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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
D2 Steel Question
- Thread starter 2Blades
- Start date
- Joined
- May 26, 2000
- Messages
- 1,922
D2's chrome composition varies depending on the maker of the actual steel, from around 11% up to maybe 12.5% from Crucible's old stuff (from memory).
D2 is considered semi-stainless, and whether people think it is closer to carbon or stainless depends mostly on their experience with their knives... depends on the steel mfg, the finish (mirror-ish vs. brushed vs. bead blast), and the heat treat.
Any finish that isn't close to mirror can collect water, salts, blood/guts, tree sap, etc in the little pits/grooves. It will get rust flecks for sure, or worse if abused (left dirty for days). D2 really is hard to get a mirror polish on... it "orange peels"... but Walter Brend sure seems to have it figured out...he does a brushed finish that is very fine and approaches mirrored.
You should treat it like a relatively stain resistant carbon steel... e.g. clean it thoroughly with soap and water after use. If that doesn't get it clean, some solvent (acetone, MEK, "brake cleaner" from autoparts store, even mild solvents like mineral spirits, WD-40 (mostly mineral spirits and mineral oil),). You can oil the blade or use something like TufCloth if you like.
D2 is pretty good stuff when heat treated well. It is inexpensive for makers to purchase also.
When properly heat treated, D2 and ATS-34/154CM are pretty close in performance, with advocates on both sides. ATS-34 contains a bit more chrome (13% to 14%) and so is a closer to the bottom end of the true "stainless" steels. D2 contains more vanadium and in theory should have slightly better wear resistance, but it would take a lot of testing to prove this out, relative to ATS-34. The heat treat quality would dominate the results of such a test.
Crucible's S30V is better than D2 in most all measureable characteristics, except for upfront purchase price.
Use the search engine for a lot of content on D2 ... use words like "performance" with D2 to narrow the search. Also try "Dozier" and "Paul Bos".
D2 is considered semi-stainless, and whether people think it is closer to carbon or stainless depends mostly on their experience with their knives... depends on the steel mfg, the finish (mirror-ish vs. brushed vs. bead blast), and the heat treat.
Any finish that isn't close to mirror can collect water, salts, blood/guts, tree sap, etc in the little pits/grooves. It will get rust flecks for sure, or worse if abused (left dirty for days). D2 really is hard to get a mirror polish on... it "orange peels"... but Walter Brend sure seems to have it figured out...he does a brushed finish that is very fine and approaches mirrored.
You should treat it like a relatively stain resistant carbon steel... e.g. clean it thoroughly with soap and water after use. If that doesn't get it clean, some solvent (acetone, MEK, "brake cleaner" from autoparts store, even mild solvents like mineral spirits, WD-40 (mostly mineral spirits and mineral oil),). You can oil the blade or use something like TufCloth if you like.
D2 is pretty good stuff when heat treated well. It is inexpensive for makers to purchase also.
When properly heat treated, D2 and ATS-34/154CM are pretty close in performance, with advocates on both sides. ATS-34 contains a bit more chrome (13% to 14%) and so is a closer to the bottom end of the true "stainless" steels. D2 contains more vanadium and in theory should have slightly better wear resistance, but it would take a lot of testing to prove this out, relative to ATS-34. The heat treat quality would dominate the results of such a test.
Crucible's S30V is better than D2 in most all measureable characteristics, except for upfront purchase price.
Use the search engine for a lot of content on D2 ... use words like "performance" with D2 to narrow the search. Also try "Dozier" and "Paul Bos".