Niagara Heat Treatment Website

[Cheddarnut]

My curiousity to expand my understanding of the whole of spydercos process led me to try to find 'Niagara' heat treatment/metal services, but im lost in the niagara regional sites. Does anyone have a link to their site? Is it under a different name maybe?

[xceptnl]

Try this one courtesy of The Mastiff.

http://www.nsm-ny.com/index.cfm?fuseact ... page_id=35

[Cheddarnut]

Awesome :D :D :D Thanks Xceptnl/Mastiff :)

[The Mastiff]

Cheddarnut, they sell steel in bulk to various industries including the cutlery industry. They don't do heat treating , but cutting, rolling to size/width etc. They are a rolling mill. They buy the "heat" from the steel foundry ( up to 80-83,000 lbs of steel per batch), roll it out to widths for whatever uses it is for. Not many knife companies need to, or want to buy a whole heat from a foundry. If they did they would still need to send it somewhere like Niagara to get it rolled to the required specs. That itself is a specialty and requires the right kind of equipment and space for all that steel. If you look around their website you can see steel being rolled. You can also see what is in stock so it would probably be a pretty cool place to visit and see how things are done.

They are very nice people and Bob S. is a knife guy like us.

Joe

[Cheddarnut]

I was wondering why they display the data sheets with heat treat info, lol. Yeah, it was rolling Sal was talking about that got me interested...its nice to imagine what spy does in house and what they spec out. Why im interested in the workflow of tool manufacturers is beyond me, but there it is. Thanks for the indulgence :)

[Per-Sev]

I was wondering why they display the data sheets with heat treat info, lol. Yeah, it was rolling Sal was talking about that got me interested...its nice to imagine what spy does in house and what they spec out. Why im interested in the workflow of tool manufacturers is beyond me, but there it is. Thanks for the indulgence :)

When I was working for a small metal forming company we would order a lot of steel and for a job it would have to have the same heat number. The reason is that the heat lot is all the same thickness and was processed the same so it should perform the same when we bend it. If we had to different heat lots we would have to keep them separate because for one if it was a military job they require the lot to be marked so when they get the parts after we form them they can do whatever they need to for inspection but the main problem we had with different heats was they would bend different and if not kept separate then some parts would be out of spec. So it sometimes costs more but in the end you don't have to worry about checking for bad parts as often.
I can imagine that when Spyderco does a run of blanks they want them to be from the same heat lot so there positive they will all be the same composition. Usually if you find some bad parts in that heat then you just back track all the steps and if need be then you can just pull the blanks from that heat lot until you determine the problem.
We did a lot of military and we had some big aluminum blocks that we just cut for the army and when there received them they would X-ray them for defects and if any were found we would pull and scrap the hole heat lot.

[Cheddarnut]

When I was working for a small metal forming company we would order a lot of steel and for a job it would have to have the same heat number. The reason is that the heat lot is all the same thickness and was processed the same so it should perform the same when we bend it. If we had to different heat lots we would have to keep them separate because for one if it was a military job they require the lot to be marked so when they get the parts after we form them they can do whatever they need to for inspection but the main problem we had with different heats was they would bend different and if not kept separate then some parts would be out of spec. So it sometimes costs more but in the end you don't have to worry about checking for bad parts as often.
I can imagine that when Spyderco does a run of blanks they want them to be from the same heat lot so there positive they will all be the same composition. Usually if you find some bad parts in that heat then you just back track all the steps and if need be then you can just pull the blanks from that heat lot until you determine the problem.
We did a lot of military and we had some big aluminum blocks that we just cut for the army and when there received them they would X-ray them for defects and if any were found we would pull and scrap the hole heat lot.

At a loss to them or you? Thats good incentive to get it right
I never considered the subtlety of forming, but now that you mention it of course the forming conditions would be affected if the metal was harder/softer. What grade steels were you using?

[Per-Sev]

At a loss to them or you? Thats good incentive to get it right
I never considered the subtlety of forming, but now that you mention it of course the forming conditions would be affected if the metal was harder/softer. What grade steels were you using?

The sheet metal was just cold rolled probable 1010 CRS but we worked with aluminium 6061 and 7075 and some titanium not sure what grade it was usually a special job of low quantity. I have worked will everything from cast iron to titanium but most of it was just cold rolled sheet metal. I also worked in a machine shop making over head cranes from scratch, we would cut all our own gears for a custom gear box made from cast iron and ever part in between. Cast iron is the worst to work with is like breathing in coal dust when you machine it. I did a lot of bronze for bushings and turned a lot of 1050 for the crane wheels there almost like wheels used on a train and some were 26" diameter, that was the max I could fit in my lathe. I turned big rope drums that had to be grooved with a right hand and a left hand groove and could support 40 tons. I also cut class a threads into the hooks for the hook block all on old outdated lathes, it was fun but I could still hold a tolerance of .001 in everything I machined, and none of the machines had digital read outs, well once in a while I did scrap a part but not to often.

[Cheddarnut]

The sheet metal was just cold rolled probable 1010 CRS but we worked with aluminium 6061 and 7075 and some titanium not sure what grade it was usually a special job of low quantity. I have worked will everything from cast iron to titanium but most of it was just cold rolled sheet metal. I also worked in a machine shop making over head cranes from scratch, we would cut all our own gears for a custom gear box made from cast iron and ever part in between. Cast iron is the worst to work with is like breathing in coal dust when you machine it. I did a lot of bronze for bushings and turned a lot of 1050 for the crane wheels there almost like wheels used on a train and some were 26" diameter, that was the max I could fit in my lathe. I turned big rope drums that had to be grooved with a right hand and a left hand groove and could support 40 tons. I also cut class a threads into the hooks for the hook block all on old outdated lathes, it was fun but I could still hold a tolerance of .001 in everything I machined, and none of the machines had digital read outs, well once in a while I did scrap a part but not to often.

Having worked with metal on such an industrial scale i can see why you like the Tuff, its big steel.
Those tolerances are impressive, having worked on a paper cutting shear with a digital readout i can appreciate that level of accuracy.

j