Looking for advice on which steel to try next.

Fish30114

Fish30114

Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
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I've made my first several knives out of O-1 and have had good luck in heat treating them- a buddy of mine who works in a machine shop has taken several to the shop and the came out at 59-60 Rockwell C hardness, which I think is pretty good. I am thinking of what other steels I might try, heat treating them would I assume be my challenge, so I am just looking for advice on what else to try where heat treating is pretty simple--I don't have a heat treating oven, but I would invest in one if that would be needed--trying to keep the budget for that at 1K or less!

I know that a lot of folks send their blades out for heat treat--if I need to go that route to get into better steels I would like your guidance on that as well along with which steels I should consider.


Thanks for ya'lls help,

Regards--Don
 
I would buy some W2 from Aldo. It's a great steel tat takes a fine edge, and you can heat treat it normally or give it a killer hamon line.
 
Thanks Greenberg, when you say that, exactly how would one go about that--I really like the idea of trying a hamon line!
 
Fish30114 said:
I've made my first several knives out of O-1 and have had good luck in heat treating them- a buddy of mine who works in a machine shop has taken several to the shop and the came out at 59-60 Rockwell C hardness, which I think is pretty good.
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My sincere congrats! O1 at 59-60Rc tends to make excellent blades. (I assume they're harder out of the quench, and you're tempering them down to 59-60)

IMO that's a very good hardness for O1 "using" knives from camp to kitchen to combat.

This may not be what you want to hear, but honestly, if you have your O1 HT dialed-in that well... personally, I would stick with it. Grind thinner blades for use on fish and in the kitchen. and thicker edges for rough/camp use. And pursue different HT protocols if you want higher hardness, say for razors or pure kitchen slicers.

Few if any other "carbon" steels will really perform much differently than O1 at the same hardness. And achieving higher hardnesses won't get any easier if you try different alloys like 52100.

Greenberg Woods said:
I would buy some W2 from Aldo.
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Yeah, I would too, :rolleyes: ;) W2 seems to be in short supply. By all means, if you can get it, snag it!
 
Thanks for that feedback guys. I will study up on that Hamon tutorial Greenberg--and James, I am in fact happy with how my O-1 has been turning out, and performance is darn good IMO, and in feedback I've gotten from some serious knife users I have given a few of my blades to. What I'm really hoping is that I can discover and easily heat treatable stainless, I like having that part of the puzzle in my own control, and that's why I mentioned that I would buy a heat treating oven if necessary, but I wanted to keep the budget on it at 1K or less. I guess there's something to be said for folks that will buy an O-1 blade from you, even when you tell them up front it will need a little care and some 3n1 or Froglube on it semi-regularly.
 
Fish30114 said:
Thanks for that feedback guys. I will study up on that Hamon tutorial Greenberg--and James, I am in fact happy with how my O-1 has been turning out, and performance is darn good IMO, and in feedback I've gotten from some serious knife users I have given a few of my blades to. What I'm really hoping is that I can discover and easily heat treatable stainless, I like having that part of the puzzle in my own control, and that's why I mentioned that I would buy a heat treating oven if necessary, but I wanted to keep the budget on it at 1K or less. I guess there's something to be said for folks that will buy an O-1 blade from you, even when you tell them up front it will need a little care and some 3n1 or Froglube on it semi-regularly.
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Send it out in batches of 20 blades to Peter's. You can't do it yourself for $5 a blade, and they will likely do it better than you can, anyway.
 
Thanks Stacy, that's what I really needed to know. I guess that will also let me choose whichever stainless I am enamored with.

Preciate it brother--Don
 
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