Recommendation? Stainless for big mean bowie knives

[Kevin McGovern]

The one above I did all post heat treat. It grinds pretty easy.

 

[Busto]

What we would ALL like is a steel that comes out perfect every time. If you make knives you will certainly need to learn to straighten them. There are no guarantees that each blank will have similar internal stress as it comes from the steel mill. The internal stress can rear it's head during initial grinding or heat treating or you luck out and get a nice annealed stress relieved piece of stock.

 

[golfer1]

Busto, not to disagree, but I was just wondering if there are other ss less prone to warping while grinding before HT.
I was constantly straightening the thin AEB-L kitchen knives. The thinner they were the worse it got. If you don't catch the warp early on you end up grinding into it and making more work.
If for example 154cm was somewhat better for example I would try it.
Thanks much and best wishes.

 

[Busto]

Busto, not to disagree, but I was just wondering if there are other ss less prone to warping while grinding before HT.
I was constantly straightening the thin AEB-L kitchen knives. The thinner they were the worse it got. If you don't catch the warp early on you end up grinding into it and making more work.
If for example 154cm was somewhat better for example I would try it.
Thanks much and best wishes.

I get what you're saying and my experience with thin AEB-L is Heat Treat/Cryo/Temper then grind in the bevel. My crazy thought process sees the stress equilibrate in heat treat and under plate quench(I use a vertical screw vise to apply small pressure to the plates until room temp) so hopefully they are straight going into cryo which is generally the case. When you grind prior to heat treat you may be in fact setting up or even relieving stress in one area and adding to another with THIN Material not just Stainless happens with Carbon Steels also. Try some CPM154CM in similar thickness no guarantee you will get better results, but nothing ventured nothing gained. I like CPM154 in 0.125 and 0.154 stock for hunting knives BUT I also grind them POST heat treat I like this steel a lot however it is more expensive than AEB-L

 

[BrunoS]

Guys which steel would be tougher than cpm 154 but still easy enough to sharpen? How cpm154 and elmax and s35vn compare?

 

[rodriguez7]

Abe-l

 

[tiguy7]

View attachment 958954 View attachment 958955 View attachment 958956 The Linders are 440-A. The Buck 120 is 440-C. The Randalls (not pictured) are offered in 440-B.