The Armour Archive

Could anyone direct me to an inexpensive source for carbon steel billets or flat stock? I'm intending to make knife blades with it.
Thanks

Welded or un-welded billets?

I like stacking up 20+ layers of bandsaw blade and pallet strapping---both usually free!

With a powerhammer you can use the resaw blades that are over 1" wide or wider and pair them with some hefty pallet strapping.

as for welded up billets I don't think they exist in a cheap form...

Thomas

The only local supplier i know is, um, in boston.

I scrounge most of my knife stock from things like suspension coil springs, anyway, but that stock's usefulness to knifemaking presumes that you have a forge set up -- not useful if you're doing stock removal. It also assumes you're OK with using speculative 5160, which you may or may not be.

You should google around for a steel supplier near you, but if you come up totally blank, McMaster-Carr has what you need. You will get dinged on shipping and cost; 1/2" bar stock of O1 runs about $40 for 6', plus shipping, and I think that's a little high.

Aldo at http://njsteelbaron.com/. A great place to get steel. Not really local, but he ships.

Jamie

Some times Ebay has deals on billets or carbon steel blanks.
If you ask around at different machine shops you might find scrap or damaged stock for cheap.
I know one smith that picked up about 400 mixed pounds of O, W, and A tool steels with 1 or 2 designations all bent,rusted or slight defect making them useless for a machine shop but prime for blade smithing.
Damaged drill rod it out there you just need to keep looking for it.

also look up a guy named kelly cupples. but aldo is a great guy to buy from too and polarbear pointed out. cant go wrong either way, and if they dont have what you need. you can always go lok up admiral steel, but it is hit or miss at times for their blade steels

Thanks, guys! Very helpful stuff! This should be a great start to get some materials.

You can also check scrapyards for discarded chain saw bars.

As long as you make sure they aren't the crappy laminated ones, you can get quite a bit of really decent knife and some sword steel from them for a couple dollars apiece.

I made dozens of knives and swords from chainsaw bars back in the day.

-Badger-

The old time knife makers use OCS steel, Old Chevy Springs.

Goto your nearest 4 wheel place, ask nicely. My brother works at 4 wheel parts, they have a guy to haul off the springs they take off vehicles for scrap. Give them one of the knives you made and I bet they'll let you haul off a couple springs.

we got 3 knives out of about 6 inches of one of the coil springs I got from y brother. 2 springs will last you a long time of forging.

Kelly Cupples octihunter insert proper symblo charter.net

Best prices I have seen, by a LONG shot

I'll vouch for Kelly Cupples as well, excellent prices on good quality steel!
Here are a few other places I shop for knife making supplies , that have all treated me well.
http://www.sheffieldsupply.com/
http://www.jantzsupply.com/index.html
http://www.riversidemachine.net/index2.ivnu
http://elliscustomknifeworks.hightempto ... npage.html
http://www.trugrit.com/
http://www.flatground.com/index.htm
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/index.php

Jens

I buy all my flat stock under 20inches from Jantz Knife Supply linked to above. Quite friendly, they have been lovely to work with.
While it is possible to make nice knives from old leaf springs, etc. (its how I started)... You will get more consistent, even, results with proper knife steel.