question about steel

[TroyH]

I'm pretty new here, which will be obvious by my question.
Anyway, I've heard that lawnmower blades and leaf springs make pretty good knife steel.
Is that true, and what kind of steel do you think they are made of (ie 1095 and such)?

[sticshooter]

Not sure about lawn mower blades. but older leaf springs are mostly 5160.

[KHALVERSON]

troy
not all lawnmower blades are created equal
i had a pretty good stack here untill i checked them to see if they would get hard enough for a knife
out of 11 blades i only found 3  that were going to be of any use
kevin

[stickytoes]

How did you check them?

[KHALVERSON]

stickytoes
i heated to nonmagnetic in my forge and quenched in water then put them in the vice and smaacked the quenched portion with a hammer if they only bent and did not break  i threw them out
i had a couple of blades that started pretty soft and didnt get any harder after the quench

[hova]

some lawnmower blades are very cheap , others are very hard steel. if yorue just getting into this , i would stick  to leaf springs. they are almost all hard steel.

old files work great without much forge work , and ive made some from old combo wrenches that were actually tool steel , not chrome vanadium. im not really a metal smith , but i do mess with a little forgery here and there.

if youre short on cash for a forge , you can make a lakota fire and do it that way.theres also cheap ways to do it , popular mechanics just had an article last year on making a forge out of a steel wash sink and a leafblower if i remember correctly...

khalv : im surprised to hear you quench in water. i dont know anyone who does that , does it work better than oil quench?

you can also buy blanks , thats what i did for a long time. not the cheapest , but it saves you from building a forge...

[KHALVERSON]

hova
i only quench in water  to check if it will get hard enough to make a good blade from
i use the goop recipe outlined in wayne goddards $50 knife shop
i also use brine for my hawks and knives from railroad spikes