Newbie plays with O1

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aarongb

Joined
Nov 2, 2007
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Hi all, following some advice I got on another forum and a few articles I read online, I learned that O1 was a great steel for a beginner. I successfully HT'd my first three blades about 2 months ago in my 2BF. According to my hardness files they are around 60 consistently.

However, I've gotten a bit nervous reading a lot of posts around here saying O1 is definitely not a good beginner steel, but I have three more blades to HT. Should I follow my notes from my first three and HT myself (if I'm just being nervous), or should I pay a professional and stick to learning simpler HT on the 1084 I have from Aldo?
 
I would go ahead and finish the ones you have made so far, and continue to use O-1 if you are comfortable with it. One of the benefits of O-1 is that it is "shop hardenable", not optimum, but you will gain more than a few points of hardness, and have a pretty reasonable blade. A few years ago, O-1 was widely considered a fantastic beginner steel, then 1084 was recommended to be a better beginner steel for the money, and in my opinion it truly is, however I do find O-1 easier on drill bits, and belts, more as a result of being thoroughly annealed and precision ground.
As for sending it out to a professional, if you are happy with the few you have made aready, why bother, unless you want to "benchmark" your own heat treat.
 
hardness files are Ok for a test but you may want to go into a little more depth before taking another pluge. The edge test with a brass rod will determine if the edge is too brittle, if I mess up a blade I like to bend it just to see how tough it got, kinda interesting, and cut a bunch of stuff. If you have some commercial blades or other custom that you can use as a benchmark it is interesting to see how it performs. I keep some rope on hand and I have a shop knife that is a cutting fool that I compare my other blades to. If all is well, go for it.

I decided that given the variety of steel that I wanted to work with and the amount of expertice needed that I would send all my blades out for heat treat. The cost is not that much but time is a big issue, forces me to become more organized.
 
To get all the benefits 01 has to offer, and a stronger blade, the heat treat requires temperature controlled soaks before the hardening quench. You need a stress relief soak, a pre-heating soak, then a soak at it's critical heat, about 1475°, for 15 to 20 minutes at temp. That's why it is not recommended for beginners. Acually, a beginner would have little problem, as long as he has a temp controlled heat source, which very few do. This is an example of where you are wasting your efforts, and money, by paying more for a steel that you cannot get your best return on with simple HT methods. You would get as good of a blade, maybe better, from 1084, which is much more friendly to simple heat treating.
 
Thank you both! I think I will go ahead and do it myself. One has been a daily user for a few weeks, and all have been tested on hunks of cherry, oak and hickory with no problems, no chips or rolling of the edge yet. Thanks for the tip on using a brass rod as an additional test.
 
LRB has done a good job of explaining why O-1 is often not recommended as a starter steel. The new smith probably does not have the skills, metallurgy experience, or equipment to make O-1 all it can be. That doesn't say an O-1 blade HTed with a 2BF or even a torch is junk....just not quite what it could be.

The reason 1084 is recommended as a starter steel is that it is the eutectiod, and hardens just a bit above non-magnetic with no soak time needed. This can be done with any heat source and a magnet by a total Newbie and get the same results as anyone old timer with a $100,000 shop.
 
Patrick, would you be willing to give a step by step on the "Brass Rod Test?"
I've never actually heard that described, though it may be old news to most people.
Thanks!
Andy G.
 
LRB and Stacy, I think I understand. Coffee vs Decaf. Coke vs Diet. That it wasn't an accident that I got decent results, I can just get better, more consistent results with more sophisticated equipment.

I bought the O1 a few years back. I only bought it because it seemed like the prevailing thought then was that it was good for beginners using simple equipment, I was limited to places like Online metals, and they didn't carry 1095 which was the other "beginner" steel advised to me.

Wife has been informed that an oven is in the near future, so maybe I'll just keep them in a drawer and transfer the patterns onto 1084.

Thanks All for your input.
 
One thing to think about.

You may want to have at least one HTed by a pro so you have a benchmark to compare your other results against, even when you have that oven.
 
aarongb said:
LRB and Stacy, I think I understand. Coffee vs Decaf. Coke vs Diet. That it wasn't an accident that I got decent results, I can just get better, more consistent results with more sophisticated equipment.

I bought the O1 a few years back. I only bought it because it seemed like the prevailing thought then was that it was good for beginners using simple equipment, I was limited to places like Online metals, and they didn't carry 1095 which was the other "beginner" steel advised to me.

Wife has been informed that an oven is in the near future, so maybe I'll just keep them in a drawer and transfer the patterns onto 1084.

Thanks All for your input.
Click to expand...

1095 may be the worst steel there is for a beginner, unless he wants to learn by trial and error, what not to do with it, rather than what to do with it. Some may find that interesting, but I don't. I found out how to treat it, then decided it wasn't worth the suspense of seeing if each blade came out quench without problems. It ain't worth the hassle, when well HTed, 01 will out perform it, when both are at their best. I think Stevie Wonder could HT 1080/84 without a problem, using color for temp.
 
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