Big thumbs up to 15n20

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
8,651
I have been making knives from 15n20 for a little while and liked it as a standalone steel. It's easy to work with and sharpen as well as easy to heat treat. Had a customer in Wyoming that wanted one of my rubber handled skinners. I asked him to really run it through Its paces and let me know what he though of the 15n20 blade. Well I just received a glowing text with pictures. So far he has taken 1 deer and 2 antelope and dressed them out with my skinner and has not needed to sharpen it yet. He says it might need a light touch up but it's in no way dull. I was surprised to hear that he processed that many animals with the origanial sharpening. I knew 15n20 was a good stand alone steel but never considered it to be that good. As a knife maker the best thing in the world is to see my knives used and having a happy customer.
Here are some pictures.

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Here is his knife on the top.
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Yeah as long as the person knows how to skin an animal there isn't really a ton of cutting that needs to be done. On deer and the like you can pull most of it off with some borax on your hands. Skin is no match for well hardened steel.

Or did he butcher all the animals with the knife? If that's the case then color me impressed.

Awesome pics though. I agree, there's nothing better than hearing great reviews from happy customers.
 
A couple of early "field tests" with my W2 and 1084 knives involved skinning and breaking down several sand encrusted feral hogs, the odd whitetail deer and a couple of nilgai cows. The results were the same as your friends with the 15n20 Never underestimate a properly heat treated piece of "simple" carbon steel. :thumbup:
 
Yup, I know a few guys who swear by the 15n20 knives I made them. I used to go Rc60/61, but I always go Rc62 now. One hunter hammered a Rc62 15n20 skinner with 0.012" behind the edge through an elk rib cage. Held up perfectly. The hunters like that it's easy to touch up in the field. A light stropping is all it takes to bring the edge back.

One friend found it couldn't quite get through a gritty sandy moose, so I made him a skinner out of 52100 he got his moose this year, and the knife still shaves after processing the moose and an elk. :thumbup: :cool:

Make a 1/16" kitchen knife from 15n20 at Rc62, and you won't believe how stable the edge is. I made one for a chef, and he went 6 months between sharpening with only stropping every so often. 8h/day for 6 months. What more do you need?
 
jdm61 said:
A couple of early "field tests" with my W2 and 1084 knives involved skinning and breaking down several sand encrusted feral hogs, the odd whitetail deer and a couple of nilgai cows. The results were the same as your friends with the 15n20 Never underestimate a properly heat treated piece of "simple" carbon steel. :thumbup:
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I agree, simple carbon steels heat treated "correctly" will do more than people think..Last year I had a little 1095 blade that had about a 3" cutting edge. I skinned and completely deboned a large bodied 10 point. It would still shave arm hair afterwords. With just a couple strops across my belt(out of my britches) it came right back to cleanly slicing paper..
we happen to use a fair amount of 15n20. We traded for a couple really big uddenholm bandsaw blades a couple years ago about 12" wide and about 20' long each.. Its a good steel, much better than most give it credit for. Including me at first.
 
He did not do any "meat" work with the knife but used it to skin out all 3 critters. He said he went home and a few passes on his 1000 grit ceramic lansky and as good as new.
 
JTknives said:
He did not do any "meat" work with the knife but used it to skin out all 3 critters. He said he went home and a few passes on his 1000 grit ceramic lansky and as good as new.
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Yup, I love 15n20.

Do you have any 24" lengths? If so, I'll PM you. I need a few pieces.

Warren
 
Willie71 said:
Yup, I know a few guys who swear by the 15n20 knives I made them. I used to go Rc60/61, but I always go Rc62 now. One hunter hammered a Rc62 15n20 skinner with 0.012" behind the edge through an elk rib cage. Held up perfectly. The hunters like that it's easy to touch up in the field. A light stropping is all it takes to bring the edge back.

One friend found it couldn't quite get through a gritty sandy moose, so I made him a skinner out of 52100 he got his moose this year, and the knife still shaves after processing the moose and an elk. :thumbup: :cool:

Make a 1/16" kitchen knife from 15n20 at Rc62, and you won't believe how stable the edge is. I made one for a chef, and he went 6 months between sharpening with only stropping every so often. 8h/day for 6 months. What more do you need?
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What's your heat treat on your 15n20 to get 62rc.
I have been setting at 1500° for 10min and AAA quench and a 400° temper. But that puts me just under 60rc I believe. I know I tested it but for the life of me can't remember what it tested at right now.
 
I heat treat at 1470, temper at 300 iirc. I'll look back to see. Quench in DT -48, a parks 50 equivalent.
 
Thanks for that, I will try that. I have been wondering if my quench was to slow. It's funny because I come from s time when tempering at any temp less the 400° was shunned on BF lol. So without thinking that's what I start with.

As to the 15n20 I have instock. Yes I have both thickness in stock (.075 and .090). And I can cut it how ever you want. I normally cut to 23.5" long because it fonts in a game board flat rate box. We are changing how we package the steel and using a strapping gun to put pallet strapping around the steel bundles instead of the million rolls of straping tape lol.
 
For a very good damascus use 15n20 with 1084 .One advantage of that mix is that the two have very similar HT recipies !
 
JTknives said:
Thanks for that, I will try that. I have been wondering if my quench was to slow. It's funny because I come from s time when tempering at any temp less the 400° was shunned on BF lol. So without thinking that's what I start with.

As to the 15n20 I have instock. Yes I have both thickness in stock (.075 and .090). And I can cut it how ever you want. I normally cut to 23.5" long because it fonts in a game board flat rate box. We are changing how we package the steel and using a strapping gun to put pallet strapping around the steel bundles instead of the million rolls of straping tape lol.
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23.5 is fine. I'll send you a pm.
 
I checked. I temper at 300, and walk up if needed. I sometimes have to go as high as 350.
 
I've been considering picking up some myself for a couple of kitchen knives. One of our local guys (Mark Knapp) has a stack of 1/16" stock sitting in his show room.

It's basically 1075 with extra nickel isn't it?
 
15n20 Uddeholm
C: 0.75; Mn: 0.40; Ni: 2.00;
P: 0.02; S: 0.01; Si: 0.30;

1075
C: 0.70-0.80; Mn: 0.40-0.70; P: 0.030;
S: 0.050; Si: ?;

So it's rather close to 1075, but you will find that it preforms much better then 1075.
 
So after hearing about your 300° temper I decided to do a test blade. The blade is rather crude but I was going after an edge to test. Heat treated to 1475° for 10min and water quenched. I know I know but I did not have any fast oil besides canola which is hardly ever use and Hate when I have to. So I figured why not try water, next test will be with brine. I was surprised it was not cracked and straight after the water quench. I figured why not push my luck and give it a cryo soak. So in the LN it went for 5hrs and was hung up after to warm up. I'm shocked, no cracks and still stright. Then the next evening I fired up the oven and tempered it at 300° For 2hrs. I just got done testing the edge and I'm impressed. Here are some pictures of the tests, I know not very scientific but the wife had dinner ready so I just quickly found some stuff to test it on.

First up is copper tubing split lengthwise. Used a small hammer and hammered on the spine till it went through the tube. After inspecting the edge there was no deformation or chips. The edge is very thin. Befor sharpening I was sitting at around .005+ and I sharpened it to a very thin fine edge.
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Next up I grabbed a chunk of aluminum and had a go at it. Using the same hammer I really went at it. The edge got a little wobble in it but zero chips and no edge role. I'm guessing this wobble is because the steel is so thin behind the cutting edge that it can't support that much force . But It still shaved hair and felt smooth on my finger nail.
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I'm really looking at 15n20 in a different light now and going to use it for a lot more knives.
 
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Oh and I also did a "brass rod" test. But I did not have a brass rod but I had a brass block lol. You could see the entire sharpened edge role as it was pushed and ran across the edge of the block. No chips or deformation, poped right back to where it was.
 
Great stuff!! I found the same thing. The nickel lets you keep it quite hard, and the edge is tough, even when very thin. :thumbup:
 
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