Forging 416 Stainless

[Lin Rhea]

I was told by a fellow maker that he forges his 416 down from large round bar to rectangular bar shape. He gave me some and I've been waiting till I needed it. Well, I had and orderf or alarge knife with an "S" guard with half pennies. I would hate to mill or file this thing to shape and waste all that metal so I heated it up and did what comes natural. I started with 3/8 X 3/4

   

I upset the bar to get my width but it still needed some more width, so I drove a chisel into the place where the slot was to be and spread it that much more. In other words, I needed the material I would otherwise mill or file away from the slot. I tried to not get the slit too big of course.

   

I shaped the top as much as possible ans then cut off the bar and turned it around and shaped the bottom of the guard.

   

It took a lot of hand work to flatten the two faces and get it to fit the blade, but I got er.

This a cell phone shot of the guard on the blade. I should have better photos soon.

   

[DANA HOLMAN]

That is amazing, very nice knife Lin, glade to know we can forge 416, I guess you can do brass the same way, right?
Dana

[gables]

Did you just let it air cool after forging? Any normalizing, annealing, hardening, etc?

[Lin Rhea]

Brass is a nonferrous metal. 416 is ferrous.

You can shape brass with heat and hammer, but you cant do it the same as any steel. It has heat ranges and if you get out of it bad things happen. But it can be done hot. I sometimes forge it cold briefly, then heat it to red and quench it. That softens it for some more cold forging. Very little at a time.

[Lin Rhea]

That's a good question Gabriel. I was new to forging the stuff. So, I am not sure, except what I did. I will say this, while I was forging it red, it slipped out of the tongs and flew across the shop and landed in a bucket of water. I sure thought I may have cracked it, but no, I just heated it up and kept going. When I was done, I left it in the forge with the door shut to cool slow. It seemed a little harder to mill and file than if it came right off the bar. So, it probably could use a full anneal.

[Kevin Evans]

Great job Lin,I was told that could be done but don't have enough corage to try that.Bet it was hard to hold in the mill to cut slot??
Very nice knife by the way.

[Lin Rhea]

Kevin,
        You get brave when you dont have any choice.  :D  Yes, I barely milled it just to drift things toward straight, then filed it to fit.

[Steve Nuckels]

Good info!  Aweinspring knife too!

Interesting that the guard landed in the water bucket!  If that happened to me, I probably would not have found it until I was shifting through the ashes where my garage once stood!

I really like the pic of the guard in the forge.

Steve
--------
Potomac Forge

[kbaknife]

It'll air harden like a big dog.
Not all that much different than using 440C or something like that.
Afterward, just give it about an hour soak at 1350 and let it cool off in the oven over night. Then you can do whatever you want to it.

When you were forging it red it wasn't up to austenizing temp and that's why it didn't crack in the water. You'd need to get it up to about 1800+ and then it might have shattered into tiny pieces!!

I was going to ask to see the whole knife - which I know is cool - but I understand.

[Lin Rhea]

Thanks Karl. I guess that would explain it. I'll remember that next time. I should have known, but never dealt much with the heat treat side of stainless. I'll have a picture from Chuck soon and post it. This knife is a big rascal. 12 inch blade and 2 1/2 inch wide.

[Idahomike251]

Wow, Lin, you rock!

[Bobby Urban]

Awesome knife - again!

I forged a piece of stainless round stock 1/2" into a serving fork and found it worked pretty easy.  I worked it pretty cold(relatively speaking) because I had no idea what I was doing and did not want to damage the "stainless" part of stainless if that makes sense.  I have no idea what the exact composition of the steel is, just some stock we have at the shop.  I also knew I did not need to HT it because it was just a fork so I just gave it a try.  It turned out pretty well and I will certainly use it again.