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hardness for a german chef's knife?
- Thread starter Hesparus
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 21,855
Who will use it; a knife lover, or a fool ?
It's 1084, this doesn't leave much wiggle room. This means around 58 on something that'll have that fine an edge. The key is the grind, you want almost a zero edge rather than secondary bevels for the edge. If you try for harder you'll probably see chipping or easy edge damage. There's no need to go any softer than that though, 1084's pretty tough without softening it up.
eta: This is how I did the kitchen knife I use every day. I've got more of a secondary bevel than I should, you can actually SEE it in the pic, but I goofed late in the process and had to shave off a little metal from the edge to get the right shape and it was a touch too thick for the super thin edge I'd want. My next one is CPM154 at 61RC and will get that edge when I actually finish it.
Top one. the lower one is thicker steel and was the initial test of the profile idea.
eta: This is how I did the kitchen knife I use every day. I've got more of a secondary bevel than I should, you can actually SEE it in the pic, but I goofed late in the process and had to shave off a little metal from the edge to get the right shape and it was a touch too thick for the super thin edge I'd want. My next one is CPM154 at 61RC and will get that edge when I actually finish it.
Top one. the lower one is thicker steel and was the initial test of the profile idea.
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Well, I don't have tested hardness numbers so mine might be harder than I think with his. According to the charts I should be around 58-59 but that's with traditional 1084. I got to that recipe by testing incremental tempering until it no longer chipped. Going a little further didn't seem to do much, as if there's a slight range where the results are very similar but I generally stay on the top of the range that works for me. I used the same method with 1080 and I know Aldo's 1084 is harder than I was getting with that. I temper at a lower temp and it resists chipping more effectively even at the higher hardness.
Joe, you've got me wondering now. I may have to take a piece of the 1084 in for testing. I had a piece of 1080 tested but when I tried out Aldo's 1084 I was just using a subjective comparison to see if I wanted to switch.
Joe, you've got me wondering now. I may have to take a piece of the 1084 in for testing. I had a piece of 1080 tested but when I tried out Aldo's 1084 I was just using a subjective comparison to see if I wanted to switch.
With 1084, I'd shoot for 60 if it was me. Depending on your quench medium, temp control, and soak time, temper at 400 first round, then 425 second round. Test the edge for chipping. If it chips at 425, bump it again to 450 for an hour. Ought to get you in the ballpark.