Steels?

I appreciate your input, I haven't had the opportunity to work with many different steels and am always on the lookout for something different. I have learned alot from this thread, Thanks all! Brett
 
Hi Ron
I have been using alot of 5160 lately because it is fairly easy to obtain, but I find that it will rust very rapidly if slightly left wet. How is the patina on W2. Also after grinding and hand sanding to 1500 grit, I then lightly buff it and 5160 seems to pit, I always thought that it was from being to heavy handed on the stitched buff, but is it from impurities in the steel or what. Being in Canada it is sometimes hard and expensive to obtain specialty steels, some places in town will get it for you at a premium price, some just tell you they don't deal with this type of steel. Thanks for your info I will now try to obtain some W2. Thanks in advance
Claude
 
Claude,

Your problem with 5160 could be more a problem with your buffing wheels and compound than the steel. If I get too much compund loaded inthe wheel it will streak and pit almost anything I buff. I don't buff my blades, but silver sheaths, some fittings and various odities I like to make from time to time. Some are hardened and some are not.

The steels I like to use are 52100, L-6, 1084/15n20 for damascus and 1084 by itself. I have found very little difference in the steels in general daily use. There are differences that really stand out when you push their performance in testing. I also notice differences in sharpening, finishing and how the steels rust. L-6 and 52100 pit very deep when they rust. This is a design implement for 52100 since it is a bearing steel. They can rust without altering their outside dimensions since the rust usually will not cover the entire surface.

Like Ron and Nick W., I want to start using w-2 more since 1084 is becoming a problem regarding cleanliness and available sizes. I also do a lot of clay heat treating, and obviously since w-2 will show such a nice and active hamon, it is a good choice.

For non-carbon steel, I use mainly CPM-3v. I know...it isn't a stainless,....technicly. I have carried a folder with 3-V for over three years now, and in the Texas heat I have done my share of sweating on it. Along with several acidental trips through the washer, it has been in battery acid residue, blood, salt water and several other elements that would at the very least patina carbon steel. I have only a few very light pits on the blade, and they are only in inside corners of the grinds and close to the handle where it is dificult to wipe clean. Stainless enough for me anyway.

Have any of you tried to forge 3-V?
 
I agree with everything that's been said here on the steels I use and know, and am intrigued by the information on the ones I've not yet tried.

I think Bailey brought up a very good point. In average field use, I don't think most folks are really going to notice HUGE differences in steels if they are all heat-treated to their fullest. It is more in "clinical or lab" type settings where the differences really stand out. And the efficiency or bias of the tester always has an influence as well. I took a knife of mine that I can cut through 6 bundled 1" ropes (free-hanging) in one swipe without too much effort (could cut more if I'd actually practice the swing) and handed it to a fellow that stopped by. He could not cut 1 single rope with the same knife, and he made his attempts look similar to the effort needed for a woman to give birth. He would have probably told people that the knife wouldn't cut rope worth a hoot...does that make that knife and the steel I used for it poor quality? (1500 layer 1050/1084 water hardened).

Personally if I was going to buy a knife from a collection standpoint, it wouldn't matter the steel, as much as my confidence that the maker put his best efforts into it and the knife APPEALED to me. And that really carries over into use as well.

I read a line once by Randall Graham that really stuck with me, "It's not so much what's in the steel, as it is the guy standing at the fire!"

Personally, I have become quite familiar with 1084, 1095, W1, damascus of 15N20/1084, ATS-34, and S30V. I've spent a LOT of time lately learning O1, 52100, and L6. I feel all of these will make an excellent knife if properly designed, heat-treated, and with good edge geometry for the job intended. I intend to learn more as I go.

Bailey, I have a bunch of 3V, have you tried forging it? I've forged ATS-34 and found that other than a narrow forging window, it wasn't as bad as I expected.

Nick
 
Nick,

I have a 1/2" X 1" 3-V bar that is 3' long. I intend to forge a couple of large bowies from it to test. I will tackle that after BAKCA and let you know what I run into. I expect it to be similar to forging D-2.

I think you brought up a great point about your knife and the customer who couldn't cut. The very best blade will not cut without proper technique. I hope customers realize this and take into acount the need to SAFELY practice cutting.
 
Thanks for all the info guys, this is great.

Claude, Ron is away in North Carolina teaching a class in damascus making. He will not be back until the middle of next week and he will not have the use of a computer until then.

Bailey, your experiences with 3V are very interesting. I had read that 3V rusts pretty easily. I am very interested on you thoughts on how well this steel forges.

Nick, I agree that a collector who is never going to use a knife will never really get to appreciate whatever differnce there may be between steels. There is still an urge on my part to get the highest quality steel that I can. This may not make sense from a practical point of view, but I just feel better knowing that the knife is made from a great steel.
 
Originally posted by Keith Montgomery
Nick, I agree that a collector who is never going to use a knife will never really get to appreciate whatever differnce there may be between steels. There is still an urge on my part to get the highest quality steel that I can. This may not make sense from a practical point of view, but I just feel better knowing that the knife is made from a great steel.
Click to expand...

As a fellow collector let me say that I couldn't possibly agree more.

Cheers,

Roger

PS - This has been one heck of an informative thread. My thanks to all.
 
I think you guys misunderstood me.

I'm not saying that steel choice is not important. If it weren't, I'd buy a ton of 1018 and grind my knives out of that and not ever have to heat-treat them (of course this would NEVER be the case).

Maybe it would have been more appropiately worded on my part to say that the steel choice is relative. To say that, "I have a knife made out of XXXXX steel, so it's great." is way too open ended to me.

What is the reason for that steel choice? What's the knife being used for?

Is the heat-treatment absolutely top notch???

A bladesmith I met at a show told people al how wonderful his knives were because they were forged from 5160 and 52100. This was pretty readily pitched to the customers, because they had heard those are good steels. When we went out to do some forging demonstrations, he had no clue about proper forging techniques, thermal cycling, hardening, or tempering. He asked a friend of mine to test one of his knives and my friend (and bladesmith) was able to break one of his blades simply with gloved hands.

Enter my statement that it would be more important FOR ME, to know that the bladesmith put his all into the steel and knew what he was doing with the whole process.

And back to the part about steel choice....An example: Someone who wants a knife that is very low maintenance of a period bowie might totally disagree that anything that rusts is superior. They might prefer 440C for its terrific corrosion resistance.

This other collector wants a whicked hamon in his fighter with clouding and all kinds of action in it, D2 would be an absolutely WRONG choice, but it's a great steel for a knife.

Again, I'm not saying steel choice is not important. I'm saying it's MORE important that the maker understands the steel, tests it, knows what it can do, and stands behind it (whether it will ever be used or not) and that the knife HOPEFULLY appeals to the people looking at it.

Maybe I'm not articulating myself very well and just digging a hole. I hope not though.:o

Thanks,
Nick
 
If I didn't think you knew what you were doing, and didn't know anything about steel... I'da gone to the guy at the next table! LOL!!! And what you're trying to get across describes my circumstances - I may want a nice custom knife that I may never use, but I also want one that if I have to use it, I know the maker has done the best he can to provide me with a tool that will exceed my performance expectations.

And I think no knife that I have purchased will let me down.... simply because I believe most makers feel exactly as you do... and the ones that don't know what they're doing... well, it'll come out in the wash and they'll do very little business...

Just another collector's .02! :D
 
Nick,

If you didn't articulate ourself the first time, you did in your last post.!!

If you are looking over a knife to buy from a maker, by all means ask what his heat treating method is. Ask temperatures and soak times. Educate yourself on different methods from different makers and comapre them. If you use the knives, make note of their heat treating methods and see which ones produce the better blades. As a rule, I think you will find most smiths methods are similar. If I was asking, what I want to hear are the words normalize and anneal before anything. I would also like to hear "I tested this on such and such" or "I made a test blade and it was able to this or that". The smiths who seem to rise to popularity in this day of better educated makers AND customers are the ones who leave no task to chance, and test their products.

I don't like Murphy, or his law, but he does keep us honest. By his law, a poorly heat treated knife will be the one out of the hundered maker X sold that will get tested or used.
 
Nick,

For what it's worth I did not take you original post to suggest that the choice of steel in unimportant in a collector's knife - but rather that it is more important to have confidence in the maker's knowledge, skill and integrity. This I take to be beyond any reasonable debate - the steel is just the raw material after all, and it would be utterly naive to assert that a knife A made from steel Y is better than knife B made from steel Z, based on the steel choice alone.

I just selfishly want the best of everything - the best designs from the most talented and knowledgable makers, crafted from the finest materials. See - I'm not hard to please. :D This thread has been extremely informative in helping me to undertsand different attributes of various steels and how these might impact the choice of steel for a given type of knife. The input from you and the other makers who have posted has been invaluable and I am very grateful to all.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Long after my customer and I are gone...when
personalities and prices are forgotten, maybe
someone will examine or even use the knife...

Then, I hope it speaks well for itself, and it's
obvious that the maker cared
 
Nick, I fully agree with what you are saying. When I choose a maker, I always go with the steel that they recommend. This is because I am of the view that the maker knows which steel they are the most comfortable in using to make a certain knife. I have my favorites, but if a maker doesn't use, lets say 52100, that doesn't deter me from choosing this maker. What I am most interested in is how much testing the maker has done on his/her steels of choice and how they have performed. I do not believe that any maker worth his/her salt would choose an inferior steel.

I am a little nervous about the 10 series steels though. Over the last year or so I have been seeing a lot of statements to the effect that these steels are nowhere near as clean as they used to be and that many makers are looking for an alternative.
 
Sorry if I was sounding disagreeable, I sure didn't mean to.

Since we're talking about steel, I thought I'd add some info on the W1 and W2 end of things.

I have been forging a LOT of W1 and putting it through its paces in the last year. I was hesitant to even try it at first, because it was not a headline steel.

I once asked a maker if he used Talonite and he said, "No, I don't want to have to sell customers on everything, PLUS why I used a steel they know nothing about." Interesting statement that really made me think.

But if you can take a steel and make it do what you want it to, then THAT will sell it. Isn't that, after all, what got the headline steels selling in the first place?

Now W1 has its drawbacks just like anything, but it's mostly the fact that it pretty easily tarnishes (like most any high carbon non-stainless blade will). Other than that, it has wonderful properties. I can harden it through like glass, or harden just a very narrow portion of the blade (if so inclined). I'm a bit of a control freak, and I really like that about it. With my passion for hamons in blades, that's another plus for W1.

But once it's hard, will it cut? I took a camp knife today out of W1 and first sliced newsprint and cardboard to see how it would slice that stuff. Then I took it out and cut so many maple and ash branches I got bored (around 25, 1-4" branches). Then I did some can cutting for fun...cutting about a dozen of them from top to bottom...some of them I even smashed first and then cut them. Then some kiln dried lumber, then to the kitchen for slicing...it sliced apples and vegetables just fine. After this there was no damage to the edge and it still cleanly shaves hair and newsprint. I would pretty readily put this knife up against any similar knife of whatever steel...even though it isn't a headliner.

W2 is even better. It's basically the same steel, with Vanadium thrown in. This gives a lot of improvement in edge holding. You still have the control over hardening. I will be forging out some test knives in W2 and try to make a solid side-by-side comparison. Ron Newton made a remarkable blade out of W2.

However, W2 is no longer produced here. After a lot of hunting, I located it at a mill in the UK. The prices are decent, but try shipping a notable amount of steel across the pond ($$$$$$$!!!).

I had an interesting phone call with a sales rep from a very large tool steel mill here in Washington. I carefully explained why I wanted W2 and he finally said, "Well, it's a real dinosaur, just look at its numbers on paper, nobody wants it."

Hmmm...

Well, technically, on paper, a brand-new Geo Metro is the way to go...it's light-weight, fuel-efficient, easy to produce, and readily available. But if you were burning down a 1/4 mile, wouldn't you rather have that dinosaur '69 SS Camero with built V8??? Sometimes numbers on paper don't tell the whole story.

As soon as I can find a way to get my hands on a lot of it, I'll be happy :)

Just some thoughts,
Nick
 
analysis: C-.95-1.05
mang.-.30-.40
cr.-.15 max
v-.10 max
t.15 max
mo-.10 max
Is this W2 or W1? The sheets say w1, but I thought the V put it out of the W1 category. Does it really matter? Let me get some input before I buy this stuff.
The inclusions in 10 series steel that I have found have all been cosmetic. You could see it if you were buying a knife with one in it. I don't think there is any reason to be nervous or worry about it.
m
 
Mike, both W-1 and W-2 have vanadium. W-1 just has more is all. Other than that they are almost identical.

I have heard of a maker (Tai Goo) using 1065 from two different batches and having them spark completely differently. According to Tai they seemed like two different steels, not just two different batches of the same steel.
 
Greeting's Again all . Nick i must say i see exactly where you are comming from on the "steel thing " i agree the "Maker" is the one who should know his or her favorite steel very well indeed , W 1-2 does make good blades as does some of the other's you listed . The Heat treating is truely where you separate the Men from the Boy's , regardless of the steel if a " Smith" can't get the most out of it in the "Heat Treat" it becomes junk . I Still use 10 series steel beacuse i know this steel well , i get several bar's at one time to keep quality steel on hand , i like L6 but often don't use it until i can make a blade Mostly Bainite instead of Martinisite. this only comes with extreme practice . i like 5160 - 52100 just starting to play with them .

Keith Good luck on the Search for steel , some look for a long time before they find the "Perfect" one

Just my opinion here .
 
Claud,
I'm back home now and thought I'd catch up on the forums.

To answer your question about petina on W2. With a 1500 grit finish I can't tell it apart from 52100. As far as petina, it will stain like most other carbon steels.

Mike. Where did that chem analysis come from? W2 has no chromium or tungsten.

Keith, Ive never seen an analsis on W1 with vanadium. I'm interested in where that info came from. W1 has a history of no vanadium and W2 has a history of having the vanadium.
 
Ron; I got the analysis out of MSC's catalog. They have it listed as W1, but I was always of the opinion that W1 had no vanadium. Was kinda confusing to me too. take care mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top