Garden tool steel

[Lord Farquhar]

I have some old forks and stuff kicking about. Does any one know what steel forks etc are made from? can you for a knife from it?

cheers

[shing]

I suggest you try to file some, if the file cuts it easily, then its probably mild steel if its hard then you can use it.

[Lord Farquhar]

file test or just file the fork?

[Stuart Ackerman]

In New Zealand, South Africa, and Oz, it is claimed to be 1045. I have had a blacksmith mate forge a small knife out of a fork's tines, and I was happy with the end result. Cuts almost like O1 at 56 Rock. Sadly now residing somewhere in the garden!!

[narsil]

I suspect that they are made from a medium carbon engineering seel, equivalent to 1045 or 1055, and thus should be fine for knife making. The best way to be sure is to attempt to harden a small bit, hit it with a hammer and see if it shatters, or do a spark test.

quality garden tools are usually drop forged, really good ones are open die forged so they should be fairly good steel, they'd need to be a cut a bove mild steel to do thier job properly.

[Colin KC]

Yup, most of the old ones are good enough for knives, just give them a spark test or harden & break like Chris said