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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Knife steel selections
- Thread starter gun410
- Start date
It'll get moved to shop talk, but for now here's an answer.
440C is not a good steel to try heat treating at home with a fire pit and hair dryer. If it's treated that way, it most likely will not hold a good edge. How do you plan to shape the blade? I'll go ahead and say if you plan to hammer forge it, you're in for a long afternoon. Forging stainless steel is a skill all it's own. Stainless steels have greater strength even at forging temperatures, which makes the move less with each hammer strike. They will also typically air harden, so one wrong move at too low a temperature and you'll get a crack. I'd advise shaping with files or a grinder and send it out for heat treatment. Nothing at all wrong with 440C, as long as it's not been messed up during the knife making process. I've had a few with that steel and had no complaints about edge holding. Of course, my standards could just be low.
440C is not a good steel to try heat treating at home with a fire pit and hair dryer. If it's treated that way, it most likely will not hold a good edge. How do you plan to shape the blade? I'll go ahead and say if you plan to hammer forge it, you're in for a long afternoon. Forging stainless steel is a skill all it's own. Stainless steels have greater strength even at forging temperatures, which makes the move less with each hammer strike. They will also typically air harden, so one wrong move at too low a temperature and you'll get a crack. I'd advise shaping with files or a grinder and send it out for heat treatment. Nothing at all wrong with 440C, as long as it's not been messed up during the knife making process. I've had a few with that steel and had no complaints about edge holding. Of course, my standards could just be low.