Subject: Re: Stainless steel forging

From: [email-masked] (James Batson)
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 06:51:02 -0500

Stainless steel that has been forged must be heat treated, passivated and
polished to maintain its stain resistance and strength.  See Carpenter
Steel Handbook on stainless steels.

I have found that it is not pratical to forge large pieces of stainless steel.

First, stainless steel takes longer to heat up.  Second, it has a narrow
forging temperature range and resists the hammer.  Thirdly, it cost to
much.  And lastly is to much trouble to clean up and polish.  Besides I
don't like shiny metal.

Shiny metal has no character.

There is one exception, forged stainless steel jewelry.  Jewelry is small
and can be polished without to much effort. Light and dark provides
contrast and interest.

Unless you are experienced, stay away from stainless steel in the forge.
However, if you are an armchair smith, you can discuss it all day.

Enjoy life

You will not enjoy life with stainless steel.

Jim

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From: Ralph Snel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:35:24 MET

> You will not enjoy life with stainless steel.
Look at it from the bright side: do some SS, and learn to appreciate normal
steel a _lot_ more.
I kinda started that way, got myself a nice piece of steel, just perfect
for knife blades, according to the specs. It just happened to be highly
alloyed, and very hard to forge. When I got my hands on some plain iron/
carbon/nothing_else steel, I thought there was something wrong with this
steel...

Happy hammering,

Ralph Snel
[email-masked]
Sweden

PS: besides, you can't burn a nice black linseed oil finish into a piece
of SS...

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From: "Szucs" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 09:43:56 -0500

> You will not enjoy life with stainless steel.

	I guess I can pretty much agree with everything here.
	I once did a fair amount of work with 440C when I was
	raging through my monster switchblade project.  Turned
	out my skill was not sufficient to forge it well (blanks
	came out looking like... oh never mind) so I resorted to
	grinding.  Heat treatment also was a learning experience.
	440 needs a good long soak before it gets up to snuff. I
	also found that it's a major pain in the ass to work cold.
	Beat the hell out of a LOT of sawblades trying to cut
	blanks.  It's also very hard on files. Very frustrating.

	I have a lot of respect for the ability of those smiths
	that forge 440 well.  There's a smith down in Georgia or
	one of the Carolinas... Frank something...  About 10 years
	ago at the New York knife show he showed me a stainless
	steel damascus bowie blade he forged up.  Very impressive,
	particularly given that he said it wasn't a very difficult
	thing to accomplish.  My eye.

	-Andy V.