Wetterlings newest addition 'Hudson Bay'

BG_Farmer said:
It is not 1055 equivalent, C55 is, but whatever steel it is is only based on C55. The manganese is normal and maybe the silicon, but vanadium is not normally a component of "carbon steel", I don't think...
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Ovako's "axe steel", like 1055 but with some Vanadium added, sounds similar to W2 steel with the carbon reduced by half. (W2 is a carbon steel used for making files...)
 
Steve Tall said:
Ovako's "axe steel", like 1055 but with some Vanadium added, sounds similar to W2 steel with the carbon reduced by half. (W2 is a carbon steel used for making files...)
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I'm thinking something like that given the quench and temper. The amount of manganese and silicon may be different also, from C55. They aren't giving us much to work on, but I doubt it is as tough as 5160, for example. Obviously, there are economics and marketing at work :)!
 
Steve Tall said:
Wetterlings steel:

The steel is purchased in various dimensions, but 3 m long rods, packed in giant bundles, where each bundle is weighing 8-10 tons. The steel comes from Ovako in Smedjebacken, and made to correct dimensions in the Ovako mill in Boxholm. Wetterling’s buys steel bars in five different dimensions. The steel is 100 % recycled scrap iron that is, under controlled processes, mixed to our specification, optimal for forging axes. The steel is based on the C55 carbon mixed with silicon, manganese and vanadium.
http://www.wetterlings.com/how-to/

C55 supposedly has 0.52-0.60% Carbon.
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those properties make for good tough steel. i like the idea of re-cycled steel
 
markv said:
i like the idea of re-cycled steel
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In principle I like it, too. But there are issues involved with using a mix a steels with often unknown quantities of various allows. It makes it harder to control the exact characteristics of the steel. A foundry which makes steel from raw iron ore has no such problems. Exact quantities of the prescribed allows can be added and you end up with exactly the steel you want.

Letter designated steels are defined by their properties rather than their content like e.g. 10xx steels. They are still excellent steels but on occasion they can be inconsistent. It depends on how well the materials are homogenized and the QC and testing by the maker. It's reasonable to believe Wetterling's and GB's supplier makes a consistent product. It's just easier to make a consistent product if you're starting from scratch.

For example, a certain blend of old car fenders (low carbon) and lawn mower blades (high carbon) will produce good medium carbon steel. But suppose the recycled products aren't homogenized well. One section of the resulting product would take a heat treat much differently than another section. I've seen rebar made from recycled steel where you can still pick out individual nuts and bolts that went into the recycling process. If something like that went into an axe bit it would be a very poor quality bit.
 
markv said:
those properties make for good tough steel. i like the idea of re-cycled steel
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Certainly recycling is a wonderfully green initiative but how do mills ensure that the end product is of correct constituents, minimal impurities, and perfectly homogenous? Ford automobiles were first off the mark using recycled metal in the 1970s and the patchwork quilt of differing and unknown grades of steel within the assembled cars ensured that they eroded faster than a newspaper left in the rain. It's got to be an art and a science to turn Fiat fenders/doors, pie trays and soup cans into consistent and known quality steel.

I see that while I was typing this, Square_Peg also was also doing so!
 
yes, i remember a contractor complaining about the rebar he was using being way much harder than he was used to. he could not use his rebar cutter.
obviously a "Dukes" mixture of steel would lead to QC concerns.
i have an SAW hatchet that has not been tempered correctly as it has a rather soft edge.
a few of the Japanese bits i have seem to be very hard, i have no idea of the nature of the steel, but these Japanese axes are well formed.
so many variables involved in making steel and axes nowadays.
i would love to have one of these Wetterlings Hudson Bays to compare with all these old American made axes i have in the till.
i can remember when Smoky Mountain sold Wetterlings for $35.
a good five cent cigar a good $30 axe, maybe someday it will happen.
buzz
 
lots to say about steel.
i think i'll sit back and just listen for awhile.
all good
buzz
 
There is only a small amount of vanadium in the Ovako steel, but it's enough to pin the grain boundaries and stop the grain size blowing up during forging. A nice fine grain means you'll get a bit more toughness.

Often when we talk about toughness what we actually mean is resistance to deformation, and in that respect hardness is just as important as toughness (resistance to chipping). Too soft and it'll roll at optimal geometries.

I noticed a few months ago that one canoe expedition outfitter was offering these wetterlings hudson bay axes, but I thought they were a one off. Very attractive pattern to me.
 
A few years ago I bought a Wetterlings Bushman, horrible edge retention. Rolled over and over again, no matter how obtuse I ground my edge. Later turned out that pretty much every Bushman had the same problem. They made a Bushman v2 and I got a new one, free of charge, which held an edge much better than the earlier version.
They said there was a problem in the heat treatment.
 
joshiecole said:
There is only a small amount of vanadium in the Ovako steel, but it's enough to pin the grain boundaries and stop the grain size blowing up during forging. A nice fine grain means you'll get a bit more toughness.

Often when we talk about toughness what we actually mean is resistance to deformation, and in that respect hardness is just as important as toughness (resistance to chipping). Too soft and it'll roll at optimal geometries.

I noticed a few months ago that one canoe expedition outfitter was offering these wetterlings hudson bay axes, but I thought they were a one off. Very attractive pattern to me.
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You have that backwards. Toughness is resistance to brittle failure (chipping), and hardness is resistance to plastic deformation (rolling.) :)
 
Nope. I was talking about what people often mean when they describe a knife as tough. Often when people describe something as having a tough edge they mean it's resistant to both rolling and chipping. I.e. resistant generally to deformation.

To make my point a bit less fuzzy, a lot of knife users realise that what they are looking for is not so much abrasion resistance they're looking for resistance to edge deformation predominantly against chipping since that will be their main experience of edge deformation. So many people start searching for steels with the highest toughness, often failing to remember that without decent hardness the edge will still be prone to edge deformation by rolling or denting.

I was just pointing out the mismatch between the technical use of toughness and what people actually sometimes mean when they talk about a knife being tough.
 
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Gotcha'. There's definitely a lot of confusion amongst the populace at large regarding what hardness and toughness actually mean. I always like to explain it with a little hyperbole: You can't break Play-Doh™, and you can't fold a sheet of glass. (Without letting the former dry or heating the latter, of course. :D )
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Gotcha'. There's definitely a lot of confusion amongst the populace at large regarding what hardness and toughness actually mean.. . .
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Agreed, if two people have a different definition of a term, then it is impossible for them to have a meaningful discussion.

As to the toughness and hardness discussion, I would offer this starting point to anyone who might be interested:

"Strength, hardness, toughness, elasticity, plasticity, brittleness, and ductility and malleability are mechanical properties used as measures of how metals behave under a load."​

These properties are defined here.

Bob
 
On a related note this quote from the Wetterlings website under initiatives about their Hudson Bay axe.

The “Hudson Bay Axe by Wetterlings” is today forged by Rikard Jansson, one of the skilled blacksmiths at Wetterlings Axe Forge in Storvik, Sweden. The axe is made of Swedish Carbon Steel and the bit is hardened to 57 Rockwell C. This is harder than most Hudson Bay Axes on the market. The hard bit has a sharp edge, retaining sharpness for a long time. However, during very cold days and when biting extremely hard wood, this hard and sharp axe has to be used with professionalism and care. In the old days, real axe men put the axe head in the armpit to warm the head up before they started hewing!
 
I'd like to know what you end up thinking about the head weight. 2.5lb seems a bit on the heavy side for the Hudson Bay's raison d'etre. I tend to think about the HB as more of a shaping axe than a chopper. (in my head I always associate it with shaping traps, carving paddles, and shaping ribs for a canoe)
 
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