Bar Stock Calculatora free tool from KraftyQuote

A2 for knives

A2 is an air-hardening tool steel with 5% chromium: tough, dimensionally stable in heat treat (it barely warps), and slightly more stain-resistant than a carbon steel. It needs a kiln, foil and a plate quench, so it belongs to stock-removal makers with a heat-treat oven.

Heat treat at a glance

Good for	Camp and field knives, big stock-removal blades, woodworking and shop tools.
Forging	Forgeable industrially (1850–2000 °F) but not used by forging bladesmiths — it air hardens
Normalize	Do not normalize; buy annealed
Austenitize	1750–1800 °F, 30–45 min soak, in foil
Quench	Air or plates
Temper	400 °F twice → ~61 HRC; 500 °F → ~60 with more toughness
Working hardness	58–62 HRC

Typical shop values. Confirm against your supplier's datasheet.

Buying it

Precision-ground flat stock from 1/8 to 1/2 in thick, 1–4 in wide.

Cryo or a dry-ice bath after quench converts retained austenite and adds a point of hardness.
Not stainless: 5% chromium gives a little more stain resistance than 1084 or O1, and it will still spot.

Suppliers: New Jersey Steel Baron Alpha Knife Supply Jantz

Work out the bar for your knife in A2

Your knife

Method

Blade length

Blade height at ricasso

Spine thickness (finished)

Tang length

Tang style

Steel

Price per lb (edit to match your supplier)

$/lb

Advanced: cuts, tong hold & tang

Saw kerf

Charged once per blank. Changes how many blades a bar yields, not the stock per blade.

Clean-up allowance

The stub at each end you can't use.

Tong hold

Not counted until "Held at" is set.

Held at

Off by default: forging a knife, you hold the tang you just drew. Count it if you leave a stub, or forge off a long bar.

Tang height at the widest point

Tang thickness at the widest point

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.

Forged thickness

Forging to shape, then grinding the spine to size? Go one size up.

Calibration: fill factors & grinding loss

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.

Blade fill factor

Tang fill factor

Grinding/profile loss

Extra steel a forged blank loses to grinding and clean-up beyond forge scale — bevels, straightening, plunge, tang. This one doesn't show up on a kitchen scale with the finished knife: it only changes how much bar the calculator tells you to buy, not the finished weight. Calibrate it by weighing your own raw blank against the finished knife. Defaults to 25%, from one bladesmith's own weighed knife (256 g raw to ~182 g finished) — expect this number to move as more makers share theirs.

Buy this bar

Recommended stock

—

Stock per blade

—

Steel weight per blade

—

Finished blade weight

—

Steel cost per blade

—

Bar used

—

Minimum bar length

—

Bar length	Blades	Bar cost	Per blade	Left over

What this assumed

What should I charge for this knife? →

Steel is only part of the cost. Add abrasives, handle, heat treat and your time, and see the price that actually pays you.

or skip ahead and save it as a quote in KraftyQuote

Knives to make from A2

Camp knife1 1/2 × 3/16 in EDC / small fixed blade1 1/4 × 1/8 in

Questions

Is A2 stainless?

No — 5% chromium is well short of stainless. It stains a little more slowly than 1084 or O1 and much faster than any true stainless.

Free: the one-page stock size chart

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.