O2 knife with nice heat treat.

[idaho]

I received an O2 knife for some testing.

Knife was unfinished, just a quick bamboo handle, sharpened, and send to me.

I checked hardness on Chinese hardness files - about 58-60hrc, like promised by heattreat workshop.

I've tested the knife of various wood - got NO sign of wear o

I've left in in the rain for 3 hours. No stains. I've got stains from lemon juice and so on, but it was just decoloration

Well.
I decided to give this blade some more workout...

How about chopping some STEEL?

Here is "damage" i've managed to achieve.

This is BIGGEST damage on whole blade. Cutting edge is about 2mm high, so you can have some scale.

And after 12 minutes(5 minutes diamond, 7 minutes Arkansas stone) on sharpener...

Shaving sharp on whole length.

I just love this steel.
Its my first knife made of O2.
In my opinion it is MUCH better steel than 1095, better than spring steel, better than medium carbon low alloy steels.

But I have a question to some experienced makers/users.
It was tempered at about 220C.
Would it be even better when tempered at 175-180C?
Looking at graph this temperature looks to be optimum.
But I would get more than 60hrc. Anybody works this steel to this hardness?

And one more thing - any ideas for more tests?