Thread: Re-using Sheffield Steel?

I think if I needed to make a new razor out of a bunch of old razors, id do a canned sanmai construction. with as thin as the ground portion of the old razors are, I think you would lose that steel almost immediately if you were to try to a forge weld them to scale. then there is not knowing what the old razors were and how to heat treat steel from them.

so I would make a can, then pack as many old razors as I had in that can, and then fill it with 1084 powder, weld a lid on, and then forge weld the can. then peel the can off, and forge the billet into a bar, and then forge weld that bar onto each side of a piece of known, clean 1095, and then make the razor from that. that way you would have the coolness of the old razor steel, with a known clean edge steel that you know how to heat treat.

I have not played with smelting steel so couldn't tell you how to do that. closest ive come to playing with that is melting iron and casting it.

I have played with forge welded cable. and while it is cool to be able to take a piece of junk wire rope and turn it into a knife, I'm not all that fond of it. the pattern to me is sort of plain, and at the end of the day you spent all that time prepping the rope, welding it, forging it out, grinding, heat treating, finishing, ect..... and what you end up with is a chunk of steel that you don't know what it has in it. when you could have started the day with good, clean, known materials and have gotten known repeatable results.