1095 steel?

SALTY said:
I also do not disagree with Coolbreezy above whose post got in while I was still typing.
CB37, thanks for reminding me about 52100.
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No problem SALTY SALTY I’m 36 but I’m old school, so if I had only one steel to choose it’s 1095 with a good heat treat all day. 1095 and Buck 420HC have been my bread and butter for 25+ years. I just found out there were other knife steels just a couple years ago lol.
 
The only problem with 1095 is that it is relatively cheap, both as a steel and the manufacturing process to turn it into a blade and heat treat it. That means any basement hacker or "production" house can turn out hundreds of blades with very little overhead. As a result, there is a lot of questionable (and outright junk) 1095 out there.

However, if you have ever had a quality 1095 blade with top notch heat treatment, you would most likely change your opinion.

I can whole-heartedly recommend TOPS and Becker for having the best current production 1095 blades by far IMO ( with honorable mention to ESEE). They know their way around 1095, and their heat treatment is spot on.
 
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shane45-1911 said:
The only problem with 1095 is that it is relatively cheap, both as a steel and to heat treat it. That means any basement hacker or "production" house can turn out hundreds of blades with very little overhead.

However, if you have ever had a quality 1095 blade with top notch heat treatment, you would most likely change your opinion.

I can whole-heartedly recommend TOPS and Becker for having the best current production 1095 blades, by far (honorable mention to ESEE). They know their way around 1095, and their heat treatment is spot on.
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Huge Becker fan. Have a BK9 and a 7 I’m heavily modding to my taste. Only tops I had was a Operator 7 and while it was a great knife, just a lil thick in the handle department. And I believe my operator 7 was 1075. I have no experience with Tops 1095, I’ve heard great things. No experience with ESEE or Ontario.
 
gazz98 said:
As others have said, nothing wrong with a properly heat treated 1095 blade.
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That is the crucial point, right there.

High carbon steels (1095 in particular) are very dependent upon quality tempering/heat treatment in order to produce a blade that has decent edge retention. Not that heat treatment is not important in ANY steel, but my experiences have shown that 1095 is very temperamental with regards to heat treating. There does not appear to be a lot of middle-ground or margin of error in 1095. It is either good, or it is not.
 
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Hrafna173 said:
I was wondering why all the Knife companies keep going back to 1095 steel there are literally 100"s of steels that are better, easier to sharpen , and better at edge retention? is it just nostalgia? or is there a technical reason for it.
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Mostly because those better 100"s (sic)
are not really such better as you think
But for sure much more expensive

Of course it's your choice and your pocket :^D

P.S. they are NOT going back anywhere, they are there since LONG time ...
 
Granted, I currently live and adventure in perhaps the fifth driest state, but I've carried and used carbon steels including 1095 all over the PNW and SE and around lots of water. I have never had these problems with having to oil a knife before sheathing or resharpen after every use and so forth. Opinels on canoe trips in western Washington, Ka-Bars on the Intracoastal and Outer Banks in North Carolina, Cold Steel Carbon V all over North America; the list goes on.

I do not resheath a knife dripping with game blood, and if I get dunked fishing or camping, I will give a knife a wipe down before too long, but this leads to patina, a good preventative to active rust.

As for the edge retention, I contend that the grind is more important than the steel itself most of the time. I prefer non stainless blades because mine are easier to get razor sharp and they stay that way longer than any of my stainless blades (440C, 420HC, S30V, 12C27, and whatever Victorinox and Opinel use).

To the OP, I must say that makers keep using 1095 because we keep buying it and we keep buying it because we like it. We have choices and we choose 1095. It really does hit that performance and price point we crave.

Regarding machetes, it seems something a bit softer than 1095 is in order given the impact abuse machetes tend to receive.

Zieg
 
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DangerZone98 said:
More of a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy as many here have shared. Personally, I’m quite content with the 1095 on my Izula. Works great for utility work.

Out of curiosity, what carbon steel could be considered a “step up” from 1095 without drastically increasing production costs?
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honestly, the best carbon steel upgrade from 1095 is 52100 - it's excellent - read about it in depth here:

knifesteelnerds.com

Bainite Heat Treatments of 52100, O1, and 1095 - How Much Toughness? - Knife Steel Nerds

New heat treatment experiments for bainite to compare with typical quenched and tempered to see if there is an improvement in toughness.
knifesteelnerds.com knifesteelnerds.com
knifesteelnerds.com

History and Properties of 52100 Steel - Knife Steel Nerds

A history of 52100, where it came from and how it has been used in knives. And all about the effect of the chromium addition on final properties.
knifesteelnerds.com knifesteelnerds.com

for machetes, 1075 is a great option (along with 1070) for all the low cost machete options, while 80crv2 would be the sweet spot (look at the skrama, excellent)
 
1095 is fine. It works and its cheap. I like it quite a lot actually, and I think that the crazy hard super steels everyone wants these days are kind of crappy if you really use your knives hard since they are so hard to sharpen and they are sometimes brittle. 1095 is easy to maintain and makes for a good user steel.
Bucks 420hc is awesome by the way! I second those who said that.
 
Easy tooling.

I believe 1075 to be tougher and an all around better steel when its ran at a higher hardness.
 
Really like 1095, I have it on a number of knives and other than it dulling quicker than my more modern steels it works just as well. Modern steels are great until you need to spend the time sharpening them, where as all the 1095 I have used sharpens in a fraction of the time. I don’t use it because of any type of nostalgia, I use because it works
 
Hrafna173 said:
I know In the military we considered it junk, even in the 90's in wet conditions it needs sharpening like every time you pull it out. I guess it's serviceable, enough, for like machetes, and axe heads every piece I test is like 52hrc a few have been at 54 hrc, but thats softer than even 440 A,, maybe all my Ka-bars, Esees, Tops and GEC are just bad batches, but out of over 60 knives, I agree better is subjective, but even Victorinox gets their steel to 56 HRC they claim 58, but I've never tested one that was that high, buck is pretty consistent at 58 HRC, and the steel they use is about 2/3 the price of 1095, I like the patina a 1095 knife gets, but that usually mean I gota sharpen it 6 times a day on the ranch, are there any steels that patina that way, that are harder?
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I see that you haven't been back since Sunday (four days ago now), but hopefully you drop back by, because I'm curious about a couple of things:

1. What is your testing regiment that you're using in order to ascertain the HRC of all of these different steels?
2. What are you doing "on the ranch" that causes you to need to sharpen a knife in 1095 "six times a day"?

I'd appreciate some more info on these, thanks! :D
 
Hrafna173 said:
I was wondering why all the Knife companies keep going back to 1095 steel there are literally 100"s of steels that are better, easier to sharpen , and better at edge retention? is it just nostalgia? or is there a technical reason for it.
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Nostalgic hype, when in these days where we have much better choices all around better performance steels in every category.

Will 1095 work as a knife steel? Yes. That is if you are in a fairly stabile environment away from corrosive elements and moisture.
I think that most people are probably in a fairly stable environment so for them 1095 is probably sufficient. But for me in my work and lifestyle I need some high corrosion resistance. I’m around all kinds of harsh chemicals, acids and salts not to mention getting my tools wet. Oil and cleaning does help some but you have to stay on top of carbon steel.

Someone mentioned cheap as in low cost. Have you seen the prices on GEC knives lately? You would think they were made of gold plated super steel! I just don’t get it.

When I have a choice for my working knives to have corrosion resistance, better toughness, much better edge retention and can use diamond sharpeners why would I want to go with a work knife that’s carbon steel that isn’t as tough as many stainless steels and stays sharp longer.

I do have some knives in 1095 including two GECs a 23 and a 29 and they are very nice knives for just regular casual use but I don’t take them to work or the field. And yes they have a lot of nostalgic style and that’s why I bought them.
 
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