O1 hardness for edge performance?

cbach8tw

cbach8tw

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I know that John has a great heat treat for his 01 knives, I assume it is in the high 50's, so I have a question just out of curiosity. What kind of performance can you get out of 01 if it was hardened to 60 or 61 RC? Any advantages? Too hard would increase chipping? It also depends on the knife and its intended use I guess. John, please chime in on your experience or thoughts. Again, this is in no way a comment about John's already fantastic heat treat, just food for thought.

Just saw the other thread praising his heat treat. Keep the comments coming. Much appreciated.
 
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iirc, Johns O1 Is hardened to 60-61 hrc. On top of that, his HT makes this steel one of my personal favorites.

I live in NJ, I use JK Knives for everything from EDC in a food plant and side jobs doing fences and landscaping, food prep, camping and fishing (both fresh and salt) and I have yet to have Any issues with field maintenence or corrosion.

What I an curious about is if John took any photos or could go over what he experienced and tried including what wasn't up to his standards.

If this was documented on another forum, I would like to know where I could read the write ups.
 
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Thanks for the info NJBillk, I stand corrected about the rc already being 60-61. A lot of it is how well John has figured out his heat treatimg process. Keep all the comments coming, thanks everyone.
 
I no longer have any photos, but tomorrow I'll tell about some of the tests I did while perfecting my process. Of course I won't share my actual process.
 
JK Knives said:
Of course I won't share my actual process.
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Oh come on,inquiring minds want to know.;)

All I know is I can drive your O1 through a hard old knot in a round of wood and still make curlies...that's good enough for me.:thumbup: :)

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Cool. Thanks John.

I wasn't asking for particulars, that stuff is all understood as being proprietary to what makes Your knives Yours and not just some run of the mill O1.

Just a quick add on.
I used the knife from my USK for doing fence work today and I hit some chain link about 30-40 times with force since it was imbedded in a tree. Since the tree grew around the fence and we needed the fence out, I cut the fence with snips then cut/dug out what I could from the tree.
I Love the modified wharncliffe shape I opted to go with. Strong tip with some belly for carving and scraping, such a Great utility shape.

After that was done, I had a few dulled spots that I touched up on the edge of a scrap floor tile that was laying on top of their trash pile for the renovation. Back to shaving sharp in no time flat...
 
Basically what I did was use 1/8" x 1" steel, grind the one end to a point, then grind in the bevels. No shaping of the handle end, why waste the time on something I was planning on trying to break. I did this over and over, trying different heat treat procedures, tempering procedures, even quench times!

Some of the tests I did to each blade:

Chop wood
Shave wood
Spine whack on my vise
Stab it into rocky ground
Throw it into a chunk of wood
Hammer the tip into wood, then pry it out
Edge whack on my vise

I`ll try to remember more. I did this every weekend for several months before I even though about selling a knife.
 
I don't keep records but I know the edges last a while (I've split wood and used a knife on food prep repeatedly for several weeks and still found them sharp enough. They also sharpen up quickly with little effort :D

Anyone got the ViKtim thread link handy, seems like the only edge testing I can remember of the top of my head.
 
I agree, this is going to make for some good reading and reference material. Considering I just received the basics to do some HT for the 1084 in my basement and sketched out my first knife, I am going to need ask the info I can get.

I like the bit about just throwing an edge on a strip of steel to check HT affects and how a certain protocol works for your chosen steel.
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Sorry for the derail but,
Would you say that on an annealed piece of 1084 that was shaped with stock removal, not forging, you would see more of an affect from a better normalizing process or from a third tempering?

Regarding tempering cycles, I was thinking two should be enough for a 59-60 target, and I wouldn't see much from the third cycle since there wasn't That much stress introduced to the steel since it wasn't forged.

And I wouldn't see a Significant change from normalizing since Aldo'a 1084 is pretty fine grained to begin with.
 
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