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Thanks and thanks! I've been a lurker for an awful long time, figured it was high time I contributed something back!
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Steel testing underway...
- Thread starter aarongough
- Start date
Thanks and thanks! I've been a lurker for an awful long time, figured it was high time I contributed something back!
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Fair enough! I don't know too much about either of the steels you suggested to be honest, that's sign enough that they're not yet 'mainstream'. I'm definitely not going to live by the results of this test forever, give it a year and you'll see me looking for new steel
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Guys: if you have any tests that you think I should do for edge retention, speak now!
Tonight I did edge retention testing in cardboard cutting, also did batoning and tip strength testing. The blades are going to go to the vise soon for breaking unless I can think of other edge retention testing that I should be doing to help differentiate them...
Tonight I did edge retention testing in cardboard cutting, also did batoning and tip strength testing. The blades are going to go to the vise soon for breaking unless I can think of other edge retention testing that I should be doing to help differentiate them...
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Toughness testing:
Because I mainly make hard-use outdoors knives, it's important for me to know how the different steels are going to hold up under difficult conditions. I expect all my knives to deal with batoning and chopping with no damage.
To test this 'impact toughness' I built a guillotine-style rig that lets me bang a knife into an impact target in a repeatable way:
Knife testing ala Mythbusters
To begin with I was using a block of walnut as the impact target, but unfortunately this didn't have any negative effect on any of the steels under test. To try to get some results I upgraded to a 1/2" bar of aluminum as the impact target, still no dice.
I upgraded again to a bar of 1018 cold-rolled steel in the hope of doing some damage. It did do some minor damage to the edges, but it was insignificant and fairly uniform across all the blades, nothing to be learned there.
In desperation I decided to get significantly more abusive, and proportionally less scientific. I put each blade in a vise, edge upward, and smashed it as hard as I could one-handed with a crowbar. Finally some interesting results!
The difference between the steel that handled this the best, and the one that handled it the worst was quite marked:
On the left the blade that handled the crowbar the best, on the right the worst.
Blade #2 is starting to look like a real contender! I feel it's important that it failed by rolling instead of chipping. I think it indicated the steel has plenty of ductility left over for even worse abuse.
Because I mainly make hard-use outdoors knives, it's important for me to know how the different steels are going to hold up under difficult conditions. I expect all my knives to deal with batoning and chopping with no damage.
To test this 'impact toughness' I built a guillotine-style rig that lets me bang a knife into an impact target in a repeatable way:
Knife testing ala Mythbusters
To begin with I was using a block of walnut as the impact target, but unfortunately this didn't have any negative effect on any of the steels under test. To try to get some results I upgraded to a 1/2" bar of aluminum as the impact target, still no dice.
I upgraded again to a bar of 1018 cold-rolled steel in the hope of doing some damage. It did do some minor damage to the edges, but it was insignificant and fairly uniform across all the blades, nothing to be learned there.
In desperation I decided to get significantly more abusive, and proportionally less scientific. I put each blade in a vise, edge upward, and smashed it as hard as I could one-handed with a crowbar. Finally some interesting results!
The difference between the steel that handled this the best, and the one that handled it the worst was quite marked:
On the left the blade that handled the crowbar the best, on the right the worst.
Blade #2 is starting to look like a real contender! I feel it's important that it failed by rolling instead of chipping. I think it indicated the steel has plenty of ductility left over for even worse abuse.
Last edited:
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Tonight I continued testing the blades, first up was a coarse edge retention test.
Coarse edge retention:
Retaining a cutting edge under difficult and extended conditions is a different skill to retaining the finest edge possible. Things like straight razors are optimized for holding a very fine edge for as long as possible, but they probably wouldn't do too well on cardboard...
Given that cardboard is such a common material, and potentially a very trying one for knife blades I decided it should be included in my testing.
Each blade was used to cut 1,190 linear inches of corrugated cardboard. The edges of each blade were then inspected under strong light, as well as used for cutting phonebook paper. The knives were graded against each other until an overall order was reached:
A very large pile of cardboard cutoffs on my shop floor
Batoning:
In order to test shock resistance and edge retention I did some 'batoning'. Only my batoning was across the grain, and I used a 16oz hammer to drive the blade...
Each blade was hammered 3 times through a 1.5x1.5" block of walnut across the grain, each blade was then hammered through a 1x2" block of hard maple across the grain.
None of the test blades were noticeably damaged by this test, most if not all of them were just as sharp after the test as they were before. No issues there.
The spine of each blade showed some minor mushrooming after all the hammer blows, but I don't think that's a terribly useful or realistic test, so I didn't note which ones were the best/worst.
Hammering a blade through the walnut block
Tip strength testing:
This is something I see complained about often, broken tips, so I try to make sure I work it into my testing. A bent tip is better then a broken one in my mind (provided they require the same force to produce)...
I hammered the tip of each blade into a block of maple using three light hammer blows, the tips sunk in about 3/8" each. I then levered the tips out sideways to see what happened. The results:
The blades as they are right now
Left to right: blades #1, #2, #5
Three broken tips
Coarse edge retention:
Retaining a cutting edge under difficult and extended conditions is a different skill to retaining the finest edge possible. Things like straight razors are optimized for holding a very fine edge for as long as possible, but they probably wouldn't do too well on cardboard...
Given that cardboard is such a common material, and potentially a very trying one for knife blades I decided it should be included in my testing.
Each blade was used to cut 1,190 linear inches of corrugated cardboard. The edges of each blade were then inspected under strong light, as well as used for cutting phonebook paper. The knives were graded against each other until an overall order was reached:
Code:
[FONT=Courier New]
Cardboard test:
Best
#2 Still cutting phonebook paper both with and across the grain with no issues. No sign of edge damage at all
#3 Very minimal signs of edge wear, some small reflecting spots visible, cutting phonebook paper with the grain ok, but a little snaggy
#1 Very minimal signs of edge wear, some small reflecting spots visible, cutting phonebook paper with the grain ok, but a little snaggy
#5 Minor edge damage, snaggy cutting phonebook paper
#6 Noticeable light reflected from small length of edge, snaggy cutting phonebook paper
#4 Section of edge noticeably rolled
Worst
[/FONT]A very large pile of cardboard cutoffs on my shop floor
Batoning:
In order to test shock resistance and edge retention I did some 'batoning'. Only my batoning was across the grain, and I used a 16oz hammer to drive the blade...
Each blade was hammered 3 times through a 1.5x1.5" block of walnut across the grain, each blade was then hammered through a 1x2" block of hard maple across the grain.
None of the test blades were noticeably damaged by this test, most if not all of them were just as sharp after the test as they were before. No issues there.
The spine of each blade showed some minor mushrooming after all the hammer blows, but I don't think that's a terribly useful or realistic test, so I didn't note which ones were the best/worst.
Hammering a blade through the walnut block
Tip strength testing:
This is something I see complained about often, broken tips, so I try to make sure I work it into my testing. A bent tip is better then a broken one in my mind (provided they require the same force to produce)...
I hammered the tip of each blade into a block of maple using three light hammer blows, the tips sunk in about 3/8" each. I then levered the tips out sideways to see what happened. The results:
Code:
[FONT=Courier New]
Tip strength test:
#1 Very slight bend
#2 Slight bend
#3 Broken
#4 Broken
#5 Moderate bend
#6 Broken
[/FONT]The blades as they are right now
Left to right: blades #1, #2, #5
Three broken tips
Last edited:
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Sorry for the weird post & edit process guys. I'm unable to make large posts in a single go (the request just times out), so I have to make a post then re-edit it multiple times... Very strange to say the least!
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Definitely a little overboard, and it's not the kind of abuse that I would expect a knife to see. For me it's really just a peace of mind thing, many of my upcoming customers are in the military or protective services, or they are wilderness guides that will be far from help... I like to know that they can use my knives for whatever they have to in an emergency and it will take the abuse just fine!
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It was kind of fun!
Mainly I just wanted to see something do actual damage to at least SOME of the blades... I was quite surprised that my guillotine rig didn't manage to do anything to them...
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hi, hope to see final results soon. my only suggestion would be to modify the O1 Ht a little. Heat to 1475, soak 25 minutes. Quench in 12 second oil. Temper at 350 for one hour, water quench to room temp, 350 for one hour. should give Rc62-63. from my experiences, additional temper time and ice quench are not needed. JMHO.
the old sailor
the old sailor
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Wow, this is awesome. I like that you're taking this extra work to test your own knives and steel. Of course there is a lot of information out there about each of the steels you're testing but when it comes down to it, the testing you are doing will give you valuable information about the specific steel you are using and the specific heat treatment you are doing.
I really love that you're doing a blind test to prevent any favoritism, especially since some of the testing is a little subjective and variable. One way to further eliminate bias would be to only use hidden marks; as you perform each test, write the results down and attach them to each knife, then have a second person record your notes for each knife without telling you which is which.
This way you wouldn't see any pattern of which knife is performing better or worse (like #2). You'd also have to leave off any tests that would mark the blade, like the impact and tip test for the end.
I think you've done a great job on your test and I can't wait to see the results.
I really love that you're doing a blind test to prevent any favoritism, especially since some of the testing is a little subjective and variable. One way to further eliminate bias would be to only use hidden marks; as you perform each test, write the results down and attach them to each knife, then have a second person record your notes for each knife without telling you which is which.
This way you wouldn't see any pattern of which knife is performing better or worse (like #2). You'd also have to leave off any tests that would mark the blade, like the impact and tip test for the end.
I think you've done a great job on your test and I can't wait to see the results.
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Hey mate!
Interesting that you recommend keeping O1 so hard! Have you had any brittleness issues with it during hard use? edge chipping and so on?
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Ah! I wish I had thought of that blind marking technique before-hand, that would have been great! Good suggestion, I shall keep that in mind for the future!
One of the biggest reasons that I decided to do some testing for myself was because most of the graphs out there for wear-resistance in steels are for 'adhesive wear resistance' which is more relevant when the steel is being used as part of a die or metal-working tool. The actual cutting tests that I had seen often emphasized push-cutting with very polished edges...
Given that neither of those cases really quite fit my normal use case (I normally finish my edges to 600 grit or so only) I figured I should do some investigation of my own. I'm not really expecting to find anything new and magical, really I'm just trying to confirm that I get similar results with my particular scenario!
It's also been a great experience to heat-treat a bunch of different steels. I was a little nervous about that before-hand but I wouldn't hesitate to jump in and heat-treat a new steel now!
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Good stuff. My only concern is the 01 heat treatment. There is a lot more in that steel, that you aren't getting.
A hardness tester would be useful here also.
A hardness tester would be useful here also.
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Hey Don!
I have 2 blades made from O1 in this test, but I assume you're referring to the one that was heat-treated in the kiln. Do you have some suggestions for what you would do differently to get better performance from O1?
-A
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I just found a company somewhat near me that has kindly said they'll test the blades for me. I'll be trying to get over there as soon as possible so that I can get the blades tested... Not sure if I should wait to unveil the steels until after they have been tested? It's not really going to affect the outcome so I probably won't...