Forgers vs. Stock removers

[GyutoGyutoGyuto]

This thread is a tangent off of something that came up in the comments of my recent post on the lore of awesome heat treatments and I’ll throw it into a new post here so as not to get too off-topic in the other thread.

Forging means the steel/iron is heated until it is plastic then shaped with a hammer. Stock removal means a steel blank that is roughly the thickness of the finished knife is shaped using grinding to its final dimensions and geometry.

Forged knives are usually ground to some degree for final shaping. It is a mark of technical skill (and willingness to invest time) to get closer to final dimensions in the forging process.

Both methods can produce high quality knives but forged knives are seen as having a more artisan quality probably because it is an older technology. Stock removal, though it certainly required a great deal of craftsmanship, is only possible with the advent of modern commercial steel production. Today, you can purchase sheets of high carbon steel ready to cut and shape. Something that was technically not available say 1oo years ago.

There are some technical/quality considerations but they can be pretty esoteric. For example, when steel is repeatedly heated in the forging process, carbon can be lost in the process. If I understand correctly, 1084 carbon steel is manufactured for forge use so that the end product behaves more like 1080 steel after the loss of carbon. (0.84% carbon to 0.8%)

Amongst the kitchen-knife-user geekdom, there seems to be a higher level of respect bestowed on the forgers over the stock-removers. Knowing little factual information about this, my gut feeling is that forging would be waaaaaay harder to master (and create high-quality blades) than stock removal, and it would take a lot longer to make a knife using this method (and have a higher loss rate). No doubt there’s way more involved in stock-removal than I realize—I don’t know s#*t. I'm guessing that once the basic profile and thickness are established, the grinding and subsequent steps are equally involved (i.e., they might require different methods but they might be roughly comparable in difficulty), but I don't know for sure. However you get the point where you start grinding, there's still a lot of work to do and in either case, it takes a lot of skill.

But to the clueless (e.g., me) forged blades do seem more artisanal and attractive in an old-school way and I’m drawn to that.

A perhaps not entirely accurate analogy might be with firing pottery in kilns—something I’ve been heavily involved with professionally for many years. In the uber-ceramics-geek community, there’s a certain high respect afforded those who fire their work in old-school wood-burning kilns, especially in Japan. Traditionally, temperature is judged by the color of the glow through a peephole in the kiln, requiring an incredibly developed skill in reading the color to an accuracy of just a small number of degrees. And the efficiency of the kiln atmosphere and its related oxygen content should be read not only by the length and color of flames and the amount and color of smoke, but by the smell. You have to learn to detect really subtle differences in the odor of things burning (or not burning) in particular ways at particular points during the firing. And then there are all the complexities of wood for the fire: wood type, size, curing-time/moisture-content, and different types and sizes of wood put in the kiln in different ports at different points in the firing for different purposes/effects. And so on.

It’s a little involved.

So I see this as being akin to forging a knife.

And I see stock removal (reminder: I know I don’t know s#*t) as… well, uh-oh, I feel another analogy coming on:

A modern gas ceramics kiln has a digital thermocouple to read the temperature and an oxyprobe to read the oxygen content in parts per million. It’s also programmable so you can pretty much load it, program it, do a couple of tweaks during the firing, and unload it with quite consistent results with a hell of a lot less work or skill necessary. Not saying you don’t need skills — you certainly do and it takes a while to get the hang of it, especially for non-standard firings — but they’re nothing like the years and years of training and experience it would take to load and fire an old-school Japanese wood kiln successfully.

How accurate or off-base are my analogies? (I think I'm really only talking about the point up until the grinding starts.)

And amongst the bladesmithing community, what’s the general feeling between forgers and stock-removers? Totally mutually respect or do the forgers look down a bit on the stock removers as, well, not exactly cheaters, but not exactly in their same weight class either?

And I’m guessing there are more than just these two ways to make a knife. So much to learn.

~j

[jacko9]

A little reading for your pleasure;

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/07/22/ ... al-knives/

[Jakeonthekob]

As a hobbyist knife maker, I can kinda get your analogies (I know nothing about pottery). In a sentence perhaps forging can be like going to the riverbed and making your own pottery clay, whereas stock removal is like buying premixed clay. I can see where you are going with different methods of firing, but in my opinion that is a direct ringer for different styles of heat treating a blade. Doing it old school with no temp probe, kiln, no nothing, just fire and your eyes OR the modern super repeatable way using a kiln, probe, etc.

Forging is more technical IMO the more you want to master it because you have to control temp and time very well depending on the type of forging you are doing and what steel alloy you are working with by eye and experience. Hammering skill is also important if you want to forge to final dimensions. Also, working with certain steels requires certain temperatures to forge easily while not destroying the material. Too hot would melt it or cause carbon loss, too cold will cause cold shuts or micro cracking. I guess that equates to your analogy of pottery firing requiring the right amount of heat to properly glaze or fire. After all that effort forging, you still need to do heat treatment and grinding/polishing and handle install.

I would say that old school style forging is pretty difficult even if working with just mono (one piece) steel. Add to that the complexity of ni-mai or san mai cladding and various factors come into play such as proper welding temperature and trying to reduce oxidation during forging as much as possible.

Stock removal which is what I do is a bit easier in terms of physical labor but there are materials you can work with via stock removal that you can't through forging or is not practical to forge. Many stainless steels require temperatures of about 2000 deg F to heat treat and they also air harden when cooled. So to get hot enough to forge, the moment you start forging stainless, it may also start to air harden because it cools from the hammer and air. For this reason, forging most stainless steels is not practical. But it can definitely be done. Look up stainless AEB-L damascus, people make beautiful stuff. But you won't see forged M390 or CPM S110V blades ever.

For myself, I look up to good blade smiths cause it is definitely more skill intensive than straight stock removal. As long as you have an electronic heat treating kiln or can send off a blade to get professionally heat treated, blade smiths will always have much more variety and possibility in their work compared to straight stock removers (cause they can do both).

[Bensbites]

I am about to venture down the stock removal pathway myself. When I fell down the kitchen knife rabbit hole a few years ago I thought it make sense to work backwards. I have been rehandleing knife for a while, check. I recently reground a few thicker blades and really like how they performed, next up stock removal.

The remaining areas to tackle are heat treatment, forging a blade and pattern welding a billet. As a small scale maker, I can’t imagine I will be worth investing in fancy heat treat ovens. Some backyard HT is possible, but I gravitate to more complex steels. Plenty of blacksmiths sell billets of pattern welded steel, these would require expensive forges and presses to make.
The one limitation to a stock removal knife maker that I can think of is making an intergral blade where the bolster is forged as part of the blade. This can be a sign of craftsmanship and an artisanal story.

[GyutoGyutoGyuto]

A little reading for your pleasure;

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/07/22/ ... al-knives/

Very informative, thanks!

The summary:

Virtually all steel used in knives has been forged, so it doesn’t necessarily make sense to differentiate between knife steel as “forged” or “not forged.” The steel has been reduced by a great amount before the knifemaker ever sees it, whether the final knife is produced by forging or stock removal. Forged and hot rolled steel has elongated features such as sulfides and carbide bands which gives steel directional properties, sometimes called the “grain” of the steel, which is not the same as “grains” in steel. Because of the grain direction there may be some cases where forging to shape can lead to better resistance to fracture of the knife. However, in most cases forging of the blade does not affect the tip or edge toughness. The literal grain structure of the steel, however, is affected by forging, and the grain size is easily increased at the high temperatures used for forging, which is undesirable. Grain refinement heat treatment cycles are necessary to return the steel to an appropriate grain size. High alloy steels, not typically used by forging bladesmiths, have many carbides present at forging temperatures which help prevent grain growth. High alloy steels also have more potential benefit from forging because 1) carbide structures can be refined by forging with a hammer at appropriate temperatures, and 2) the increased carbide banding means that forging to shape to modify grain orientation has more effect. There are other reasons to forge, however, including the production of Damascus steel, curved blades, integral bolsters, and enjoyment from forging knives.

[GyutoGyutoGyuto]

In a sentence perhaps forging can be like going to the riverbed and making your own pottery clay, whereas stock removal is like buying premixed clay.

This is totally the better analogy -- I can believe I didn't think of it.

EDIT: Apologies for going slightly off-knife-topic here with all the pottery talk. I think this sort of thing is a phase we all go through when trying hard to understand something really complicated and new to us -- we try to relate it to what we know best in order to make sense of it. It'll pass.

Traditionally there was no such thing as a commercially prepared clay (aka "clay body" containing sand and other things besides clay that affect the vitrification temperature, melting point, plasticity, absorption rate, look, etc.). You went out to nature to a clay deposit and dug it out along with some other things to make your clay body. These ingredients are heavy and it's a lot of hard, physical work to get all the materials, haul them back to your shop, and then work them into a functional clay body. Plus, optimally, it has to be aged and in Japan, the clay you used at your family pottery would have been made for you by your ancestors from three generations back.

Then there were some intermediate steps through time before getting to the point where we are today, where here in California and many other places in the world you can order a ton of commercially prepared clay (of consistent quality and characteristics), ready to go, from a supplier and have it delivered directly to your studio.

I know A LOT of potters and only one of them gets/makes all of their clay the traditional way, so in that sense the analogy doesn't really hold (I'd be curious to know the percentage of professional-level knife makers in various countries that forge vs. do stock removal). While most potters have a half-bewildered respect for the guy, in the end he uses his clay to make bowls, plates and teacups, and for the most part the eventual user of these things will not care less where the clay came from. Except for the real pottery geeks -- yeah, they really know and care, but not because of any inherent superiority in the quality (strength, toughness, functionality as a utilitarian vessel, etc.) of the work.

Bringing this back to knives:
The clay is just one part of the process and prepping it the traditional way is just a huge amount of work and a huge pain in the ass. While some enjoy this or see it as a necessity (through tradition or some mystical quality), there are so many other parts of the pottery-making process that are so much more enjoyable, and the end result is basically the same cup, so what's the point? Maybe that view would be akin to a stock remover's view of forging?

~j

[timos]

The making of Tamahagane would be analogous to making clay from a riverbed. 99.99% of knives being made with a forge are also starting from the same steel that knives being made by stock removal are.

[cedarhouse]

The making of Tamahagane would be analogous to making clay from a riverbed. 99.99% of knives being made with a forge are also starting from the same steel that knives being made by stock removal are.

This is what I was thinking about. I think the rabbit whole gets deeper and deeper. I would guess 98% or more of all knives produced are basically stock removal knives. In the JK community, that number probably falls quite a bit but 50% would still not surprise me. Even if you only consider the knives that are forged, most of these are using the exact same stock material the stock removal guys are using.

And what about repurposed steels like saw blades and truck leaf springs?

Do we also distinguish between guys that use power tools like power hammers, electric grinders, or blowers for coal fires? If there is something artisanal about a more primitive production process, does that imbue the end product with higher esteem?

And heat treat. Modern heat treat ovens can use micro-controled, thermocouple monitored, highly scheduled heat treat programs. As I understand it, molten salts are basically a super dangerous version of sous vide.

I think this is an awesome line of inquiry but in some measure it comes down to what causes you to add perceived value to an end product that is functionally interchangeable with another, presumably cheaper product?

That is a hard question to answer. For example, I really value the idea of all these things, but I've never anted up and bought a Tamahagane knife or a differentially hardened, handmade honyaki. It is a huge price barrier to overcome. I could do it, the accumulated value of my current collection exceeds the going rate for one of each of these, yet the knives I own (and are generally disinterested in selling off) use one or more of these "shortcuts."

[timos]

I have come to view forging and stock removal as simply different skill sets a knife maker has to create an end product.

So basically what I am trying to say is there is nothing inherently better about a forged knife than a stock removal one. Its just that forging might be the best "tool" for the job depending on what you are trying to do. A great example of this is knives with integral bolsters and mosaic damascus blades. It would be ridiculously expensive to make/purchase a billet of steel thick enough to make one using just stock removal. You forge it as close to shape as you can and then use stock removal to finish it into a knife.

[turko]

Real noob question. When you say "stock remover", are these people who use laser cut construction?

[salemj]

As a hobbyist knife maker, I can kinda get your analogies (I know nothing about pottery). In a sentence perhaps forging can be like going to the riverbed and making your own pottery clay, whereas stock removal is like buying premixed clay. I can see where you are going with different methods of firing, but in my opinion that is a direct ringer for different styles of heat treating a blade. Doing it old school with no temp probe, kiln, no nothing, just fire and your eyes OR the modern super repeatable way using a kiln, probe, etc.

Forging is more technical IMO the more you want to master it because you have to control temp and time very well depending on the type of forging you are doing and what steel alloy you are working with by eye and experience. Hammering skill is also important if you want to forge to final dimensions. Also, working with certain steels requires certain temperatures to forge easily while not destroying the material. Too hot would melt it or cause carbon loss, too cold will cause cold shuts or micro cracking. I guess that equates to your analogy of pottery firing requiring the right amount of heat to properly glaze or fire. After all that effort forging, you still need to do heat treatment and grinding/polishing and handle install.

I would say that old school style forging is pretty difficult even if working with just mono (one piece) steel. Add to that the complexity of ni-mai or san mai cladding and various factors come into play such as proper welding temperature and trying to reduce oxidation during forging as much as possible.

Stock removal which is what I do is a bit easier in terms of physical labor but there are materials you can work with via stock removal that you can't through forging or is not practical to forge. Many stainless steels require temperatures of about 2000 deg F to heat treat and they also air harden when cooled. So to get hot enough to forge, the moment you start forging stainless, it may also start to air harden because it cools from the hammer and air. For this reason, forging most stainless steels is not practical. But it can definitely be done. Look up stainless AEB-L damascus, people make beautiful stuff. But you won't see forged M390 or CPM S110V blades ever.

For myself, I look up to good blade smiths cause it is definitely more skill intensive than straight stock removal. As long as you have an electronic heat treating kiln or can send off a blade to get professionally heat treated, blade smiths will always have much more variety and possibility in their work compared to straight stock removers (cause they can do both).

I'm repeating a lot of what's above, but to slightly different conclusions perhaps.

I find this post to be very complementary to timos' post in the other thread. I'm not expert in metallurgy, but this seems to be another case where people might be confusing certain variables (as described by Jakeonthebok) as differences between "forged" and "stock removal," when in fact these are just differences - but real, tangible ones - between forgings. As timos points out, all the metal is forged at some point. But when using a hammer to forge a particular shape, san-mai construction and various heating and cooling methods are introduced that change the forging process from when it is done with more precise machines in industrial batches. These are actually "imperfections" in terms of a recipe, but for some, the results may produce something "different" that is automatically equated with "better." Furthermore, I would guess - and it is a guess - that as Jakeonthebok describes, it is much easier to have a greater variability between the outer and inner steels when using a hammer and repeatedly re-heating and cooling the blade when forging by hand than it is to get these (sometimes desired) variabilities with industrial steels using more consistent lamination processes.

To me, this problematic slip from "different" to "better" relates to cultural conditioning more than actual function. Flexible knives and thinner knives are associated with cheap stamped knives. And stiffer, more robust knives that are harder and feel crisper on the board are associated with higher quality, just as most of us in the West associate a full tang with higher quality. Honestly, I think this is the difference between what people would automatically say about a Konosuke HD versus a stock-removal blade made by a custom maker: the custom is likely to be thicker at the spine and around the grip, providing a greater sense of weight and stiffness, and if the owner doesn't realize it was made from stock removal, they probably assume (due to the price and heft) that it is somehow "better" in terms of its heat-treat and forging than the HD...when in reality, metallurgically and in terms of cutting the profile and shaping the grind, it could be identical. But if you are used to using your knife rough and slightly dull, like a hammer or an axe or...like a German knife after a six hours of prep before shift switching to service...then you are probably going to value the familiar feeling of heft and bite regardless of other qualities; similarly, if you are trained to value precise cuts with the sharpest possible edge, you may prefer a very thin, light knife that takes and holds a killer but delicate edge, and a bigger forged knife - no matter how great - would feel wrong. But the wrong knife in either person's hands and it feels "cheap, not as strong, not as refined, bad for the job, inferior, etc.," when, in fact, these judgements have nothing to do with the quality of forging so much as they have to do with the intended function.

[salemj]

Real noob question. When you say "stock remover", are these people who use laser cut construction?

Not quite. Based on my understanding:

When you "forge," it is assumed that you are also shaping the geometry. So even before a knife is ground, it has a knife-like shape and geometry. This still needs to be cut into the shape of a knife, though (here, shape means "outline" of a knife). For this, you can use anything: a press, a grinder, or a laser-cutter.

When you use stock removal, you are taking a straight, flat billet and doing all of the grounding and shaping by removing steel rather than hammering it into a knife-like geometry first. But you have to cut that knife out of the flat steel first. So, you can use a press, a grinder, or a laser-cutter, and so on.

Nowadays, many smiths (most Japanese smiths, even) combine these two: they by a billet that is pre-laminated, but then they shape it a little bit using a hammer before it is ground, often adding cosmetic florishes. In most cases, these individual knives are cut into the shape of a knife using a mold/press, probably because it is cheaper and easier when doing one knife at a time (and in communities like Echizen, they can actually share these machines with one another, reducing costs further).

But when using larger sheets of rolled steel, it is easier and more cost effective to use a laser cutter that can move across the steel and cut multiple blade shapes out at once before removing stock, etc. You can laser-cut any blade, but I believe it is more commonly used on steel that is already rolled to the intended thickness of the knife, i.e., knives made from pure "stock removal" rather than billets that are first hammered a bit thinner. This also makes calibration easier: a laser cutter will intuitively work best if the starting size and shape of the steel to be cut is always identical, which is not the case if you hammer something out first into a wedge shape with a spine side and an edge side. Because of this, "laser cut" is confused with "stamped" or "stock removal," when in fact, they do not needed to be related to each other at all.

I could be way off, here, but this is definitely my understanding now after years of being mislead by people implying laser-cut knives were somehow laser-ground, which is not true in any case I've ever come across.

[Kalaeb]

The making of Tamahagane would be analogous to making clay from a riverbed. 99.99% of knives being made with a forge are also starting from the same steel that knives being made by stock removal are.

If there is something artisanal about a more primitive production process, does that imbue the end product with higher esteem?

I think this is an awesome line of inquiry but in some measure it comes down to what causes you to add perceived value to an end product that is functionally interchangeable with another, presumably cheaper product?

That is a hard question to answer.

I don't think it is a hard question, it really all comes down to audience. The person looking for the best possible knife at the cheapest cost will always lean in one direction, those looking for something more artisanal/handmade are a different audience.

IMO, where the lines really get blurred are when a non-JS or MS stock remover/knife maker is asking as much as a MS bladesmith it really devalues the amount of time/energy and skill that goes into blade smithing.

[jacko9]

Interesting discussion and it reminds me of back in the 1950's when I was in trade school viewing movies from steel mills. Steel vendors hot or cold roll from a billet as poured to a final size demanded by the customer. Bridge builders want large girders vs wire makers that want the steel rolled down to final gauge size. Forging became important when manufactures made products like crank shafts where it was much cheaper to hot form a blank to a near net shape rather than machine one from a large diameter bar. There is a whole lot to it than machining time but weather its bar stock, plate stock or cross rolled plate stock each with different properties to suit the final product being produced. For knives producers buy prelaminated material as flat rolled (hot or cold rolled) or cross rolled plate brought down to the desired thickness. The mechanical properties across the plates are pretty uniform and after heat treating it will reflect the properties in the final product. For a forged product the amount of steel reduced at a given temperature will highly influence the properties in one or multiple reduction stages and properties can be had across the final product depending on the forgers skill. What I found interesting in the discussion of forging vs other methods to get to final shape is the influence of impurities in the steel and their micro effect on the final product. For more discussion on forging methods see; http://www.cashenblades.com/images/arti ... wdown.html

[timos]

Real noob question. When you say "stock remover", are these people who use laser cut construction?

stock removal is removing material with an abrasive be it a sanding belt or a rock. forging is heating the steel so you can change the shape of it.

edit to add: even heating the steel is not necessary as many metals including steel can be cold forged

[whitehillsknives]

As a specialist blade producer, I can somewhat get your relationships (I don't know anything about stoneware). In a sentence maybe fashioning can be like going to the riverbed and making your own ceramics dirt, while stock expulsion is like purchasing premixed mud.

[Lloyd Harner]

while i have worked with W1 W2 1084 52100 as a stock remover most of the time we pick different alloys that are not as likely to be forged and that can produce performance greater then the "simple high carbon steels" this is not a dig at forging steels or makers but if im buying steel im buying the cleanest high performance grades. i use W2 and other lower alloy steels when i plan on using clay coating in HT. no matter what grade im using the HT will be tuned for the steel and be done in my computer controlled kiln. side note i have made integrals purely stock removal (just lots of wasted steel)

forging has its place integrals and Damascus being the big 2 the 3rd being the ability to "stretch stock" forging to shape and starting the bevels alows for less waste.
when asked about cost of steel i thinik XHP is around 20$ perr lb these day and even doing the best i can laying out sheets that i cut there is loss even before grinding. i more less calculate 50% loss of steel