A2 a well balanced steel

D

DevinT

Joined
Jan 29, 2010
Messages
2,641
I've been liking this steel a lot lately.

It has excellent wear resistance, higher than carbon and low alloy steels. Only blue super might have higher wear resistance. It's better than blue#1 and#2, O7, O1, W2 etc.

It is tougher than most steels, only those designed for toughness are higher, but most of those lack wear resistance. 3V is the exception.

A2 is easier to finish than steels containing vanadium, I prefer A2 over most high wear steels. High wear steels are a lot more difficult to finish with dissapointing increases in cutting wear resistance.

A2 is the keenest steel that I have experienced. With proper heat treatment and sharpening, I'm able to cut toilet paper. (holding it like news paper)

It is less expensive than all pm steels and is available from lots of sources.

It is very responsive to cryo treatments and is moderately easy to heat treat.

High attainable hardness.

Not fully stainless but doesn't rust as easily as carbon and low alloy steels. I use it for san-mai, clad with 416 stainless.

In my opinion, it's the steel with the best balance of properties.

Let me know what you think.

Hoss
 
A2 is one of my favorite steels. I would hands down rather heat treat it then AEBL. It was just recently that data cam out about A2 and cryo and how it helps a TON. And another great thing is that its supper common. I am able to get it crazy hard with my heat treat. I love the stuff
 
Learned to love A2 from Phill Hartsfield. One of my favorites and when I go to a non stainless it recently been 3V and A2.

I really would like someone to work out how to get a hamon with A2 like Phill did.
 
I've built a lot of tooling from it, and loved working with it. I've not made any knives from it yet and I really don't know why.
 
A2 is a fantastic steel, and is extremely versatile. I've made everything from swords to kitchen knives in A2, and each performed exceptionally well with the appropriate heat treat. For a while, I used A2 almost exclusively. Another plus is that it is easy to find precision ground stock from just about any supplier. For whatever reason, it seems to take one of the best edges of any steel I have used. I could probably stick with A2 forever and be perfectly content.
 
I would call A2 a steel that was designed to be tough. Funny how we are discovering how good some of these boring old "cheap" steels are. ;) What is a little bit of a surprise is your finding that it takes a very keen edge considering some of the other steels that you use. So what kind of voodoo did you pul in HT? I normally think of A2 having less abrasion resistance than D2.
 
I've been using A2 for hunters, skinners and camp knives for years. Run it at 62rc with Peters doing the ht. Why? Once ran a blind test with two identical sets of knives. Our testees were the guides of a large game ranch/working cattle ranch. These guys process multiple animals a day. In a week more than most hunters might do in years. The manager knew there was a test going on, the guides did not. The knives were identical except one set (hunter, skinner and belt knife) had brass bolsters the other nickel silver. The nickel silver bolstered knives were A2 the other set were the best, the steel that everyone in these very pages talked about, the latest scientific studies showed the finest grain, the best edge holding, the biggest baddest steel on the planet since Mr Ugh chipped a piece of flint. Interestingly I haven't heard it mentioned for some time these days but anyhoo. Pretty soon the guides are arm wrestling (no really) over who gets to take the nickel silver bolstered knives. After a week or so of that they just break up the set. One takes the skinner the other the hunter. The other set stays in the lodge. So end of Oct comes along. Get a call, "can we keep em, ya know we're pretty busy through Mar". Come Mar They said "ya know we're gonna be..." and I said just keep em and they said "thanks but well here's money can we have more, by the way that's our money not the ranch's money". Interestingly they never asked what steel they were or any of those kind of questions we're interested in. This decision to spend their own money was based simply on performance. Been using A2 for those kind of knives ever since.
 
a compromise steel that has found favor in machine shops because it is air cooled. It was used at the office for all sorts of machine parts, rusts just as fast as cold-rolled or H13 or 4150. It chips and cracks rather than dent or bend. here is a pretty in depth discussion on the steel with Roman Landes. http://www.hypefreeblades.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=653&hilit=a2 basically you have the cost and precision heat treat similar to stainless but no corrosion resistance. in hard thin, it doesn't compare to 1.2519. for a heavy duty blade, 8670 or 5160 works better. It may nose out O1 in a general purpose knife, but the cost of material and involved heat treat tip the scales back to O1. At AKS, A2 costs the same as 440C, twice as much as AEB-L, the same as 3V and M2. just some thoughts
 
scott.livesey said:
a compromise steel that has found favor in machine shops because it is air cooled. It was used at the office for all sorts of machine parts, rusts just as fast as cold-rolled or H13 or 4150. It chips and cracks rather than dent or bend. here is a pretty in depth discussion on the steel with Roman Landes. http://www.hypefreeblades.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=653&hilit=a2 basically you have the cost and precision heat treat similar to stainless but no corrosion resistance. in hard thin, it doesn't compare to 1.2519. for a heavy duty blade, 8670 or 5160 works better. It may nose out O1 in a general purpose knife, but the cost of material and involved heat treat tip the scales back to O1. At AKS, A2 costs the same as 440C, twice as much as AEB-L, the same as 3V and M2. just some thoughts
Click to expand...

If your A2 is chipping and cracking then either your heat treat was done quite poorly or the hardness is way off for the specified use. I'm sorry but 8670 and 5160 are not even in the same league as A2. A2 is not expensive if you look around. 440C can't be pushed to the hardness that A2 can and still be usable. Just checked the price of A2, 1/8"X1.5"x18"=$16 not bad.
 
3V is still like 3 times as expensive and I wonder if bigger buyers can get more of a volume discount in A2 as it is a pretty common tool steel. You look at mass market 1095 blades and that super low cost for large orders is a major factor in that purchasing decision. 1095 is arguably not even close to being the "best" steel for some of those applications especially when you condor how it is heat treated by some manufacturers.
 
scott.livesey said:
a compromise steel that has found favor in machine shops because it is air cooled. It was used at the office for all sorts of machine parts, rusts just as fast as cold-rolled or H13 or 4150. It chips and cracks rather than dent or bend. here is a pretty in depth discussion on the steel with Roman Landes. http://www.hypefreeblades.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=653&hilit=a2 basically you have the cost and precision heat treat similar to stainless but no corrosion resistance. in hard thin, it doesn't compare to 1.2519. for a heavy duty blade, 8670 or 5160 works better. It may nose out O1 in a general purpose knife, but the cost of material and involved heat treat tip the scales back to O1. At AKS, A2 costs the same as 440C, twice as much as AEB-L, the same as 3V and M2. just some thoughts
Click to expand...


You don't seem to have any personal experience with A2 but like to repeat what others are saying. In the link you referenced, Aaron did a blind test and found A2 to be the best steel for his general purpose knives.

I didn't check all the prices but A2 is cheaper than the 3V by about 30%.

In general your posts are antagonistic to the over all tone of threads. You will benefit by doing your own testing and contributing what you find.

Hoss
 
I'm going to order some when I order z-wear again. I overlooked A2, and all air hardening steels for too long.
 
jdm61 said:
So about twice the cost of AEB-L and a bit more than that compared to 15N20?
Click to expand...
prices at AKS
.104x12x2 A2 $11
.095x12x2 15N20 $5
.090x12x2 3V $14
.090x12x2 M2 $12
.104x12x2 440C $11
.098x12x2 AEB-L $5
.120x12x2 N690 $13
.104x12x2 D2 $12
.110x12x2 80CrV2 $9
yes you can get get A2 2 or 3 HRc more than 440C, N690 or AEB-L, but you loose the corrosion resistance. We make identical blades with 80CrV2 and A2. start the cold furnaces at the same time. one would be doing after temper grinding on the 80CrV2 while A2 blade is still at hardening temperture. from 12 years experience using A2 at the office, I will buy 440C or AEB-L and enjoy the corrosion resistance.
 
You will love it, make sure to get some nice thin stock and make some kitchen slicers out of it. Out of all the knives i have made my wife loves the A2 kitchen knives the most. Ground extremely thin to a zero edge and given a course sharpening and a buff will make an edge that will cut chicken like a light sabre. But make sure that you go to cryo ASAP after the plate quench.
 
JTknives said:
You will love it, make sure to get some nice thin stock and make some kitchen slicers out of it. Out of all the knives i have made my wife loves the A2 kitchen knives the most. Ground extremely thin to a zero edge and given a course sharpening and a buff will make an edge that will cut chicken like a light sabre. But make sure that you go to cryo ASAP after the plate quench.
Click to expand...


Yup, I'm set up for cryo. 3v and z-wear changed my mind on air hardening steels. No temptation to differentially harden it. Simple to heat treat and A2 should be easier to finish than the higher alloyed steels by a good margin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top