D2 or stainless slip-joint spring…?

thales2015

thales2015

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Jul 19, 2014
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Hello all

I am thinking of having a custom slip-joint made and am pondering a D2 back-spring vs. a stainless one (the blade will be carbon damascus). Being new to this game, the stainless spring sounds better as it might mean easier overall maintenance, but D2 is "nearly" stainless, so is there really a difference big enough for me to be concerned? I'd obviously like to use the knife as an edc - so, though I'm ok with the maintenance of the carbon blade, dealing with maintaining other parts of the knife (especially those not easy to get to/clean) concerns me a bit…thoughts? Are there any advantages to using D2 over stainless?

Much thanks - David
 
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I'd be more concerned about which steel is more suitable as a spring. That I don't know. Since D2 is so close to being SS on paper I wouldn't let rust resistance be the deciding factor.

I know this doesn't answer your question.
 
An excellent point, let's make this a part of the discussion - is a D2 spring any better than a stainless one?
 
Tons of knives use stainless steel, so it must be doing something right. So long as you get the right grade of stainless, it should last and be perfectly adequate.
 
Because a knife has stainless blades does not mean the springs are also stainless. Does it?
 
I can't imagine what advantage D2 might have over generic stainless, when used as a spring. Sure, it will most likely be harder, more wear resistant and possibly tougher, but in this setting, I don't se how it matters?
Could it be that it doesn't fatigue as much from repeated bending? I have no idea. All I know is that cheap stainless has been used for slip-joint springs for a long time, and it usually works just fine.
D2 is pretty resistant to corrosion, but, as you know, not as much as stainless steels. Of course there is a difference in corrosion resistance between different stainless steels with chromium content ranging from I believe 12 to around 20%. I guess it's a bit of a gamble, since you might end up with a "stainless" steel with only 0.5% more chromium than D2.
Anyway, there's probably a reason D2 blades are often coated, and personally I'd be a bit nervous having it in a crucial part of the knife, which is difficult to inspect.
 
I think the real factor here would be what metals are used in the blade and how the tang would wear down against either of the spring faces. You don't want the spring taking away unnessessary bites into the tang and creating slop and a weaker pull, though is is more of a question for longevity of the knife.

For immediate usage either should be fine. I've always been told to match like steels with like steels so they wear evenly but that's just my .02
 
I'd use a spring steel that will patina with the blade. Stainless will look odd with your blade choice.
 
I have a few SS Schrade knives, and the springs are not SS, they do patina.

The comment about the spring wearing down the tang, I believe you can soften the contact parts on both the spring and tang to prevent one from eating the other away. I'd appreciate it if someone with the knowledge could comment.

And I also agree that a SS spring might look a bit strange with a damascus blade.
 
Thanks for the feedback - ended up talking to the maker a bit more about this and he suggested CPM 154 for the spring as an alternative to D2. He just had the D2 ready to go immediately in case I wanted the knife made a bit more quickly.
 
Why does this spring have to be hard like the blade ? A very corrosion resistant stainless is 301 which can only be hardened by cold working [somewear in the HRc 40s range ] This is used for springs if you get FULL HARD 301 .
 
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