I’ve been commissioned by Josh stout to make him some custom palette knives if you are unfamiliar with him he is a rather famous painter and he wanted me to make him some, my ignorance twords such thing steel hinders me and I have no idea what kind of steel to use because it needs to spring back to it’s original shape after being moved dramatically 90 to 45 or so and the knife he gave me to use is about 1/32 inch thick how the heck do you get steel to do this while it being so thin and what kind of steel is the best, this is a wonderful opertunity but I am frustrated none the less.
Welcome @CherryRed! So this will be a little tricky. You’ll most definitely want a stainless material, I imagine, in order to prevent any sort of rust from repeated washing, etc. Then you’ll want carbon for flexibility.
This will be a test more in proper heat treating more than actual forging of any sort, of course - a proper heat treat of high carbon steel will give 90 degree bends that return to true afterwards. If I recall, this is how ABS (American Bladesmith Society) tests blades for master bladesmith - they will put a blade in a vise and bend it to 90 degrees. The blade must return back to true or else they don’t pass.
If I were in your position, I would heat treat a thicker piece of material (not down to 1/32) and surface grind down to the required thickness. It will be too volatile with that thin of steel. Heat treating a thicker piece will be easier to get a proper heat treat - but again, your heat treat is going to need to be spot on.
If I were in your position, I would bring in a few different types of stainless bars (not too big) to a heat treating facility. I built my own power hammer and that’s how I get my dies heat treated. You want it to be spot on, to a specified rockwell hardness, and they have all the equipment in order to make that happen.
Good luck! It would be nice to see some photos!
You can make them out of HD Hand saws, extremely flexible, a good quality hand saw SS second hand should not set you back to much, I am also sure some of the 250mm power saw blades would work also.
Sometimes the most outlandish idea’s are the game changer:
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