount of 0-1 tool steel for my toolmaking business. Most tools steel is made from reformulated and refined scrap smelted and altered to meet the specific properties of the required grade. The tool steel makerss are comaratively small steel producers and don't have the facilites of the majors like US Steel. This is done to save energy (cost) and make life easier for the producer. With the increase in exports to China of most of our scrap, the tool steel makers have had to compete and pay far higher prices for the scrap they use to make the tool steels. Add into this all of the other price increases for energy, transprotation, and general overhead and you can see why prices have gone crazy over the past 2-4 years.

Re: source new carbon steel

George Allchin

>Hi

I work in a tool and die dept in a factory and you would be amazed at how much tool steel is thrown away by us. We occasionally (everyday) scrap toolsteel blocks and plates 1x6x6 and larger when a drill breaks off or a cutter gouges it.

I would suggest that you stop in to a tool & die machine shop and make friends with the owner or foreman. Tell him that you are only wanting tool steel scrap for use in your hobby etc....

George in Lowell, Michigan's springtime

Re: Steel prices are going north

Thom D

>That is interesting, as a cause. Still steel is not a scarce resource and eventually it should stabilize. It seems as though tool folks are getting wacked in the micro environments like scarp 5016 and stuff we used to have countless tons of is drying up. Also, chisels that cost 50 bucks have a dollar or two steel in them at best, so it's still a makers game.

I started buying CR relatively recently and have always been impressed with how cheap it is compared to the alternatives, while everyone else is complaining about the price increases.