Calculator › Steels › 1084
1084 is the steel to learn on. It has enough carbon to get hard, no alloying to make heat treat fussy, and it hardens fully in a fast oil straight from a forge heat. If someone tells you they made a knife that failed in 1084, the heat treat was wrong, not the steel.
| Good for | Hunters, camp knives, seaxes, kitchen knives, anything forged. The right choice for a first knife and for teaching. |
|---|---|
| Forging | Up to ~2100 °F; stop forging at 1500 °F. |
| Normalize | 1650 / 1500 / 1350 °F, 10–15 min each, air cool between (NJSB); or a single 1550–1600 °F normalize plus a 1400 °F cycle (Knife Steel Nerds) |
| Austenitize | 1450–1500 °F, 5–10 min soak |
| Quench | Fast oil — Parks 50. Warm canola works at 1/8 in but is the slowest common oil; expect lost hardness at 1/4 in |
| Temper | 400 °F, twice, 2 h each → 60–61 HRC; 450 °F → 57–58 for a chopper |
| Working hardness | 58–61 HRC |
Typical shop values. Confirm against your supplier's datasheet.
Flat bar in 3/32, 1/8, 5/32, 3/16, 1/4 in (NJSB also 1/16 and 3/8) by 1 to 2 in wide — up to 4 in at Jantz, 16 in at NJSB — in 12, 24, 36 and 48 in lengths.
Suppliers: New Jersey Steel Baron Alpha Knife Supply Jantz
Stock removal: the bar is cut to blade + tang + clean-up, so the tang section and forged thickness below only change the finished-weight estimate. Switch to Forged and they change the stock length too.
Tang dimensions are estimated from the tang style until you change them. Measuring yours is worth doing — a forged blank's length depends on the tang's cross-section, not on what the tang is called.
Stock removal: fill factors only change the finished-weight estimate here. They set the stock length when the method is Forged. Grinding loss has no effect at all in stock removal — the bar is cut straight to the profile, nothing is drawn out.
The fraction of the blade's and tang's bounding box that is actually steel once the bevels are ground. Distal taper is factored in separately now (see "Distal taper" below, under What this assumed) and isn't editable here yet — these two fill factors are the ones worth replacing with your own measurements: weigh a finished blade, then adjust until the finished weight below matches the scale.
Steel is only part of the cost. Add abrasives, handle, heat treat and your time, and see the price that actually pays you.
Copy link to this calculationYes — it's the standard beginner and production carbon steel for forged knives. It hardens easily, takes a fine edge and is tough enough for camp use. It will rust if neglected.
About 1450–1500 °F, just past non-magnetic, into fast oil. Then temper at 400 °F twice.
Bar sizes for ten common knife patterns, weight per inch for every standard flat bar, and quick heat-treat numbers for the usual carbon steels. Print it, tape it to the grinder.