Queen D2 versus 1095 - thoughts?

knifeaholic said:
Thanks...

Question though...did Queen make Robeson knives with delrin handles? or is it an older one?

I have seen modern Queen made Robeson knives in bone but not delrin.
Click to expand...
Truthfully I don't know if it's an old original Robeson or a Queen made one. It's pattern #633295
012-2.jpg


The heat treat is not bad AntiqueKnifeFan it's mostly in the edge geometry. I've thinned it down some now, and the perfermance has gotten better in cutting and ease of sharpening.
 
Peter Parker said:
Truthfully I don't know if it's an old original Robeson or a Queen made one. It's pattern #633295
012-2.jpg


The heat treat is not bad AntiqueKnifeFan it's mostly in the edge geometry. I've thinned it down some now, and the perfermance has gotten better in cutting and ease of sharpening.
Click to expand...

Peter;

Thanks for posting. That is an older one. It appears to me to be one that was actually made in the Robeson factory after they went to strawberry delrin handles, late 50's to 63.

After that Camillus made Robeson pocket knives through the mid 70's...but they used their own (Camillus) tooling so the patterns are somewhat different.
 
Thanks knifeaholic! I was going to make a present out of it to someone special but if it's an original Robeson it will have to stay. I had (??) to it being a Queen since the quality is just a little below the bottom of the line Queens. So I don't feel bad about posting this and beating up slightly on Queen's 1095, I'm certain that my Marble's Cattleking Stockman has 1095 secondary blades in it. It's 1095 spey and sheepsfoot blades are well heat treated!!
 
neeman said:
I have a lot of Queen in D2.

I use the DMT Aligner jig to sharpen them, from Extra course to Extra fine.
I sharpen them at a fairly fine angle.
They come off the jig very sharp, and keep their edge a long time.
A couple of passes over an Extra fine DMT brings them back to very sharp.

How sharp is very sharp?
Sharp enough to slice cherry tomatoes by push cuts not pull cuts

I find they hold their edge much longer than carbon of Case and Boker.

How do I 'test' the edge retention is when I whittle.
I feel quite quickly how an edge holds.

I have not used my one GEC #25 Jack to comment on this specific steel.
I will try it out and see.

D2 definitely develops a patina, it takes time.
The patina is a slow graying of the blade, where it slowly looses its brightness and become a duller gray.
A polished D2 patinas faster than a satin finish, but faster is still very slow by comparison to carbon.
Click to expand...

Neeman,
I'm not sure that is a fair comparison. I don't believe either Case or Boker use 1095 or 1095 alloy. I have Case CV steel and I have both Schrade 1095 (old timer) and Camillus non-stainless blades. (Phil Gibbs said that Camillus used Carbon V for their non-stainless blades, which contained 0.95% Carbon plus Chromium and Vanadium. So it really is a 1095CV steel.)

The edge retention of the Case CV isn't anywhere close to that of the Schrade or the Camillus. I have a hard time believing that Case blew the heat treat. That leads me to believe that Case's CV steel does not contain 0.95% carbon. I have read that Boker uses 1070 (though I can't find the reference.)

I've not done enough testing yet to personally compare the performance of Queen D2 to that of the Schrade or Camillus. My expectation is that the performances will be similar to those reported by rifon2.
 
Frank,

Thanks,,,
Yes I am clear that Case and Boker are not 1095.
And the carbon blades of these knives do not compare well to the D2.

I have not used my GEC in 1095 to come to a good comparision to D2.
The #25 Jack is a sheepsfoot blade and I will compare it to the sheepsfoot in my Congress in D2
 
Thanks for your replies, everyone. I do plan on keeping my Queen D2 knives if I add the GEC's so I will be able to do some comparisons.
 
GEC's 1095 is superb in my opinion. It takes such a wicked edge. Queen City's 1095 is nice too! I think GEC's might be a bit harder though.
 
What I did today illustrates my own typical experience with Queen D2. I had my #48 whittler sharpened to a great edge...the edge on the main clip blade felt very sharp against the ball of my thumb, caught nicely on my thumbnail, and would probably have shaved arm hair.

I used the main clip blade to cut up two small corrugated boxes...one lightweight USPS prioroty mail box and one slightly heavier box...and after that the edge was gone completely...felt dull and would not catch my thumbnail at all.

I don't use a sharpening jig; I sharpen freehand with an angle of about 15-20 degrees per side. In other words picture laying the blade flat then picking the blade back up so that the angle formed is about 20 degrees, maybe slightly less.
 
Last edited:
knifeaholic said:
What I did today illustrates my own typical experience with Queen D2. I had my #48 whittler sharpened to a great edge...the edge on the main clip blade felt very shar against the ball of my thum, caught nicely on my thumbnail, and would probably have shaved arm hair.

I used the main clip blade to cut up two small corrugated boxes...one lightweight USPS prioroty mail box and one slightly heavier box...and after that the edge was gone completely...felt dull and would not catch my thumbnail at all.

I don't use a sharpening jig; I sharpen freehand with an angle of about 15-20 degrees per side. In other words picture laying the blade flat then picking the blade back up so that the angle formed is about 20 degrees, maybe slightly less.
Click to expand...



Perhaps the knife 'felt' sharp because it had a burr on it, and when you used the knife the blade was deburred?

Because, I think that if you in fact had - let's say - a clean 17 degree angle per side at the edge, the blade of course should have been very, very sharp.
Much sharper IMO than you describe.
 
knifeaholic,

not argueing

My experiance is that My Queen D2 blade, lots of them, hold a good edge for a long time
 
Perhaps as Riflon said?
You are leaving a burred edge?

Run across the edge, if you feel it catching on one of the sides there might be a burr.

I work thru from Extra Course to Extra Fine on DMT stones.
So I work off if there are burrs each stone, so by the time I am just smoothing the rough edges, there is less chance of building up a burr.

I do not spend a long time on polishing a fine edge, which you can get burrs.
From what I have read D2 does not polish well (larger carbides?), so the time from Course to Fine then Extra Fine is quite short.

this works for me....
 
I shall try and explain again.

I use the DMT Aligner jig, but the theory will be the same.

I first sharpen from DMT Extra Course and work down to Extra Fine.
Using the course stones does not create burrs as the edge is too course.
I use the course stone to set my bevel and smooth out the edge.
But I find I do not need to sharpen much on the Fine and Extra Fine.

Sharpening a lot on one side of the blade with a fine or extra fine will build up a burr.
So I flip the blade quite often.
When I get to the Fine and Extra Fine I only sharpen 10 x per side of the blade and then return to the other side of the blade.

This work for me.

To maintain the sharpness of the blade I freehand on the Extra fine and only need a few times on both sides.
Again 10 x and no more, check the edge and if I need 10 x on each side.
I reduce to 5 x.

If I have a burr, mainly on SS, I work the side of the burr and feel with my thumb sliding across the edge NOT against the edge!.
And then go back to the 10X each side to take off a wire edge if it is there.

hope this helps

If not post in the Tinkering forum, they are good there.
 
neeman said:
I shall try and explain again.

I use the DMT Aligner jig, but the theory will be the same.

I first sharpen from DMT Extra Course and work down to Extra Fine.
Using the course stones does not create burrs as the edge is too course.
I use the course stone to set my bevel and smooth out the edge.
But I find I do not need to sharpen much on the Fine and Extra Fine.

Sharpening a lot on one side of the blade with a fine or extra fine will build up a burr.
So I flip the blade quite often.
When I get to the Fine and Extra Fine I only sharpen 10 x per side of the blade and then return to the other side of the blade.

This work for me.

To maintain the sharpness of the blade I freehand on the Extra fine and only need a few times on both sides.
Again 10 x and no more, check the edge and if I need 10 x on each side.
I reduce to 5 x.

If I have a burr, mainly on SS, I work the side of the burr and feel with my thumb sliding across the edge NOT against the edge!.
And then go back to the 10X each side to take off a wire edge if it is there.

hope this helps

If not post in the Tinkering forum, they are good there.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the detailed explanation. I use a Norton India stone so maybe I will put more effort on the coarse side then move to fine. I typically do keep track of the number of storkes per side and even them out.

I'm sure its just personal preference but I have never been happy with using the DMT stones despite trying them on and off on all types of knives over 20 years. In fact I live a bouyt 3 miles from their HQ so they are widely sold around here, but I never had great luck using them.
 
To keep this theard about slippies, I find DMT solves the problem for new Queen knives with poor factory grinds.

I like DMT for harder steels like D2, is that they are very aggresive (fast) for removal in the extra course and course to set a new bevel for those obtuse Queen blades.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top