I'm talkin CARBON ! Your voice matter's.

T

technician1

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Nov 25, 2009
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At least I want to start a thread about carbon, with all the big steel debates, as always. Most of the debates on which steel is better and why, are about stainless. So me being a carbon fan, also fixed blade, I want to know......
1. what carbon steel is your fav. ?
2 who's heat treat and Rc ?
3 what blade geo. ?

and anything else that is relevant.
 
I would have to answer that everything depends on what you want to use the knife for and what you expect it to do.I would ask if you want a chopper,slicer,fighting knife,bushcrafter.......Do you want to be able to sharpen it easily in the field or do you want it to hold an edge but need a diamond stone to sharpen it,or something in between?
 
it's all your personal view ! I have my personal fav. I'm just interested what everyone else's view is.
 
Are you asking about "carbon steel" or "non-stainless steel"?

"Carbon steel" means 1095, 1085, 1055, etc. No other alloying elements.

"Non-stainless" or "low alloy steel"means there are other alloying elements and includes A2, O1, 1095 Cro Van, Carbon V, Case CV, 5160, infi, and a host of others.

My favorite carbon steel is 1095.
My favorite low alloy steel is Carbon V or 1095 Cro Van.
 
thanks knarfeng I did not know the difference. How low alloy does it have to be, to be considered carbon? Maybe you could go into detail on this and teach me something. My personal fav is 1095 custom and production. At Rc 59. although I have read great things about 1095 at higher Rc's being really good.
 
There's also the matter of eutectoid vs. non-eutectoid carbon steels, at least from the perspective of the knifemaker. A hack like me who can only heat treat using charcoal would probably say 1080 (because it can be correctly heat treated without a controlled temp. soak) over 1095, even though 1095 is technically a better steel due to a higher C content.

Of all the non-stainless alloys I think that 52100 is probably the best performer, although if you want to extend the category all the way up to D2 (not technically a stainless steel at 12% Cr) then Dozier's treatment of it is also nothing to sneeze at.
 
If I am gonna go with non stainless I want that steel to give me something that is worth it or really different than what is available from the stainless that is available.

That list is VERY small IMO, steels like CPM 10V, K294, CPM 3V, INFI, and the new K390 if it's what I expect it to be.

They can have the rest IMO. ;)

Just too many great steel choices these days that give us more. :)

And I am pretty picky on what the blade geometry will be, I want it how I want it when I am going custom, it's going to be my way or it won't happen. :)

Lets just say I have plenty of pry bars and there are plenty of those on the market all over the place........
 
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Carbon - y'know what ya mean - jus plain steel knife. I bet nobody called it carbon until people started to use SS for knives.
 
I like A2 with brkt's heat treatment as far as non stainless goes. So edge geometry wise it has a convex edge.

1095 is also a good steel for me.

Finally 1082 is another one of my favorites. The knife I have has a thin convex ground blade that is differentially heat treated by Kurt Allen Swearingen. I like it better than my 1095 blades but i think that has more to do with the grind than any other factor. It also patinas real well, better than A2.
 
knarfeng said:
Are you asking about "carbon steel" or "non-stainless steel"?

"Carbon steel" means 1095, 1085, 1055, etc. No other alloying elements.

"Non-stainless" or "low alloy steel"means there are other alloying elements and includes A2, O1, 1095 Cro Van, Carbon V, Case CV, 5160, infi, and a host of others.

My favorite carbon steel is 1095.
My favorite low alloy steel is Carbon V or 1095 Cro Van.
Click to expand...

This sums it up for me.
 
elkins45 can you tell me more about "eutectoid vs. non-eutectoid carbon steels" ? I have no idea what your talkin about..... thanks
 
technician1 said:
thanks knarfeng I did not know the difference. How low alloy does it have to be, to be considered carbon? Maybe you could go into detail on this and teach me something.
Click to expand...

this is just a basic explanation:

all steel is based on iron and carbon, low alloy just means that the make up of the steel is pretty basic, iron and carbon with little to no other elements added. high alloy steels have other elements added (in larger amounts) like tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium, chromium, etc. high alloy steels come in both non-stainless and stainless. stainless usually refers to steels that have more than 12% chromium added to help resist corrosion.
 
My personal fav is 1080.
The piece i'm referring to is a 6 inch Jim Bensinger custom.
High flat grind with a small swedge, 40 degrees inclusive bevel.
I was over practicing my chopping technique on some fallen aspen. After about 30 minutes of going through branches from 1/2 to 4" in diameter it still popped hair off my arm.
 
Got a Neilson BUK in 52100 - it is great. A few French knives in X75C - most excellent. A few scandis in silver steel - also magnifico

If D2 counts, it's D2. :) Otherwise its 1095 - though I have a Para2 coming in that Carpenter stuff. Looking forward to seeing how that goes
 
Love 1095, but the steel on my Svord Peasant is great, and it takes and holds a razor edge excellently.
I have been told the Peasant has L6 steel. Forgot to mention that my 1095 is on my 7in. Ka-bar combat knife, with the standard geometry but the edge reprofiled to 25°. The SK-5 on my Bushman is also superb, with my Bushman on a 20° blade.
 
technician1 said:
elkins45 can you tell me more about "eutectoid vs. non-eutectoid carbon steels" ? I have no idea what your talkin about..... thanks
Click to expand...

Here's a very simplified version of my understanding:

All simple steels are just a frozen solution of iron dissolved in carbon. THe only difference between a hardened piece and an annealed one is the position of the carbon atoms within the iron matrix. The position where they make the steel hard isn't their preferred position at room temperature, so you have to heat up the steel until they get into that position, then 'freeze' them in place by cooling the steel so rapidly they don't have a chance to rearrange themselves. That's what you see when you see a knifemaker or blacksmith plunge a red hot piece into water or oil to quench it.

There's a point at which there's too much carbon in the mix to be all dissolved by just a simple heating past the Curie point and it's somewhere around .84 percent C. That's the eutectoid point. Any steel with a C content above that needs to be held at elevated temperature for a number of minutes to give the C time to distribute itself evenly within the iron matrix. A steel like 1080 can be heated up to the Curie point for just a few seconds before it is quenched and that's long enough for all the C to situate itself properly. You can heat and quench it with simple tools and be relatively assured of getting good results. 1095 needs to be held at the correct temp for a while without overcooking it, and that means using something more sophisticated than a BBQ filled with hardwood charcoal---that takes a heat treating furnace. So that's why I separated the two--the 'best' carbon steels in terms of C content aren't actually the best choice for amateur hacks wanting to make functional knives with minimal tools.

That's my understanding. There are probably 100 bladesmiths and metallurgists who read BFC who are gritting their teeth reading this, and I welcome their correction of my errors and/or oversimplifications.
 
When I hear "carbon steel", I lump the very low alloy steels with them, and kind of draw the line after 52100. Some of the "carbon steels" mentioned, I wouldn't consider calling carbon steel. I'm sorry to say that I don't know what distinguishes commonly forged steels over steels that aren't forged, but once again, in my limited experience, 52100 is kind of the limit. IMHO, it is the best steel commonly forged, although super clean O1 is probably as good, but may be harder to find, and much more expensive. Please don't take that as the Gospel, there are those among us who truly know much more than I.

I like blade steel on the hard side, and don't care if it's brittle. I've never chipped a blade cleaning game, but if I thought there might be a chance of having to stay out overnight, I'd take a workhorse too.

Flat and shallow HGs for me. Convex I'll beat on.
 
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