W2 edge retention and corrosion resistance?

noob93 said:
It sounds like W2 is a very good steel. Iv never had 52100 myself but heard a lot of good things. If W2 is about the same as 01 I'll be very happy. For carbon and tool steel I currently have 1095 from esee and a custom in a2. I will assume W2 will fall in between those somewhere for edge holding.
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W2 will be much closer to A2 than it will be to 1095.
 
PatrickKnight said:
W2 will be much closer to A2 than it will be to 1095.
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W2 is much closer to 1095. Both are hand-forgeable, water quenching steel with similar carbon content but with additional hint of vanadium on W2.

A2 is air hardening steel. Totally different animal.
 
Tehemton said:
Iron carbides are relatively not as hard as compared to the other four, and they sum up to about .8% too depending on the batch for example vanadium carbide is a 9.5 on the mohs scale with diamond being 10 and hardened steel comes at around (...)
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Be careful with this statement, since it's not true in a general sense.
When you have a structure made up of hard particles embedded in a much softer matrix, there are two independent wear mechanisms: pure abrasion, and tear-out.

The first will only be significant if: a) The percentage of hard particles is high enough to provide a reasonable cover of matrix, and b) The abrading material is also stiff with respect to the matrix (non conforming). The second part is significant in metal working tools, but not in food,wood or manila rope cutting.

When the dominant mechanism for wear is tear-out, the hardness of the particles (as long as they are much harder than the matrix) does not matter. The difference in hardness between iron carbide and vanadium carbide is not consequential.

Two characteristics of the carbides that do matter are percentage, and size. More carbides provide better coverage of the matrix, minimizing tear out. Smaller carbides provide a better hold onto the matrix due to the smaller volume/surface ratio. For practical reasons, it's not possible to get both this characteristics with highly soluble carbides, and steels with a good carbide volume will have other carbide formers in them.
 
Russ Andrews said:
One reason people like 52100 is that the specs are so tight.... all across the industry...
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Sometimes I wish D2 was held to the tolerances That 52100 is. But that assumes that it would be a good knife friendly D2 version that became standard.
 
jdm61 said:
52100 might be little bit easier for some to work with, although both can be a tad unforgiving to ham fisted HT methods.
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Can you explain what you mean 52100 is easier to work with? I have always been under the impression it was the other way around
 
Would that be the "whatever version of D2 Bob Dozier is buying" variety? ;)
JTknives said:
Sometimes I wish D2 was held to the tolerances That 52100 is. But that assumes that it would be a good knife friendly D2 version that became standard.
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Deeper hardening. I know that 52100 has a reputation of only giving you one shot, but I would not really want to try to reharden W2 either, especially if I was using clay. Some current 52100 reputation may come from the fact that the major supplier of flat stock sends it out heavily sphereodized, so you have to heat up it fairly high to break down those carbides.
valknut said:
Can you explain what you mean 52100 is easier to work with? I have always been under the impression it was the other way around
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Ok I got ya. Just upgraded my forge to complete temp control so I lmao upgrading the steel I use also and im torn between w2 and 52100.
 
W2 needs a fast oil quench, while 52100 doesn't. They both require good temp control during hardening (~1475f). The only W2 I know of comes from Aldo (Besides the round stock Don Hanson has), and is fairly heavily spheroidized (as is his 52100). 52100 from Alpha knife comes ready to harden, and is fine spheroidized. W2 and 52100 from Aldo both need a good normalizing heat due to them being coarse spheroidized. If it were me, I would go with 52100 from Alpha knife supply. No need to normalize and then cycle, simply harden/temper. The only reason I use W2 now is for hamon on knives like kwaiken/tanto.
 
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