W2

D

Dan Zawacki

Joined
Sep 23, 2006
Messages
366
For those who are addicted to hamon and vanadium in the same blade, Tremblay Tool Steel in Ohio has several sizes of flats and some squares in W2.

The smallest round they've got is 2 1/8", but in flats they have some small stuff, like 5/16" x 3/4", some 3/8' SQ (really small), 3/8" x 5/8" (also pretty small) and they have some 1/2" sq.

I don't know how much they've got, but the gentleman I spoke to seemed quite accomidating, ad said he gets a lot of knifemakers calling.
 
You may find Trembley cannot tell you for sure if W2 is W2. My personal experience buying drops (either cut ends or leftovers from old orders) is, sometimes a person gets steel that doesn't match the chemistry... like 1.20% C and no V when it is supposed to be 1.00% C range (+/-0.05%) W2 w/ V... or L6 that was an oddball O1 type... not anywhere near L6 even though that steel has a wide range of possible elements and/or amounts.

The steel I have bought from Trembley that was newer leftovers has mostly been what I was told it was.

Mike
 
Not like the steel wasn't useable but a person had to find out what it was for sure to know where to go with HT-ing.

Mike
 
Well, that's kind of exactly why it sucks. Shelling out cash for a good bit of steel, and then spending god knows how long bashing your head against a wall when the HT that should nail what you thought you were working turns up junk... That sucks.

If I wanted to work an unknown bit of steel, there's no shortage of free supply. Car springs, old saw blades, files, old wrenches, etc, all can be had for free. If I were to actually pay for a peice of steel and it turned out to be something other than what the person who sold it to me said it was, well.... There'd definitely be words, and depending on how bad things got before I figured out I wasn't working with what I was sold, legal action could very well be in order. I'm not so sure there's anything that could practically be done, but you bet your anvil I'd find out in a hurry!
 
W2 is good stuff but it varies from different manufactures and batches. I had a bunch of W2 drops a few years ago that just about drove me crazy. Made great knives but the hamon potential was unpredictable. It's always good to know what ya got :0
 
I should be a little clearer. I've gotten steel from Trembley 3 different times and have gotten 4 steels from "leftovers", and 5 steels as drops. A "W2 Leftover" turned out to be 1.20%C W1. An L6 turned out to be lower-than-normal-range of C, O1... basically, not O1 but nearer it than anything. Every other steel was right.

It's not like Trembley is different than other tool steel houses... some drops lay in the corners for decades... some leftovers have been around longer than most of the employees. It is the nature of the business... it is the nature of buying steel fitting those two catagories. If you buy steel that the seller does not have batch chemistry on, you never really know what you have unless you have it tested. Yeah, some steel is labled, either by the mill or the steel house, but without a batch chemistry, the only thing you know is, "it should fall in 'X' range".

Mike
 
Hey, I thought that Hanson fella bought Tremblay out!!! :p ;) :D

I bought drops from them a few years ago and seemed to have had good luck with them.

A couple years ago, I bought a whole skid of W2 from Tremblay. Some 1" round, mostly 1-3/4" round, even some 2" square [HUGE STOCK!!!] lol :D (around 1,000 pounds).

I had some of every size tested, and it was all W2. :)
 
Yup, and I went to Trembley looking for W2 because Nick was mentioning on the forums that they had it... helped me get to the right contacts, etc.

I will re-mention that Trembley had 23 11/16" rounds, some of which I bought, that is not W2 but the 1.20% C W1 I mentioned... someone has that "wrong" steel.

Supposedly, Cincinnati Tool Steel carries W2... it is where Jerry Rados has been getting his W2 for a while (that was 3 years ago)... Jerry sent me there. I tried getting drops from them and couldn't. Never asked about new stock.

Mike
 
Mike, I forgot to mention that I'm glad to see you posting about your experience as it's all part of us looking out for each other. Few things are more frustrating than buying steel advertised as one thing, only to find it is something else.

Isn't Cincinnati Tool steel the place that has W2 in 3/8" plate, and they cut the width you want? There's a place like that and I remember the steel was reasonable until they factored in the band-saw charge of cutting it down to something even remotely close to user friendly.
 
Oh no Nick, I didn't buy out Tremblay :eek: but I did acquire a huge amount of W2 round stock, all from the same melt :) This has been the best, most consistent W2 for active hamon potential I have ever used.

The drops from Tremblay are the ones that gave me a fit. The specs would vary from piece to piece. I'm now pretty sure, not all of it was W2. I also got a load of W1 and half of it was color coded as 1060.

Good folks at Tremblay but when getting old stock from them, you have to make sure you get what you ordered. I have a pile of odd stuff from them that I need to get tested before I can decide what to do with it.

Last time I contacted Cincinnati, they said they didn't have any more W2. Maybe I spoke with the wrong person???
 
A couple of months ago, I bought three randoms of 1" x 1 1/2" W2 from
Tremblay. Each random was stamped with "W2" and the melt#.
Independent testing showed it to be:
C....979%
V....216
Mn..20
Cr...05
Si...18

At that time, they still had more of the same size.

Just FWIW
 
Nick,

I've got a Cincinnati Tool Steel Catalog and W2 is listed in various sizes... but I know they have no drops and I don't believe they actually have any W2 at all. Or, at least they don't now.

What Jerry Rados told me 3+ years ago was that CTS had W2 because of him. At the time he gave me a name and a number at CTS as a contact for getting some. I figure Jerry bought a bunch in one shot and maybe that is all CTS ever had.

This is kind of off the subject but CTS is the US distributor for Metal Ravne
Metal Ravne has some really interesting steels... whether they actually make all of them, I don't know.

Mike
 
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