steel alloys for belt buckle

[ken dixon]

Hi,
I am wanting to make a belt buckle out of steel. I want to inlay a silver bucking horse in the center and engrave around the perimeter. Should I use cold rolled mild steel, hot rolled or use 4130. Also is .071 thick enough to inlay and do a design with a relieved background. Thanks Ken

 

[TallGary]

Ken,
I use 1/16 in. low carbon precision ground flat stock (Starrett #498). I have also used O1 tool steel. 1/16 (0.0625) is thick enough to inlay and relieve the background around your engraving. Its also thick enough that you can engrave the edge of the buckle if you are so inclined. I have not worked with 4130. I have engraved 4140 with no issues. I stay away from hot rolled steel because of the surface prep time -- there may be other reasons also but getting rid of all the garbage on the surface really dampened my interest in a lower cost material.

Gary

 

[Tom Curran]

That low carbon flat ground stock is a joy to use. It will not harden unless you caseharden it.

0-1 has chromium and other alloys which make it tough, and tougher to cut that the low carb. The upside is that it has higher wear resisitance. It may be more difficult to get bright cuts than with the low carb. A sulpher based cutting oil would help ease the cutting and promote smoother cuts. I think 4130 will be similar.

The steels are easy enough to come by from a tool supply, like McMaster-Carr, or MSC, or Enco.

 

[firefly]

My business is mainly bladesmithing, and I use the precision-ground 0-1 a lot for guards, spacers, etc.. In its annealed state, this stuff cuts and machines very easily, and the one time I engraved a piece, it cut very well, leaving all the cuts smooth and bright. It also blues better than anything else I've used, whether using a caustic blue or a heat blue process like nitre salts.

It will, however, rust if you don't put some sort of finish on it (bluing, browning). It doesn't form particularly easily, even when heated, and will air-harden if it cools too quickly from a red color (critical temperature). This might be a problem after you've brazed the hardware on the reverse side to attach the belt.

Forming it cold in thin sections can be done, as long as you don't overdo it. You could always braze your harware on the back side, then anneal the entire piece at about 900 deg. F to soften things uniformly so your cuts can be made without running into hard (and I mean hard) spots. You'll have to refinish before engraving, but it won't be bad. It usially doesn't start to scale until it reaches the dark orange color.

Hope this helps.

Greg Neely

 

[Tom Curran]

0-1 can harden up to 62 rc, which is pretty darn hard.

You might be better off with the low carb if you're going to be doing brazing on the steel.

 

[ken dixon]

Thanks everyone for the input. Ken

 

[KSnyder]

Ken,
I use 1/16" cold rolled steel. I think its 0018 low carbon but it engraves nicely, and it blues beautiful.
I have used nitre & charcoal bluing both came out good.The buckles I made were 2x3" and have plenty of stiffness with no need to use a hardening steel.
Kent

 

[monk]

i've done a half ton of buckles, but never inlayed silver into- but have soldered it onto cr. cr is excellent for engraving and is surely tough enough to withstand the rigors of hanging around some dudes' belt line. the cr usually never has hard or soft spots.

 

[Weldon47]

I like 1018 non-hardening steel. It cuts really nice & you would probably like it.

Weldon