1095 or 440c????????

1095 is realitively cheap and you can heat treat it yourself with a minimum of equipment. 440c is stainless, but you will have to send it out to get it heat treated, and it costs more....
Ed
 
1095 - 440C.....Blond - Redhead....Both good ....both different!!!
1095 makes a great dagger.It gets hard,sharp and blues well. HT can be done completely by the maker.
440C won't rust (easily) will get pretty sharp,and requires someone to do the HT.
I have made many 1095 daggers,and love them.I'd go 1095.
 
O1 is my favourite knife steel, so that would be my personal choice, but 1095 is not bad either. Both carbon steels are great for true cutting tools, and both are very user friendly - easier to grind, hand finish and HT using simple equipment and both can be forged as well, if you are that way inclined. They take a superb edge, hold and edge for a long time and are easy to resharpen.

I'd only use 440C myself if I wanted a high level of stain resistance. It is more wear resistant so a little more difficult to grind. The one thing going to 440C is that many knifemakers consider it more stain resistant and tougher than say ATS34, so for a knife with a dagger profile, the added toughness would be useful.

This is really a carbon steel vs. stainless steel argument. I am unabashedly a carbon steel fan and if I needed a stain resistant blade, I'd go all the way to a powder steel like RWL34 or CPM S30V. Enough rambling... Jason.

Jason Cutter Bladeart
Jason Cutter aka Dr Kwong Yeang
Knifemaker, Australia
http://www.jcbknives.com
 
:D To me a dagger would be better from 1095 because you can differentially harden carbon steels and basically get the best of both worlds as far as toughness and edge holding. With stainless you have to sacrifice one to get the other so a balance or compromise has to be made by the maker. By no means am I saying ss is bad. Some of the stainless steels out there are amazing and I personally really like 440c. There are pros and cons for both and each is better for certain applications but for a weapon I would say carbon (if heat treated properly). You could go with a lower HRC with 440c to increase toughness but then you sacrifice edge holding. It depends what you want for performance in the blade. Also if you want it maintenace free then go with ss. However I don't really consider wiping the blade down with a shot of wd40 to be anything but enjoyable, but that's me.:D
Mike
 
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