D2 - Your thoughts

This thread was quite timely. I just heat treated my first two D2 blades last night.
1200, equalize
1550, equalize
1850, 30 minutes
air quench with blown air, to room temp
dry ice and kerosene for three hours
temper x2 cycles at 450 for two hours

Still in the second temper cycle, but seems to be working well so far. I may have to either keep one of these blades for a personal knife, or have them rockwelled in town somewhere.
 
I love me some D2! I started making slip joints with it and now I'd rather use D2 than Cpm154cm. It gets scary sharp and stays that way wont stain easily and it's all shiny too.
 
I started making knives a couple of years ago and used D2 because I could get scrape pieces from work and I was familiar with the steel using it for punches and such. First few knives I did not cryo and noticed some chipping on the edge. Since then I have started using dry ice and acetone and the edge stability has been good.

Heat to 1850 - hold for 20min
air quench to 120-150
temper at 450 - 2hrs
cryo overnight
temper at 425 - 2hrs

After reading your posts I am going to try the cryo first after plate quench, then double temper.

I made a hunter for myself and had everybody used it at the cabin this year, did alittle torture test. Field dressed three deer, one bear and several turkeys in addition to stuff around the cabin, never resharpened the knife, just breasted 6 pheasants with it also. Just keeps on cutting. I left it in the sheath overnight without cleaning it up and it did start to pit in several spots.

STAY POINTY MY FREINDS::thumbup:
 
D2 is the 30-06 of knife steels........not necessarily the best
in any category, but certainly all that would reasonably be
expected of it...and perhaps a bit more.
 
Well, done testing!

I tested 3-4 spots on each blade (one on the tang, 2-3 along the edge - I'm ht'ing 3/32" stock blanks and grinding afterwards). All 8 blades tested out between 61-63 Rc. I used a Starrett digital tester at the local trade school with one of the machinist instructors.

I've started grinding the first two chef's knives and see a noticeable difference in how it grinds compared to regular D2. It seems to be much easier and cleaner to grind. My only complaint about it was trying to get off the mill scale before HT. Usually, with S30V or CPM 154CM, I just hand sand it off of the blanks with 120gr paper and WD-40 (and then degrease with layout blue remover prior to wrapping for HT). This stuff was a complete PITA! Made me check the bank account multiple times to try and convince myself to buy a surface grinder. I ended up having to use a 36 grit blaze belt on the Bee to get it off (and removing the scratches with 120 grit on the disc grinder prior to HT) and the scale seemed to plug up the belts pretty bad. I wish crucible could get a better surface finish on their hot-rolled stock (or not charge so much for precision ground).

After HT, things are going much easier, will post more as work progresses.

Nathan
 
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