I love tool steel.

T

timbit

Joined
Jul 21, 2011
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Today,

I opened 15 boxes, stripped a ton of wire bundles, made 20 cuts to pipe insulation, whittled some hard wood for 10 minutes on lunch break, cut some rubber mats, and sliced about 15 zip ties with my Blind Horse Knife. At the end of the day, 10 passes on my leather strop and I could still shave.

Does anyone else just LOVE how easily tool steel sharpens up?
 
Never tried D2. How does the grain compare to O2? I tend to use 1095 and O2. Never had the chance to purchase D2. I also LOVE L6
 
Tool steel is kind of a broad category. That's like saying you love stainless steel and how easy it sharpens up.

Not all tool steel sharpens easily btw, as something as extreme as CPM 15V is a tool steel.
 
D2 is super 1095 or like s30v in my opinion, once you get an edge on the knife it holds it forever. I have a couple O1 customs I adore.
 
I like tool steels as well. O-1, Cruwear/vascowear, W2, 3V, etc. I also like the high speed steels. I've had some pretty lousy 1095 knives but have never had a bad O-1, or any other tool steel knife. Hitachi white, and blue steels are exceptional steels as well, with Super Blue being a favorite of mine due it's consistency and performance even at rc 62-63.

I'm sure the heat treat could be messed up thereby ruining the knife but aside from that I believe the steels fit their compositions closer and more consistently and better than most regular carbon steels. There are of course exceptions. Even more consistent are the powder steels. They are typically even cleaner than tool steels, which I feel are cleaner than regular 10XX imported from _____. The latest powder steels, 3rd generation like Elmax and M390 seem even cleaner and have better carbide structures. I've yet to get an inclusion, void or bubble in them, have brought them up to a good 8,000 grit and had them perform wonderfully with small, but perfect mirror finishes on the edge.

As usual, that's just an opinion and there will always be exceptions.

Joe
 
A good steel with superb geometry and fantastic ergonomics...these are the keys to fantastic cutting experiences;)
 
TriviaMonster said:
Tool steel is kind of a broad category. That's like saying you love stainless steel and how easy it sharpens up.

Not all tool steel sharpens easily btw, as something as extreme as CPM 15V is a tool steel.
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Fair enough. From my experiences with tool steels, I prefer them over stainless steels. I don't even know what CPM 15V is, are there any knives by popular manufactures made out of it? How does it compare to 02 or 1095 in terms of sharpness and wear resistance?
 
I have one made out of 3/8" thick S7, i think that is a tool steel. Love it. Holds a wicked edge.

Justin Gingrich Ranger RD-6 Signature Series
 
D2 is my favorite tool steel that I've tried. Wicked sharp, great edge retention, and just great all around.
 
I'm not sure what all steels are tool steels, but I'm a big fan of M4, M390, CTS-XHP, D2, etc. And I think some of them are tool steels :)
 
timbit said:
Fair enough. From my experiences with tool steels, I prefer them over stainless steels. I don't even know what CPM 15V is, are there any knives by popular manufactures made out of it? How does it compare to 02 or 1095 in terms of sharpness and wear resistance?
Click to expand...

Hope you are wearing your adult diaper:

Typical Chemistry
Carbon 3.40%
Manganese 0.50%
Silicon 0.90%
Chromium 5.25%
Vanadium 14.50%
Molybdenum 1.30%
Sulfur 0.07%

Toughness is meh, not great but it's really a replacement for using carbides in machining which are very brittle. So in comparison to O1, toughness is not good, in comparison to carbides, toughness is very good. It's about 1/2 as tough as D2 according to Crucible(source).

Wear resistance is where 15V comes to play. I believe it's about 12-15x the wear resistance of D2, and double that for A2 probably. Crucible claims it as the highest wear resistant cold work tool steel available(source). This is big boy steel. The reason for it's unreal wear resistance is simple: it has 0.50% more Vanadium than 154CM has Chromium! 14.50% Vanadium in fact. Vanadium carbides are extremely hard and wear very slowly. The secret is the Hrc of these Vanadium Carbides, they are in fact 80-85Hrc according to Latrobe(source).

I have never used it, but I can imagine this steel takes a very long time to so any extensive sharpening on. But, that's like a once a year affair because it will take a very long time to dull.
 
Cpm d-2, o1, reg. d2 are great when around 60-61. I've all tend to be a little toothy and chip at a higher rc. It's hard to beat tool steel. I love using all of them
 
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