Typical Steel Types Used in Traditionals

nccole

nccole

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I am usually over on the Spyderco sub-forum, so excuse my ignorance, but it seems that most traditional's for sale do not speak of the steel used. Some might say "stainless" but to me that usually means stay away because that really means an inferior stainless was used. Of course, some are not stainless, and that is fine as well. What I want to find are traditional's made with some steels I am more familiar with. S30V, 154CM, VG10, Zdp-189, and others would be nice to see, so I know more of what I am getting. Am I just not finding what I want, or is it a different world over here? Really, I would like to get a replacement for my Dad's Walmart Old Timer that he replaces every few years. I cannot throw him too far off his norm, but would like to get him a quality knife with a steel I can tell him about. A three-blade traditional in Zdp-189 would be awesome, he would rarely have to sharpen it, and I would feel like I mixed my passion with his traditional flavor. I have seen some customs on here with steels I recognize, but they sell for a bit more than I was thinking about spending, so a Case-type under $100 with a "premium" steel would be nice.
 
to make a short answer, I don't think you'll find much in your price range with the steels you listed. However if you are ok with some good 440C or D2 I would check out the offerings of Queen Cutlery or Canal Street cutlery.

Canal Street Cutlery in particular has many offerings in 440C, D2, and 14-4CrMo(an exact copy of ATS34) at reasonable prices.
 
For this particular forum, 1095 seems to rule the roost and is the favorite steel of the knife makers most talked about in this venue. You won't find the higher end stainless steels (although the ones you mentioned aren't by any means unusual anymore) here. Carbon steels are the norm. Carbon steel on the traditional knives is tempered significantly softer than the steels you mention and therefore significantly easier for most to sharpen. This also gives it the ability to become a wicked slicer, depending on the blade geometry. I think 1095 (and its brethren) hang on since they are dependable, have an excellent track record as long as your arm and there is a certain romance of remembering times gone by that seems to be associated with it. Not much to fault there...

confucius37 said:
to make a short answer, I don't think you'll find much in your price range with the steels you listed. However if you are ok with some good 440C or D2 I would check out the offerings of Queen Cutlery or Canal Street cutlery.

Canal Street Cutlery in particular has many offerings in 440C, D2, and 14-4CrMo(an exact copy of ATS34) at reasonable prices.
Click to expand...

Excellent suggestions, especially the Queen D2. I have a few Queen knives in D2 and I really like it. It is hard enough to make me happy, sharpens up like carbon with regular sharpening equipment, and the edge lasts very well. It really doesn't require any more maintenance than the stainless steels you are talking about.

Robert
 
On european traditionals there were carbon steels like

XC 65
XC 70
XC 75
1.5026
1.3505
L6
used

on the stainless side of the track there were

1.4034
1.4110
1.4116
12C27
steels used

These are the ones that came to mind quickly. There were more out there, used by french, italian, german etc etc cutleries.
 
Current steels used are:

1095, your basic bare bones carbon steel, used by most slipjoint manufacturers;
Case's version of 1095, CV, chrome vanadium;
420HC, usually used by Buck, distinguished from 420 by it's Bos style heat treat, Queen uses it too I believe;
Case's version of 420 stainless, SS;
O1, a common tool steel used on fixed blades and used by GEC and Queen I believe;
440C is used by Canal Street and GEC for their Great Eastern Cyclops mark;
D2 is commonly used by Queen;
ATS34 is also used by Queen on their higher end models.

The Case Bose annual collaborations started out using ATS34, then switched over to 154CM. I believe that some Case specials were produced with 154CM and damascus. I think that Canal Street used D2? Maybe some higher grade steels. Lots of contract knives were produced by GEC and Queen with different steels. I am surprised that GEC used some higher grade powder steels on some of their models, just found that out in another thread. Buck has used S30V and 154CM on their custom shop lockbacks, like the Squire/Prince/Knight line and 110/112.

If you want the super steels on your slipjoints, you'll probably have to go custom.
 
I believe both Case and Dan Burke have made traditionals with BG-42, an excellent stainless steel. But among commonly found models under $100, Queen's D2 and S&M's ATS-34 have the best edge retention.
 
Thanks guys, lots of good info to get me going. Sounds like I can get what I was looking for.
 
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