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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I have seen some decent knives made from truck leaf springs.
Is this an alloy which has adequate potential to be a good (economical) knife steel, if hardened and heat treated properly?
TR
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Good question and the answer is YES, spring steels, like 1095 can make good knives. They are very forgable and with just a little care can be field hardened and tempered using only the simplest of tools and fire.
I've seen video of full sized jeep springs made into big blades by heating the entire spring, hanger ends and all, over an open fire to orange heat and hammered over a set chisel make the rough cuts then forged to a finished blade. All this with a fire, hammer and crude anvil.
Be careful where you park your jeeps.
If your trying this yourself and in doubt of exactly what steel you have, make a test piece from the steel, heat it up so a magnet no longer sticks to the surface (good indicator of transformation point in simple hardenable steels) and try quenching in warm (100-120 F) 20 weight oil rather than water to minimize the chance of cracking. If it gets hard enough to become difficult to file then the oil quench works. If not try water quench next. If neither of these work, do not proceed with this steel.
Always temper simple tool steels for at least an hour or two at 300-400 F after hardening.
A knife blade can be forged to usable net shape without grinding and made excellent by some simple draw filing.
Yes I've done this before with good results. No real shop needed only some simple tools.
I just received a hard use brush and wood cutting knife from Taiwan, made by an indigenous traditional knifemaker there from leaf spring steel. The knife is very well made and a nice example of direct craft with the file marks part of the design.