I would recommend 1084 to start. Forges nicely, heat treatable out of the forge for those who do not have ovens. Grinds and hand sands nicely, too. New Jersey Steel Barron is the place to purchase it.

Bob

Happy New Year Brion et al. Robert's advice above is both sound and fairly common. 1084 takes no special equipment or knowledge, and a beginner can produce a fine knife or other tool using this steel. Brion presents the most important advice about learning the steel and what makes it the best it can be. This applies no matter what steel you choose, or what level of craftsmanship you are at.

If you are new to forging, I do not recommend that you start forging tool steels or high-C steels at all, but start by forging mild steel to learn the basics of forging. There are loads of forging projects you can start to make and learn all of the basic forging functions that you need to know how to do, long before you attempt to make anything as demanding as a knife blade. I have seen too many beginning knife makers buy the blade steels recommended by experienced smiths because it was "forgiving" or "easy to forge", only to wind up making some sort of knife-shaped object or a piece of scrap because they didn't have the basic forging skills and were trying to learn them on what was inherently more expensive and less forgiving material than mild steel. By the time I made my first forged knife, I already knew how to fuller, taper, draw, spread, and go from square to round and back again. All by making coat hooks that I could sell for $15-$25 each. I also knew the mechanics of grinding a blade through the stock removal process. Only when I had the forging skills and the grinding skills at a competent level, did I think I was ready to start forging my blades.

When I started forging blades, I was introduced to 3 steels by my mentor: 1084, 5160, and O-1. Most folks do not recommend O-1 for a beginner steel, and I know why. It requires a higher forging temp than other steels and some specific processes to be the best it can be. However, not following these specific processes does not produce a low quality blade, it just isn't as good as it could be. The blade you produce will still perform mightily, when normalized, hardened and tempered properly.

I purchased all three of these steels and set about making small (4-6 inches) blades. I forged, heat treated, and broke several to see the grain. I flex tested the edges on a brass bar to see how it deformed. I finished the bevels by hand to 400 grit to see what the finished product would look like. What I learned about each of these steels eventually led me to choose O-1 as my primary blade steel. Don't get me wrong, I am not recommending that beginners go out and buy O-1 to learn on because they will end up there anyway. I am not suggesting that. I am only saying that before I chose O-1 (maybe it chose me?) I did the hard work of using three steels and learning what secrets they held.

Back then, I had precious few resources to learn from. Today's beginner has multiple sources of info available (some good and others not-so-good) to choose from. This is a web page that Kevin Cashen put together. It contains links to various steels and invaluable information about how to properly take these steels and turn them into a knife or other useful tool. (Now available on the ABS Forum in the ABS University section)

Oh, I almost forgot: Get it hot and hit it hard!

From my experience, over a lifetime of helping folks out with this sort of thing, what beginners need to remember is that just because you can forge it, or grind it, doesn’t mean you can heat treat it. The key factor to consider is what a “beginner” is likely to have in the way of equipment. Beginners normally have a lifetime if tool and equipment collecting ahead of them and thus will normally start out with the most basic of tools.

In light of this the number one rule to remember is- simple tools = simple steel.

The second one to remember is one of my favorite sayings- alloying changes everything.

I can’t count the number of times I have heard the stubborn luddite argument of “you don’t need all those fancy controllers and thermocouples, for thousands of years people made great blades without them.” But the problem is for thousands of years people used an entirely different steel than what we use- alloying changed everything. If you want to do it the way they did it 1,000 years ago, you need to use the steel they used, or at least as close as you can get, and that means as little alloying as possible. You will then have a good shot at the same result with the simple tools they had.

The third thing to remember is- steel, even in its simplest form, is a deceptively more complex and confounding medium, and it appears on the surface.

Never assume that because you approximate the appearance of success that you have tapped the full potential of the steel. This is where it is so hard to convince those thermocouple naysayers that you need tighter controls when working with more alloying, after all, they made knives from that alloyed steel that skated a file and cut like crazy. These standards are incredibly subjective and are guaranteed to change as they are exposed to other steels and other standards. Then there is consistency, I have seen some lucky tries that did make a pretty good knife and then watched that poor maker struggle for a couple of years trying to duplicate it.

If you want the best results possible, with all of your knives, right from the start, you really want to match your steel to your equipment and skill level. If you have a digitally controlled oven, just about any steel is on your palette to choose from, all you have to do is some research on working it. If you have a pile of charcoal/coal and a forge you whipped up in an afternoon, you really need to stick as close to just iron+carbon as possible. Chromium makes a steel harden in just about any quench, but it loves to torment beginners.

All modern steel has some level of manganese so just ignore it for the most part. This leaves the 10XX series as the ideal beginner steel that is as close to that steel that all those “great blades” where made from 1,000 years ago*.

Within the 10XX steels you then have carbon levels to consider. Steels with carbon levels <.8% have extra iron that needs to be dealt with. Steels with carbon levels >.8% have extra carbon that needs to be dealt with. Of the two the extra carbon will complicate things more for a beginner, with the extra iron being more forgiving. This is why I didn’t include the “W” series as they tend to have higher carbon with the very limited alloying.

But in simple steels there is a Goldilocks zone of carbon from .75% to .85% that will yield the best results with the least amount of effort and minimal tooling. So, at the end of this little tome I have posted to describe why I choose these steels, I choose- 1075, 1080 and 1084 as the ultimate beginner’s steel.

*here’s a dirty little secret- not all of them “great blades” from 1,000 years ago were all that great.

I have been at this for about a year now. I have been sticking with 1084 and have been testing it in my spare time. I would recommend 1084 to anybody with a forge for heat treating. I also bought "Kevin Cashen's guide to 1080/1084" DVD. If you have never have heat treated anything before I would highly recommend that DVD. I get my steel from New Jersey steel baron "Aldo". I leave in New York so shipping is cheap. I am soon going to get a heat treat oven so I can try some differnt steels so I can see how I like them. I have also givin some knives to just my friends to see how they hold up to make sure my heat treat is up to par before I even try to sell a knife.

Anyway I stongly recommend 1084 to anybody with a forge and Kevins DVD on 1084.

I had no idea I was a luddite.

That's what happens when you do this for a while.

9260 or 5160. It is simple to heat treat. Forgiving in the quench and its everywhere.

Will it make a superb cutting tool; not really superb but pretty dang good. It will make a much better blade than most beginners ability can get out of it.

The beginner is not going to get the utmost out of anything for several years. The process is much more important than the steel

Forge, grind, heat treat, learn.

For beginners and some luddites!

M

Yeah. What Mike said. 5160 is also easy to deal with especially with limited HT equipment and it is everywhere. I know we tend to dissuade beginners from using scrap steel, but used leaf springs are usually 5160 or something very similar. You can even get scrap leaf cutoffs from the spring shop that are brand new and all you would have to do is show up with a dozen doughnuts and ask politely.

|quoted:

I had no idea I was a luddite...

Don't feel too bad Mike, I myself have been called a luddite a few times. Some things I gave in on, steel has evolved a bit in the last couple centuries, on other things I will always be a luddite, like people should actually speak to each other, not type at each other with their thumbs while walking into traffic. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//wink.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

|quoted:

I have been at this for about a year now. I have been sticking with 1084 and have been testing it in my spare time. I would recommend 1084 to anybody with a forge for heat treating. I also bought "Kevin Cashen's guide to 1080/1084" DVD. If you have never have heat treated anything before I would highly recommend that DVD. I get my steel from New Jersey steel baron "Aldo". I leave in New York so shipping is cheap. I am soon going to get a heat treat oven so I can try some differnt steels so I can see how I like them. I have also givin some knives to just my friends to see how they hold up to make sure my heat treat is up to par before I even try to sell a knife.

Anyway I stongly recommend 1084 to anybody with a forge and Kevins DVD on 1084.

Thanks Jason, that is an incredibly kind mention and endorsement of the DVD. It was actually making that DVD that removed all doubt as to the beginner friendly nature of 1080 and 1084 steels. After about 5 months of staring at hundreds of samples, under the metallographic scope, that had been subjected to almost every combination of good and bad heats, I was surprised at the enormous margin of wiggle room there was beyond what I had already believed.

The flip side of that is the nightmare that the research for the 52100 DVD has become. For every thermal action there are dozens of possible reactions that this steel will have, and most of them are bad. I have about three months invested in testing and sampling and I am still only exploring forging and normalizing. The only significant difference between it and W-1 or 1095 is a little as 1.3% chromium and that is enough to bring my research schedule to a snail’s pace compared to the first DVD.

Iron carbide is basic and inherent to steel since man first made it, it is easy to dissolve and rearrange with just a minute or two in a forge flame. When other metals bond with carbon to make carbides it is on a much higher order of complexity and orneriness, requiring time at more precise heats to dissolve and move around. And you are not off the hook when you stop heating as those metals will steal that carbon back on cooling in ways iron won’t do to you.

Put me down in the 5160 camp for beginning forging for much the same as already mentioned in above posts. I've always considered it a great starting point and it is what I have introduced folks to over the years who have approached me about learning to forge blades.