Competition/Camp Chopper Steel

M

Maineiac1

Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
339
I'm looking for a great steel that can take some serious abuse. I recently got a HT Oven and am looking to get into stainless so my variety of HT is widened. I'm experience with O1 and want to make a large chopper to beat the hell out of in the woods and on a variety of things like competition challenges. I've heard O1 is sometimes used for competition cutters but what's your opinion on what you think a great steel for this is?

I'm looking to venture into AEB-L/Nitro V for my camp/bushcraft/hunting knives.
 
I like O1 for large choppers. With the appropriate HT I think it performs very well.

This is 6mm O1 at 61 HRC, sharpened convexed at 20 DPS. I've chopped through a lot of small trees with it. No chipping and it holds its edge pretty well, a quick strop and it's shaving again. We're not talking about M4 och T15 wear resistance, but the price/performance is good.

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Personally I think "toughness" in a purpose made chopper tends to be over valued. If you are building a chopper, you're going to allow for some weight simply to make chopping more efficient. Put the mass in the right place with the right edge geometry and chipping at the edge goes away. Differentially temper the spine and the complete failure of a gross breakage goes away.

Now, you want to make something at the bleeding edge of mass:size ratio, or extremely thin edge but still able to chop, and the steel alloy can become much more important.
 
Hard to beat CPM-10V ;)
 
80CrV2, A2 or W2 for carbon steels and AEB-L/Nitro_V for stainless......unless you need high wear resistance too. I think most knife steels, heat treated properly for tough use, will be far tougher than most of us need.
 
i4Marc said:
80CrV2, A2 or W2 for carbon steels and AEB-L/Nitro_V for stainless......unless you need high wear resistance too. I think most knife steels, heat treated properly for tough use, will be far tougher than most of us need.
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Thanks, I just saw another thread comparing two steels and on a chart for toughness and aeb-l was high up. I always figured it wasn’t that tough since it seems to be a pupular kitchen knife.
 
It will be hard to find a tool steel that can stand such a big abuse suffering so little damage as we see in this video. That's the 1045 steel in a 2,5kg axe at 55HRC, bit angle more or less at 22-25 degrees.


Take one of the toughtest steel you like more and try plenty different heat treatments.
 
Does depleted uranium forge weld? It would make an interesting San Mai...
 
Looking at the melting point could be, uranium melts at 1132.2 °C or 2070 °F
 
jdm61 said:
Ask the Iraqis. Some of their Republican Guard tankers probably got "forge welded" to the inside of their T-72 turret. :eek:
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Possibly... more likely they were sucked out through a tiny little hole.
 
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