Looking for a tough steel that isn't oil-hardening.

G

gomipile

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Apr 17, 2010
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Hi. I'm looking for a tough (preferably at least as tough as 5160) steel which is not an oil-hardening steel.

The intended use is for a very large chopper. I'd prefer a non-stainless steel for patina reasons, but stainless could work as well, depending.
 
A2.

A2 has the toughness of O1 with wear resistance halfway btw O1 and D2. D2 is substantially more brittle at a given hardness than O1. The fancy steels will take forever for sharpen as their wear resistance is through the roof. I think A2 is a fantastic compromise. It's also non-stainless and will take a patina. It's also dimensionally stable during heat-treat and is air cooling, so if you have access to an oven, heat-treat is simple.

-Daizee
 
"Difficult to forge" has nothing to do with a tough blade! D2 is just about the LAST alloy I would choose for a big chopper. It's nowhere near the top of the list, toughness-wise, among common cutlery steels.

CPM-3V for extreme toughness and edge-retention. It doesn't take a nice classic patina, though. S35VN and Elmax are both getting great reviews as well, but I haven't used either yet. All three require accurate times/temps, cryo etc to meet their full potential, to the best of my knowledge.

I haven't worked with A2 either, but I suspect Daizee is right, it would be a very good compromise.
 
S7, A2 all come to mind. CPM3V also but it is a little different finish wise.
 
Full disclosure: I've only worked with A2 from P-ground stock, and am only on my second A2 blade. The one so far has a sweet edge on it, and the second is in the works. It's widely available. I like the stuff so far - the Crucible spec sheet (download the pdf) tells the story with respect to a number of other widely substituted steels.. And it's an awesome steel to temper. Just throw your toaster oven on max and forget about it. You can't over-temper it in a toaster, the toughness/hardness curves are just about as perfect as you could ask for in a home-shop steel.

-Daizee
 
As others said, A2 or 3V. 3V is amazing but for a big chopper is very expensive.
 
3V is my favorite steel but it really sucks to sand once it's hard. 3V won't patina very well. 3V doesn't need much in the way of maintenance but if you neglect it it gets ugly. It will get little spots that hide deep pinholes. A2 is pretty good for big knives too I hear. I've only used it in chisels and handplane blades but it seems to hold up quite well there so...


Why not an oil hardening steel? Are you looking to have it heat treated by a pro? Peter's Heat Treating does carbon steels too if that's what's holding you back.
 
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