Types of carbon steel used in old folders

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molli

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Aug 2, 2010
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Do all old folders like: case, schrade, john primble,camillus use the same 1095 carbon steel blades with same rockwell hardness? Does someone have any info on which company used what? Thanks
 
molli said:
Do all old folders like: case, schrade, john primble,camillus use the same 1095 carbon steel blades with same rockwell hardness? Does someone have any info on which company used what? Thanks
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How old do you mean by "old"? Some of the alloys changed over time.

In the 60's, Case used an alloy with the carbon content of 1095 but with small additions of Chromium and Vanadium. I believe they now use an alloy with the carbon content of 1085, but also with small additions of Chromium and Vanadium.

From the 60's on, Schrade and Camillus mostly used 1095. Schrade Old Timers were 1095. I think hardened to 57-58 range. Camillus also used 0170-6C on some of their premium blades. (I want to say from the 80's on, but I could be off on that.) It had the carbon content of 1095 with the aforementioned additions of Chromium and Vanadium.

Prior to the 60's, I have no information.

And I'm sorry if I wandered a bit in my response. Friday night is Ale Night at my house.
 
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And going further back, before 1904 the premium was English cast steel, you can see advertisements from that time period bragging about using the best cast steel. Before cast steel, it was shear steel, but I doubt many of us have seen folders with shear steel. I'm not sure what the carbon content was; based on descriptions of how it was made, there was probably a decent amount of variability from one batch to the next.
 
1095 was the most popular here in the States for knives. A larger European dealer once mentioned that carbon steels used in Europe for older knives were close to 0-1, many times. Do not worry about the Rockwell hardness on older knives, it was very inconsistant till modern times, the only truth is that it was much lower than today. I've seen tests run on older knives across the board, from all over the World and all price ranges. Most ran mid 40's rc to low 50's.
 
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