From the research I've done in the past and heard from other bladesmiths, Grainger is a good place to go for good quality W1.

lsubslimed Hey! Thanks for the reply. Yeah I figured it has to be good stuff, I have purchased from them before, since W1 inherently has tighter industrial specs it needs to pass. Tighter than 1095 for sure. I was just looking around at others like DieSupplies or OnlineMetals but their shipping is pretty crazy, the shipping costs more than the drill rod lol. Grainier is close to me and it usually arrives the day after 👍 so looks like I’ll be sticking with them for tool steel.

You can either pre-curve it forwards, though you'll still have to do some grinder work to straighten it probably as it's tough to predict the exact curve, or you can quench in oil, as oil quenching doesn't produce a curve like water. Or you can leave out the hamon entirely in which case it wouldn't curve.

@@SkunkworksProps Thank you!

or you could not use clay

generally, 1045 wont have enough carbon to properly convert to martensite (harden the knife). 1045 is a great steel for tools like hammers, and punches, drifts etc... to answer your initial question, maybe it will get a hamon, but not a significant one. I would really recommend something like 1084 or 1075. PS If you are really hellbent on 1045, use a water or even brine quench to get the fastest possible cooling to try to get more hamon activity. Good luck!

@@AlexCanciois-an-awesome-guy Thank you for the answer, I also know theoretically it does not really have the desirable carbon content, I generally use 1095 but none of the low alloy high carbon steels are available in consumer type orders in Germany, you only find it in thicknesses of about 4 mm which is just annoying to deal with as I would like some in the ballpark of roughly 6 mm. I don't really make blades without hamons anymore so I am mostly wondering about them. For my usual knives the 1095 I can get is enough but for swords etc. I like some more meat to work with. Regardless, thank you very much for your answer.

@@gushlergushler a technique that could work is forge welding a billet of smaller pieces of 1095 into a sizeable piece for swordsmithing. Of course that would be a labor intensive process for unappreciated results, but where there's a will there's a way. Happy forging.

Labor intensive is the inhibitor here^^ thank you though

Same for me man, same for me... Its been a mystery to me!