Dozier D2 vs. Knives of Alaska D2

N

Nimravus Nut

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Jan 17, 2003
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I have used both knives side by side and there is a noticeable difference between their edge holding capabilities. Is there a huge differnce in heat treating between them? I know Dozier treats his D2 in the 60's range and Knives of Alaska around 58, but I also noticed with the brass rod test there is no sign of brittleness with Dozier's higher Rc blade.:confused:
 
I've had both also and there is no comparison. Bob's are far better for edge keeping. You wouldn't know using them that both are D2. In my opinion Knives of Alaska isn't maximizing D2 at that hardness but for a larger chopper like the cleavers they make it is a better hardness. I always just assumed they only did the big ones at the 58 Rc and that the smaller utility knives were certainly maixmized at around 60/61 Rc but after using the three knife set I had there was a noticable diff in the cutting performance and edge keeping of them vs my White River skinner, my Personal, and my Whittler that I got from Bob ..

STR
 
I think that Bob Dozier "can cook" D2 to it's highest performace standard for a knife blade like few can or will do.
 
You did not mention which was which with the best edge but I assume the Dozier. The true custom maker has control all the way.
 
Dozier is one of the reasons D2 has become popular.

Unfortanately, few others are coming close to the standard he set.
 
Nimravus Nut said:
I have used both knives side by side and there is a noticeable difference between their edge holding capabilities. Is there a huge differnce in heat treating between them?
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Possibly, the most likely difference would be either more retained austenite or a higher temper chosen to allow a safer slop in temperature control and greater impact toughness/ductility. The most significant influence is likely induced simply by the edge profiles and/or sharpening. Dozier's initial edge tends to very sharp, very coarse, and fairly thin/acute. If any of these factors are not matched by another knife it can be outcut even if it had inherently *superior* edge retention.

The biggest advantage Dozier has isn't the heat treating. D2 is a known tool steel, you can go look up exact heat treatments for it to maximize desired properties. The main reason the knives cut well are the edge profile and initial choice of grit when sharpening. Joe Talmadge was one of the first to quantify the effect that makes and showed how reducing from 20 to 15 and lowing the grit could increase performance by *hundreds* of percent.

No one heat treating knives comes close to increasing the performance of steel by that level over standard heat treatments. The effect of geometry on cutting ability makes comparing steels by comparing knives difficult unless the geometries are similar or this is carefully taken into account in the comparisons.

D2 by the way isn't demanding to heat treat and there is nothing stopping any maker from pushing the hardness far past what Dozier runs if they desired. It is a low temperature high air hardening steel and thus doesn't have the demands of HSS or oil/water quenching steels, let alone differntial tempering/bainite treatements that many are using.

-Cliff
 
It your knife is made from D2 and its not made by Bob Dozier then you are not getting the full attributes of the D2 steel.
As far as I am concerned there is nobody else who can do to D2 the way that Bob Dozier can.

I have 4 Doziers and if I have my way (read"$$$") I will surly have more in the future.

Bob Dozier= D2 and D2= Bob Dozier

Ciao
:thumbup: :thumbup:
 
God, I can't believe I'm saying this, :D but I have to agree with Cliff on this one. There is no mystery to heat treating D2. Proper soaking of the steel and lower tempering temps will give you a higher hardness. Dozier knives thin hollow grinds make them super slicing/cutting machines.
Scott
 
Hondo.3 said:
What about the D2 Bog Dog by SRKW?
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I have used the Safari Skinner by Swamp Rat and the edge retention was the equal of Dozier's cutting cardboard. Cutting ability will be strongly influenced by your choice of initial edge angle and finish. The edge on the Safari Skinner was about 0.025" thick and will thus need a relief grind to match the edge on most of Dozier similar knives, the K2 for example I had was 0.015" behind the edge. Swamp Rat has also illustrated far more resistance to impacts with their D2 than would be expected generally as noted by pictures and details made available in their forum.

-Cliff
 
Razorback - Knives said:
There is no mystery to heat treating D2. Proper soaking of the steel and lower tempering temps will give you a higher hardness.
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Nor any steel in general, you just need to know how to read and be willing to open a book. There has always been hype about knives and steels, it was much worse ten years ago. There was a big arguement propogated that knives cut well because of the steel or heat treatment, a myth which was heavily debunkned by Swaim/Talmadge. It was also frequently claimed similar to the above "few can or will do" which implies a higher critical standard.

McClung used to use similar descriptions to his heat treating process and told his customers how demanding it was to raise O1 to the hardness he used and they repeated it endlessly. In fact the hardness of O1 can be pushed far past what McClung ran if desired, and as Alvin has noted readily on rec.knives it is one of the easiest steels to harden and can be raised to 63/64 HRC even with very primitive equipment.

In general ask around and see how many claiming superiority have actually performed direct comparisons with other makers/manufacturers and are willing to make public and detailed statements of such. Much of it is just repetition of perceptions with little basis in experimental fact and often attributed to the wrong set of properties. Much of it comes from the reluctance of users to question makers and demand proof of claims so "facts" get accepted and propogated with no substantification .

Kevin Cashen has a long thread about this on the Metallurgy section of SwordForums currently and the need for an objective standard for evalution of knife performance to eliminate such problems.

-Cliff
 
OK, OK I know you guys are going to laugh at me and maybe even a few cat calls :o . But I've got a good buddy who has a Benchmade knife made with D-2 and he swears it is the best pocketknife he's ever owned. I guess my question would be this:
Is D-2 a blade steel that would require the extra TLC and conscientious attention that a custom knife maker like a Bob Dozier could and would provide to actually heat treat it properly or are there any large scale production companies that heat treat D-2 to it's optimum performance level?
The way I am understanding all of this is that D-2 is not a very easy steel to heat treat properly and for the most part it would take a Custom Master Knife Maker like Bob Dozier who could give each blade individualized attention to detail to do it right. AS far as I know I don't think that Knives Of Alaska is truly a production knife company on the same level as Benchmade or a couple of other companies that I can think of who have used that steel. But to be fair I have heard a lot of good things about "Knives Of Alaska". I hope my question is pertinent to the subject at hand and I hope I'm not comparing apples & grapes :)
 
JD Spydo said:
Is D-2 a blade steel that would require the extra TLC and conscientious attention that a custom knife maker like a Bob Dozier could and would provide to actually heat treat it properly or are there any large scale production companies that heat treat D-2 to it's optimum performance level?
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D2 isn't specially demanding in that respect no and in fact is easier than most high carbon stainless. High speed steels like M2 are very demanding and few knifemakers can actually harden it as well steels like S90V which demand a high austenizing temperature. The most complex heat treatments are in general the ones used by guys who forge like Cashen who have to do a lot of work not done by stock removal makers to normalize and refine the grain and as well work with steels which can not be air hardened and thus have to use oil/water as quenchants, as well then you have issues of differential hardening and/or bainite used by those guys.

-Cliff
 
The question - or observation, perhaps - is why don't makers heat treat D2 to a more optimal form (HRc, etc.)?

As it is well understood how to do it, why do we still get knives that are not brought to the hardness level that gave D2 its current position as a premium steel for a folder/smaller fixed blade its hype?

And, are there any larger firms so producing? Or, must we get our knife, take it apart, and send the blade off to be reheat treated to get the performance it should have had to begin with.
 
In general what is optimal is of much debate. D2 can reach 62-64 HRC, well above where Dozier hardens it and offering a higher level of wear resistance. In general production companies have to allow for a wider tolerance range when heat treating and thus tend to err on the side of caution rather having a steel which is a bit too soft than a piece which is a bit too hard. They are also typically softer on most air hardening steels, not just D2, due to lack of oil/cold treatments.

-Cliff
 
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