# Steel straightness



## RRLOVER (Mar 15, 2012)

This is a newbie question.I ordered some cpm154 and it came pretty bent up.Does being a PM steel have any effect on trying to straighten the steel out,if I even what to try......I just hate to return stuff,such a PITA!


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## l r harner (Mar 15, 2012)

i had only found one place that had bent up cpm154 
i was forced to use it cause it was the last sheet i could find when crucible folded up 
you can lightly tweek it and get it how you want but you are many times jsut better off HTing it and keeping an eye on it then and straightening it at that point


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## Marko Tsourkan (Mar 15, 2012)

By the time I cut and profile blanks, some are not perfectly flat. I straighten by eye, sometimes I bang it a little bit on an anvil (gentle taps) and use a granite plate to check flatness.


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## mhlee (Mar 15, 2012)

l r harner said:


> i had only found one place that had bent up cpm154
> i was forced to use it cause it was the last sheet i could find when crucible folded up



Didn't Crucible reopen after being purchased following bankruptcy?


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## l r harner (Mar 15, 2012)

yes tthey did but it left me with a nearly 2 year gap of hunting steel till they got more out to the supply houses (i am now happy to be working with the XHP steel and the great folks at cartec tho i have to buy from SB metals )


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## mhlee (Mar 15, 2012)

Oh, got it. Thanks for the info.


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## l r harner (Mar 15, 2012)

my plan is to still work with cpm154 as its good steel too but the XHP is just a cleaner steel (onece you get to it in my old stock) like i said the new stuff is much better preped 
there is even talk of some of the off shoot alloys that will be based off the XHP base alloy to add jsut a bit more carbide formers


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## Boatbuilder (Mar 17, 2012)

Now that I have a surface grinder I will surface grind each knife after I profile it. 
Jim


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## Mike Davis (Mar 18, 2012)

I have a 12 ton press (hand pump) that i use if i cannot get them straight by hand, just make sure to run a normalizing cycle before you HT, or that warp could haunt you.


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## Marko Tsourkan (Mar 18, 2012)

Boatbuilder said:


> Now that I have a surface grinder I will surface grind each knife after I profile it.
> Jim



You can straighten just about any steel by hand or overbending it in a vise *before* heat treating. Check on a granite plate for straightness - I make several small adjustments rather than one big, and check for straightness on a granite plate. I tap on a blade for clinking - that tells me if there is any bend on the blade that an eye might not register. 

A magnet chuck on your surface grinder will flatten your blank, and even if you surface grind it, that bend will still be there. 



M


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