Before making the jump to stainless...is O-1 worth the price difference over 1095?

T

therron258

Joined
Apr 8, 2009
Messages
183
Like the title says...

I do stock removal, no forging. I am just building my skills back up after ~5 years of being out of knifemaking, and some are coming back quicker than others.

Anyway, I have primarily worked with 1095 from Admiral Steel in the past, both the HR and the CRA (couldn't tell much difference in it). Lately, I have been looking into using some precision ground O-1. My question is, assuming I send out for heat treat to Peters' Heat Treating, is O-1 "Better" than 1095 to the point that its 2-4x as much?

I am excited about the fact that it is precision ground, but is the marketability of a knife in O-1 something that would cause you to buy it at a rate of twice the cost of 1095?

From what I understand, they are very similar if HT'ed correctly and under normal circumstances/use the averager consumer would not be able to tell the difference.

Thoughts?
 
1095 has the benefit of being used by a lot of popular brands (Becker, GEC etc) so has more recognition. For a very long time I considered 1095 to be the best choice in non stainless steel. This view is reflected in the recent thread I made in the General forum (who better to ask than the customer right?).

I belive that o1 is a superior steel. Would I pay twice the price of the knife for o1? No way. Would I pay the difference for the upgrade? Absolutely.

For better or worse, brand (or steel choice), in terms of marketing, is heavily influenced by popularity and perceived value. 440C is a prime example. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I'd never try to sell it to a broad market. Unfortunately the steels popularity is crucial and sometimes more important than its usefulness. If it were me, the question would be, is the popularity enough to warrant the change, over, is the steel good enough for the change. Fortunately there are a great number of excellent and popular choices that will fit whatever criteria you are looking for.

I feel that o1 is worth the difference. Not sure if your clientele feels the same. My advice? Ask them.
 
O 1 makes a great blade. I have used it on many knives.

But if you look at it....it will rust.

Think about A2 for a high carbon blade. It does not rust as fast, does not warp as easy, is surface ground and is a great steel for knives
 
flatground.com :http://flatground.com

I would rather use 1095 than O1, the rusting is just rediculous, but I would rather use A2 than 1095, really clean, and not much grinding after HT, just remove the temper color.
 
The way I look at it is, if 1095 costs $4 per blade, and O1 is twice that at $8, who cares? It's $4...

I figure, just use the steel you want to use and don't worry about what it costs, it's a rounding error...
 
HT-wise, it doesn't matter since if you're having Peter's do it, they can handle either one very well. Performance-wise, I'd go with O1 but it's not a huge difference really. Corrosion-wise, 1095 has better resistance although I don't really know why.

Marketing-wise, it's just going to depend on whom you ask. In some circles O1 is the bee's knees, in other circles 1095 is the cat's meow.

Price-wise...

Nathan the Machinist said:
The way I look at it is, if 1095 costs $4 per blade, and O1 is twice that at $8, who cares? It's $4...
I figure, just use the steel you want to use and don't worry about what it costs, it's a rounding error...
Click to expand...

^This.

Take a look at NJSB and see what they've got in stock. Last time I looked they had really good prices on 52100 in lots of sizes, and they will surface grind the mill scale off for a small fee. 52100 performs at least as well as O1 or 1095 (I think it's noticeably better actually) and it has a great "marketing cachet " these days.
 
You really can't go wrong with 1084... and regardless of price 52100 is hard to beat for overall performance. A2 is top notch also.

To answer the question, yes... but either steel is very good and it depends more on the maker and heat treat by far. They are semi-close in composition with O1 having a bit of alloying added. The alloying is conservative for a great overall knife while 1095 is more of a loose name for steel with carbon around .095%.

W2 is a lot like 1095 but much more expensive and made to stricter standards... has a bit of alloying for super fine grain.

If you push things hard it is amazing what steel can do, I made an O1 Chef Knife at very high hardness for a Professional Chef, he has had it for over a year now without sharpening it, only stropping and it is hair popping sharp.

One thing is I'd get surface ground material, it will pay off all around if you are doing stock removal.

As a really rough rule of thumb more carbides equal edge holding and aggressive cutting.. less carbides (simpler steels) have finer grain and can get sharper especially for fine cutting.

All of these guys gave really great advice... just throwing in my two cents because it is always fun to talk steel
 
Last edited:
^I've considered using W2 and calling it 1095. It is, technically....
 
So far I've found pops has the best price on precision ground o-1 by far and pretty good prices on D-2 and CpM 154 cm
 
therron258 said:
So far I've found pops has the best price on precision ground o-1 by far and pretty good prices on D-2 and CpM 154 cm
Click to expand...

Sorry to nit pick, but it's either CPM154 or 154CM not both. I've seen "CPM154CM" a couple of times here recently and, trust me, customers don't like the error. Just looks bad advertising the steel incorrectly.
 
Was just reading off pop's site... Says "CPM® 154cm steel from Crucible: made by the particle metal process & is very clean. It works good & polishes great. It may be the best all around blade steel on the market today."

Admiral Steel also lists a 154CM and a CPM 154cm

New Jersey Steel Baron lists CPM 154 cm as well... I knew I had seen it several places.
 
Last edited:
The reps from Crucible know about the confusion too, originally it WAS called CPM154CM, but was changed adding to the confusion. It's not really a big deal in itself. The problem is that the knife maker and customer don't know exactly what they're getting when the error is present. No one wants to pay for CPM154 and get 154CM. Likewise, a maker obviously needs to know what they are working with.

It's a small error, but it's an important one.

From February 2013 everyone using 154 in either iteration should read this.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1038157
 
Last edited:
Daniel's right, of course... we're blessed with a lot of excellent choices for good clean low-alloy steels that can all make great knives. If your geometry and HT is good-to-excellent, you really can't go wrong with any of them. I think, from both performance and marketing stand-points, that it's probably best to stick with one or two and really tweak 'em to their highest potential. Getting known for that and having your name come up whenever a certain steel is discussed would be a very good thing.

Nathan the Machinist said:
^I've considered using W2 and calling it 1095. It is, technically....
Click to expand...

You could "technically" call it 1095-SuperClean or some other fancy name if you really wanted... some people love that sort of thing. On the other hand you could just call it W2... people who know steel realize it's highly-regarded stuff, and people who don't can find out pretty quickly on Google.

Like Strigamort, I just use the actual manufacturer's name for steel. It's just more straightforward. There's enough BS in the knife world without confusing people with made-up "proprietary" names (CarbonV, anyone?).

therron258 said:
So far I've found pops has the best price on precision ground o-1 by far and pretty good prices on D-2 and CpM 154...
Click to expand...

Pops has good prices (and good service) on other things, too... I get most of my belts/paper and nearly all my Corby bolts from them. It's always nice to order as much as possible from one place simply to save on shipping. :thumbup:
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The way I look at it is, if 1095 costs $4 per blade, and O1 is twice that at $8, who cares? It's $4...

I figure, just use the steel you want to use and don't worry about what it costs, it's a rounding error...
Click to expand...

nate for you and i yes but at no point did i see the price point the OP is shooting for. if 50$ no frill knife then the extra 4 bucks is huge on a 400$ blade who cares
 
Strigamort said:
Why would you do that?!
Click to expand...

1095 has name recognition. People want it. However, I prefer to work with cleaner more consistent material such as a properly spheroidized remelt tool steel such as W1, which generally is technically 1095. However, by that same line of reasoning I could use W2, which happens to have the best fine edge stability that I have personally tested.

Using W2 and calling it 1095 is generally factually true, it gives them what they want, and makes it simpler to achieve good results.

There is nothing inherently wrong with 1095, and it's a cool material because it is so simple. But the wide spec envelope for it and reduced quality control expectations for it are less ideal.

For example, you know that TTT curve that shows the rate of cooling you need to get under the nose for 1095? It's well known, we've all seen it, it's common knowledge that you have half a second from starting the quench to under 900F. Right? Just like most metallurgy carts that information is a simplification of the the facts. And while generally accurate it is not completely true. You can get 1095 with a more generous window because the specification does not disallow trace elements of chrome and manganese etc that are generally present in the feedstock. But here is the kicker --> within the rather wide specifications of 1095 it is possible to have a steel where the nose goes all the way over and touches the left hand side of the chart. To rephrase that, you can have a 1095 that, when austenitized normally, no matter how fast you quench it you can't avoid pearlite.

I'm sure there is nothing wrong with the available 1095, but I feel that you probably have a better idea what you're getting with W1 and W2.
 
butcher_block said:
nate for you and i yes but at no point did i see the price point the OP is shooting for. if 50$ no frill knife then the extra 4 bucks is huge on a 400$ blade who cares
Click to expand...

You are correct. Point taken. :thumbup:
 
therron258 said:
Like the title says...

I do stock removal, no forging. I am just building my skills back up after ~5 years of being out of knifemaking, and some are coming back quicker than others.

Anyway, I have primarily worked with 1095 from Admiral Steel in the past, both the HR and the CRA (couldn't tell much difference in it). Lately, I have been looking into using some precision ground O-1. My question is, assuming I send out for heat treat to Peters' Heat Treating, is O-1 "Better" than 1095 to the point that its 2-4x as much?

I am excited about the fact that it is precision ground, but is the marketability of a knife in O-1 something that would cause you to buy it at a rate of twice the cost of 1095?

From what I understand, they are very similar if HT'ed correctly and under normal circumstances/use the averager consumer would not be able to tell the difference.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Both are good steels. O1 will have better wear resistance, and be tougher because of the chromium and tungsten. I used to use a fair bit of O1, but with 52100 available in a wide range of sizes, I use that instead, as it is a bit more wear resistance yet, and when heat treated correctly, has a super fine grain. I use 52100 when I am not looking for a hamon, and W2 when I am looking for a hamon. I couldn't imagine wanting more than these steels offer, unless you want corrosion resistance, then go stainless.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top