Onesy Twosy mystery steel doesn't interest me. It takes quite a few attempts sometimes to nail the heat treat on it. If you get a boat load of the same mystery steel for really cheap, then the effort is worth it. I would, however, only suggest this for someone that has been messing with steel metallurgy for a long enough time, that they know how to determine the quality of their heat treat.
Eventually, a maker gets to the point in his education that "getting the heat treat close" just isn't good enough.
The way I look at it is, what if on the off chance, your knife will be required to help someone out in a survival situation. The user may need to use it to pry, or chop, or any other myriad of abuses. If it breaks (too hard and brittle), or bends (too soft and ductile), it could mean the difference between life and death, or maybe just an injury.
My knives and my reputation and the health of the user may someday depend on how well I hit that heat treat. If I hit 9 out of 10, that isn't good enough. I feel I need to hit 10 out of 10 each and every time. The appearance of the knife may be ugly to someone, but I want the heat treat to be right on every one of my knives. Unfortunately for the person that buys and uses any given knife, they can't "see" the heat treat. They can see the fit and finish and the overall design, but what is most important about a knife is the heat treat, whether the ultimate user of one of my knives knows it or not.
Now.................................I use steels that were not originally designed to be knife material (aka mystery steels) from time to time. However, I do know what they are, (my files are 1095, because I worked with the supplier to my company to learn exactly what a certain file was.....and the bearings that I use are 52100, A485-1, or A485-2), thus they really aren't mystery steels. The files I was able to purchase as scrap through the company storeroom.
I was able to get 200 lbs. of the 1095 files from our companies cage room many years ago, and I get the bearings as part of my job of analyzing them for damage. Since I'm the bearing rep., I know what we make each of the bearing part numbers out of. So, what is mystery steel to others, actually isn't mystery steel to me in these two cases.
If someone where to give me two pieces of true mystery steel wanting me to make a knife out of it, I personally wouldn't be willing to do it. Too much time and effort and maybe not enough steel to get the results that would allow me to "hit" the heat treat on their knife.
Jumps down off stump with a resounding thud.
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