Calculator › Steels › 52100
52100 is bearing steel — 1% carbon, 1.5% chromium — and in the right hands it makes the best-cutting carbon blades on this list. It rewards good thermal cycling with a very fine grain and a fine, stable edge, and punishes skipping the normalizing with coarse grain and chippy edges. It is a second or third steel, not a first.
| Good for | Kitchen knives, hunters, bowies — any knife where edge retention and fine edge stability matter and the maker can control heat. |
|---|---|
| Forging | Up to ~2100 °F; stop at 1700 °F — grain grows fast if overheated |
| Normalize | 1700 °F 20 min, then 1460 °F 30 min, then a slow-cool anneal (KSN); or 1650 / 1500 / 1350 (NJSB) |
| Austenitize | 1500–1525 °F with a 15-minute soak — a kiln helps |
| Quench | Fast oil (Parks 50); a medium oil may work on thin stock |
| Temper | 400 °F twice → ~60–61 HRC; 300–350 °F for more hardness |
| Working hardness | 60–62 HRC |
Typical shop values. Confirm against your supplier's datasheet.
Flat bar 1/16–3/8 in at NJSB, 3/32–1/4 in at Jantz and Alpha; Jantz also sells 52100 round bar (1/2–2 in diameter, 6–12 in long) which forges into flat and is the cheapest way to buy it.
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, with care: a muffle pipe, a magnet, and patience for the soak. Many smiths do; a kiln makes it repeatable.
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.