What a silly goose I am!

David Stifle

David Stifle

Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
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Over the past ten years I've been getting along selling a few knives here and there. Recently, I decided to start taking orders again, and I've got my hands full. But, no one wants the same steel. One guy wants D2, another W2, etc.

I've been faithfully marking each blade, but somehow two blades went unmarked. I have no idea what they might be, other than 1095, 1084, D2, or W2. Any advice?
 
Etching it with ferric will tell you if it is D2. If it is not, it is difficult to tell between 1095, W2 and 1084. I can tell the difference between W2 and the 1084 that I use by the hamons and a little with 1095. Otherwise, it may be a crap shoot.
 
How does etching tell you if it's D2? I know D2 is the closest carbon steel comes to stainless, so it doesn't etch easy?
 
D2 etches lighter and has a visible wootz like appearance when etched due to the alloys and carbides. A piece of known D2 should be added to the etch as a control.

The W2 and the 1095 will be about impossible to tell the difference. However, I believe W2 technically is 1095. Though 1095 obviously is not necessarily W2. (all halibut are fish, but not all fish are halibut). I could be mistaken, but I believe that if you treat it like 1095 and sell it as 1095 you should be good.

1084 has manganese and will probably etch noticeably darker than the others.
 
Wink wink. If YOU can't tell what steel it is how on earth ever is somebody else going to? Bad luck if you're Remington Arms and produce a million of something claiming to be made of one steel and actually being another but your stuff are 'one-offs' and likely already have an unspoken lifetime (your's) warranty.
 
300Six said:
Wink wink. If YOU can't tell what steel it is how on earth ever is somebody else going to? Bad luck if you're Remington Arms and produce a million of something claiming to be made of one steel and actually being another but your stuff are 'one-offs' and likely already have an unspoken lifetime (your's) warranty.
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I know, but I couldn't sell something of unknown, howbeit good, steel.

Nathan, etching D2 sounds interesting. I like wootz! Lol. I'll just treat them as 1095, and see how they test out. Thanks, guys.
 
David,
We all do this from time to time....usually with a partial bar of steel. I just did it with six full bars from Aldo. Luckily they were 52100 and AEB-L....no problem separating them with an etch.

Take a known sample of each steel ( label them :) ). Sand them to be about the same finish as the blades. Clean all off well and dip quickly in FC. Compare and make notes The D-2 should be nearly unphased by the FC, the 1084 should get darker, and the 1095/W2 should be a bit less dark. Keep dipping for longer times and comparing. This should clearly define the known samples, and the unknowns can be extrapolated from those examples by comparison.
 
Bah ! Metallurgists can tell the difference from the other side of the room !!!
 
mete said:
Bah ! Metallurgists can tell the difference from the other side of the room !!!
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Haha! Well, I think I could identify the difference between 1084 and D2 by the way they grind. Nothings as soft as Aldo's 1084. But I can't really detect a difference in the way W2 and 1095 grind. Speaking of steel management, I found one of Aldo's big mailing tubes yesterday, it had 2 48" x 2.5 x .25 steel bars in it, and I can't remember if thet're good or not. (This is before I started keeping exact records of everything). It seems like all my troubles are of my own making lately, and I never even played football.
 
W2 develops a film of rust faster than 1095; if you lay them side by side and splash a little water on them the W2 should be the one showing the rust film first. Hows that for a scientific approach? :)
 
1095 is a wide spec material. You can find 1095 with enough trace chromium in it that it resists rust a little, but one batch can be different from the next.

Fun factoid: within the specification of 1095 it is possible to have a steel whose pearlite nose goes all the way over and touches the left side of the graph. Even a water quench can't avoid pearlite. 1095 is a wide specification with a lot of different material falling in that spec. They're all different. If I were making knives in "1095" I'd use W1 and call it 1095. W2 - even better.
 
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