Does 2% Nickel Addition into 1084 Steel Power Hurt Performance?

J. Keeton

J. Keeton

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Nov 15, 2005
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I’m looking to mess around with some canister Damascus and I was wondering if the 2% nickel addition into the 1084 powder, offered by Jantz, hurts blade performance in comparison to straight 1084 powder.


They say in the description that it basically performs like 15N20; yall think this is accurate? I hope that’s the case… I’ve read some legacy threads on here about how 15N20 is one of the most underrated “cheap” steels when it comes to performance. The extra nickel for the contrast would be nice astetically! 😁

Any opinions welcome!

Cheers yall,
 
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I see no reason the addition of nickel would cause any decrease in the steels performance. In fact it should increase hardenability and toughness.
 
I've been waiting for folks with real knowledge (Like the above post) since I'm so new at this forging stuff. I'd planned to use 4% nickel powder for Canister, but only have pure (no nickel) fine mesh 1084 powder. My understanding the nickel really doesn't affect the finished blade much other than be a tad shinier than the pure powder. If using ball bearings (52100) I'd think using the pure powder would provide more contrast. If using something that etches dark, then the 4% nickel would be used for the brighter etch.

There are several folks on the forum with knowledge on what's best for each
 
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Stacy, I was hoping you'd chime in on this topic. When you say too much nickel isn't a good thing - care to elaborate? Does it make the finished steel too soft for a good blade? Doesn't weld as good? My thinking was 4% would make a brighter section where the powder was.

I'm glad this topic came up since I'm planning to order a bucket of powder with nickel, and without more knowledge I would have ordered the 4% thinking it would be ok?
 
Larrin might jump in here hopefully in the near future and tell you more about nickel. What I remember about nickel is that it is an austenite stabilizer, which means that after quenching the knife you won't have good martensite conversion (lower HRC numbers due to excessive retained austenite). 15n20 is essentially 1075 with a 2% nickel addition. I don't see any reason why 2% nickel in 1084 would be a bad thing. 4% would be too much, methinks. Also the 2% nickel gives overall better toughnes, a bit of corrosion resistance (not much tho), and of course the contrast in pattern welded steel.
 
Samurai Stu has the reason.
Above 2% the nickel stabilizes the austenite and the steel loses hardness. It does get tougher, which is why some industrial alloys have a lot of nickel. 316 stainless is one, which is an austenitic stainless steel with 10-14% nickel.
 
Ken H> said:
I would have ordered the 4% thinking it would be ok?
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Shouldn't be a problem if this isn't in the edge portion of the blade, though. Right? It is significantly brighter than the 2% powder.
Here's a pic of my first canister blade made of the 3 powder options (1084/2%/4%) I did a month or so ago just to give me an idea of the contrast:
20210601_183307.jpg
You can easily see the difference in the 2% and 4% powders.
 
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Very good information yall! I'm willing to sacrifice some contrast for performance; so it sounds like the 2% is my ticket. Maybe in the future a san mai with a 1084 core and 4% on the outsides is a nice option too (like weo weo metioned).
 
is it possible to put a center of .070" (for example) in the middle of a canister, with powder on both sides, with perhaps some bearings, or other stuff to help create a pattern. Is it possible to forge a canister like that for a San Mai type blade? If so, the 4% might be good to provide bright shiny sides with the high carbon core, almost like a SS San Mai. Anybody ever tried that with success?
 
I did not realize the OP was making san-mai.
In san-mai, the side layers can be anything. The issue with powders is how much it gets mixed in with the other powders. If the core is a solid bar and the powders are san-mai, then you can use all the nickel you want.

I used to have Chris Marks (RIP) make my san-mai billets with a .040" strip of pure nickel on each side of the 52100 core. Then he would put a strip of .020" pure nickel between every four to seven layers of the lower carbon contrast steels. This created a faux hamon from the thicker strip and bright contrast glints in the san-mai. The other thing it did is stop any carbon migration from the 52100 into the low carbon side steels.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I did not realize the OP was making san-mai.
In san-mai, the side layers can be anything. The issue with powders is how much it gets mixed in with the other powders. If the core is a solid bar and the powders are san-mai, then you can use all the nickel you want.

I used to have Chris Marks (RIP) make my san-mai billets with a .040" strip of pure nickel on each side of the 52100 core. Then he would put a strip of .020" pure nickel between every four to seven layers of the lower carbon contrast steels. This created a faux hamon from the thicker strip and bright contrast glints in the san-mai. The other thing it did is stop any carbon migration from the 52100 into the low carbon side steels.
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Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith I’m not. You were right on my original post not being San-mai. But weo weo got me thinking about trying it down the road. I’m happy to hear the 2% nickel won’t significantly hurt blade performance.
 
weo said:
Here's a pic of my first canister blade...
Click to expand...
Btw - I feel I should add that I am not going to turn this into a finished blade for the reasons mentioned above and as you can see, there is some of the 4% nickel on the edge of this one. Because it was my 1st can, I was only concerned about 2 things: what forging a canister and the steel is like, and what the different powders look like. I'm going to break this one soon to check the grain.
 
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