D2 toughness ?

upnorth

upnorth

Joined
Nov 25, 2006
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Hi. I have a D-2 Leatherneck that I really like a lot. But I have read mixed views of its toughness. My concern is that I don't know were it stands on a batoning scale. I baton through wrist sized wood for fires at times and I am wondering if d-2 simply isn't a good choice for this work, as say 1075 or whatever. That is what my intuition is telling me. What say you ? This is above zero temp work, after that I just insist on a hatchet. Or this friggin EGKH meat cleaver that I should take out one of these days, lol.
 
depends on how its hardened. cold steel does it at what 59 range? so close to the top of the 62hrc for d2 steel. d2 is pretty tough but hardened to its top end a bit brittle for my tastes for something like batoning.

the leatherneck is a saber ground, right? if so id be okay with it. if its hollowground id shy away, but others may disagree.


1075 id prefer for a task like that. never ever broken a 1075 machete.
 
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There is tons of information on D2 steel blades for survival and chopping tasks. The steel is one portion of the equation. Heat treatments, blade geometry and knife configuration also play an important role in suitably.

I suggest Googling the topic, using the search feature on this BF site, and reading the knife manufacturers intent. The steel alloy content may offer clues as to comparison with other steels, but is not the definitive aspect of task performance.
 
I have one tough d2 blade. It's surprised me in it's toughness but also in it's difficulty to sharpen. It's very nearly stainless, if that's important to you.
 
I thought this video was pretty impressive. Properly HTed d2 should be way more tough than most people give it credit for.
 
Don't let hardness numbers dictate what a steel may/may not be capable of doing. 2 identical D2 knives at 61HRC can behave very differently depending on the heat treatment it received. Of course geometry is a major factor in performance, but I say that in mind that we aren't discussing geometry here, but rather D2 itself, and the heat treatment.
 
What we need, is a saber gound Leatherneck in DLC’d 3V.

Call it the Leatherneck SF Elite. Or the Leatherneck FR (Force Recon)
 
The design of the knife should lend itself well to being beaten on, within reason. What's within reason? I guess baton it through some wood and see what happens. I wouldn't advise trying to smash it through knots but it should handle most woods fine. At a 5mm thick spine it should handle batoning pretty well. I wouldn't wail on it with a log but a smaller club and being "responsible" should be fine. By that I mean that use many smaller wacks and work it through instead of pounding the poop out of it in several blows.

If you're willing to use some wedges then you could use it to start the split and then use several wedges to finish the split to save the knife. I saw this performed in a youtube video by someone who knows far more about this kind of thing than I do but he was using what looked like a 3-3.5" puukko to split 4-6" logs (without knots).

Carbon steels like 1075 tend to be tougher but D2 is pretty tough for minor to moderate batoning most of the time. This is based on my experiences in my back yard trying out a bunch of knives to see what works and doesn't work for my intended purposes and to find a "best" tool through experimentation.
 
Thanks for the replies. I decided to come here directly because this is the ''source'' so to speak. My opinion of light to medium wood splitting seems to dovetail with other users. I generally do my research, but at times you feel like you are going down a rabbit hole of competing opinions. But reading ''the knife manufacturers intent'' for the piece sounds like a great avenue for my answers.
 
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