tell me about D2 steel

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dghboy315

Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
126
i tried to do a search, but i must be doing something wrong. i can't find a single thread about D2 steel. i've typed in "D2" and "steel" and "carbon steel" and "edge" in various combinations. i guess another question i have is how does the search function work, b/c i have always had a hard time searching for topics.

back to D2 steel, i've heard that it holds an edge well, but that edge is never that sharp. is this correct? why would this be?

thanks
 
dghboy315 said:
ii've heard that it holds an edge well, but that edge is never that sharp. is this correct?
Click to expand...

No. Dozier uses D2, few people complain about a lack of sharpness on his blades. D2 is a tool steel with high wear resistance with low machinability, a coarse grain structure and is fairly brittle and inflexible.

"D2" is too short the forums search engine ignores it, fairly poor behavior considering the nature of the forums. It is often better to search bladeforums from outside. Just do a site specific search in google :

d2 site:www.bladeforums.com

Will have google look for "d2" on bladeforums.

-Cliff
 
I've got about 6 knive in D2 from Queen to Custom's from Razorback Knives and D2 is great. It might take a little more effort to get a scary sharp edge on it if it gets very dull, but once you do, it lasts and lasts!

Wipe it down some to prevent pitting and you'll love D2.
 
D2 is a great edge holder. It's performance level has alot to do with how it's heat treated and tempered. Don't believe everything negative you read about D2.
Scott
 
The way that the search engine works is that it stores "words". These words must be at least 3 characters long (either letters, numbers, or combinations) or the indexing function doesn't store them. This is real annoying since a lot of cool alloys are only two characters long, such as A2, D2, M2 and W2. I like Cliff's trick of using Google to search for things like this. Google indexes 2-character names quite happily.

I usually don't have trouble using the search function. There is a blue-colored bar across the upper part of the Bladeforums webpages. It is best to use the "Search" pull-down from that location. I click the down-triangle to open the search and then select the "Advanced Search" text option. That opens a more elaborate search. The default search is "all the forums" and list the results in reverse chronological order (newest first). That is usually a good way to get the latest information. The key is having a large knife vocabulary to pick phrases that are specific for what you want and common enough to be use in most relevant threads. Usually one word is best if you can pick the right word. To find D2 without being able to search for 'D2' the correct term to use is "tool steel".

D2 sharpens best for me if I do most of my honing using a diamond hone. I had expected a second-rate edge since I had believed that D2 would have a coarse grain structure. All of the D2 knives that I have owned have taken very good edges. I am very experienced at sharpening and I am well equipped so your experience might be different. I have been able to put a shaving edge on all of my D2 blades. This is better than I have done with several well regarded stainless alloys. The fact that D2 has less chrome than stainless alloy seems to help it take a better edge than I expected. D2 does seem to have some microstructure that makes it good for slicing. It makes a very good hunting or utility knife when hardened to at least 60 RC. I wouldn't want to use it for tough chopping purposes unless it was much less hardened, say under 58 RC.
 
D2 makes up many of my hunting blades and to me it has one of the most "bity" blade steel's out there due to the grain strucure. When you feel the edge on a razorsharp D2 blade you'll know what I mean, ATS-34, 154 cm, s30V, they all have more of a razor smooth edge, D2 to me has kind of a bite to it that makes it fantastic for slicing through meat and skin and other materials. It holds its edge well and I havent had that tough a time sharpening it. Just keep it up and sharp and you'll never have to worry about it being dull.
 
d2 is a carbon steel with high amount of chromium, so it is often called semi-stainless
obviously it resist stain quite well, but it is also not so tough as other carbon steels
it has high wear resistance, so it can hold edge quite long, but it won't be as sharp as some other carbon steels

here you can see what alloys it contains
http://www.toolshop.de/e/service/steelgrades_big.htm

you can find some info also here:
http://www.ajh-knives.com/metals.html
 
While it has a lot of Cr, this is usually locked up in carbides, hence the high wear resistance, this needs to be free to enable corrosion resistance.

-Cliff
 
I would say in general, D2 holds and takes an edge very well, but it is hard to sharpen to get it to that edge.
 
D2 is one of the most difficult to machine tool steels, much harder than the plain carbon steels and even significantly harder than the A and O series steels. In order to make sharpening efficient you need to either microbevel, and only work the primary grind with the x-coarse hone, or have edge profiles similar to Krein/Dozier which are so narrow they sharpen very fast even without microbevels.

-Cliff
 
Read somewhere that D2 takes a lousy edge and holds it forever. But, I think it just gets a bad rep. because people either try to use Arkansas stones, which are pretty slow going on this steel, so they maybe give up before they get a good burr (use diamond, waterstones or fine wet/dry sandpaper for scary sharpening), or they use too small an angle (large carbides will fall out and leave a saw-tooth edge if you make the angles too small 15-20 degrees per side seem to work okay)... crock stick sharpeners exert a lot of lateral pressure, which could also aggrivate the carbide fall-out, especially if you push harder to make it cut faster (remember, only a very small area of a crock stick will actually contact the edge at any given instant, and 1 ounce distributed over a .001 x .001 inch area gives a pressure of 62,000 pounds per square inch).

I had no trouble putting a razor edge on my Queen D2 whittler blades using a DMT diamond stone to reprofile the edges to about 17 degrees per side and polishing them up on waterstones. M2 is like D2 but much finer grained so you can use smaller angles and get it sharper, and M2 rusts easier (I've never had my M2 knife rust though). Both will hold an edge for a long time.
 
I have a D2 utility from David Winston (61.5Rc) sharpened on an Edge Pro that is so sharp its nuts. I have a Roger Linger knife (Pictured) too around 61 Rc that is like a Lightsabre.

Its probably my favourite steel.

IMG_5500.jpg
 
Nothing but good here,my only gripe is it's high RC=brittle but so is some others.
 
This is why I have alot of faith in D2. This is an 1/8" thick D2 test blade. I put it in the vise and did this bend test. I'm not sure how many degrees this is but I'm guessing between 20 and 30. You can see by my white knuckles I'm tugging hard.:D
Scott

d2bend.JPG


I did forget to mention there was an inch and half from the point back clamped in the vise and it came back to true. I estimate my blades are at 60 rc. according to the HT data I follow.
 
Razorback - Knives said:
This is why I have alot of faith in D2. This is an 1/8" thick D2 test blade. I put it in the vise and did this bend test. I'm not sure how many degrees this is but I'm guessing between 20 and 30. You can see by my white knuckles I'm tugging hard.:D
Scott


I did forget to mention there was an inch and half from the point back clamped in the vise and it came back to true. I estimate my blades are at 60 rc. according to the HT data I follow.
Click to expand...

I worried about you Scott, the last guy seen in public alot with only one glove was Michael Jackson!:D:D:D:D
 
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