What are the advantages of 01 Tool Steel?

[JTknives]

15n20 will whip the snot out of 1084. I am a HUGE fan of it for just about any size knive.
Yeah warren I was thinking about the uses of 1095 after I posted my last post. Plus it's good in Damascus so it has that going for it.

 

[RX-79G]

52100 isn't difficult to heat treat. It depends on the condition the steel arrives in. Aldo's is course spheroidized, and needs normalization and thermal cycling. It's super easy if you have a kiln. If you get stock from AKS, you can stock remove and austenitize without cycling, as the steel is in a more heat treat friendly condition. If you forge, you need to normalize and cycle anyway, so normalizing is a normal part of the process. With Aldo's steel, I normalize and cycle all the carbon steels (except 15n20- my testing showed no difference) Not a biggie, it just lets me get consistent results.

I think there are a lot of people that would disagree that getting the best properties from 52100 via a straightforward heat treat really works. With an extra .1% carbon, getting that carbon where it should be takes more than just normalizing. It requires thermal cycling as well to get the carbon to the right places without causes grain growth at the same time.

It is easy to make an okay blade from 52100 without thermal cycling, but you're really not getting the most out of the alloy, and it will have a bunch of either pearlite or RA in it preventing the performance of the steel from being as good as a lower carbon alloy that put the carbon where it belongs.

 

[Willie71]

I think there are a lot of people that would disagree that getting the best properties from 52100 via a straightforward heat treat really works. With an extra .1% carbon, getting that carbon where it should be takes more than just normalizing. It requires thermal cycling as well to get the carbon to the right places without causes grain growth at the same time.

It is easy to make an okay blade from 52100 without thermal cycling, but you're really not getting the most out of the alloy, and it will have a bunch of either pearlite or RA in it preventing the performance of the steel from being as good as a lower carbon alloy that put the carbon where it belongs.

I've made many great blades out of 52100. There is no magic, understand the steel and metallurgy, and it's straightforward.

 

[RX-79G]

I've made many great blades out of 52100. There is no magic, understand the steel and metallurgy, and it's straightforward.

I don't know your process - whether you were forging or grinding and what state the steel started in. But if you went up to normalizing temps but never did any thermal cycling around quench temps, then it is unlikely 52100 got as hard as it can or should.

I have a great knife I made a long time ago by heating 1095 up over magnetic and quenching in water. It is very hard and holds an edge, but I realize that without at least a soak the carbon did not get where it should be, and what I made wasn't much different than if I had used 1075.

 

[JTknives]

WHAT 52100 is not magic, that is why you edge pack it that is where the magic is.

 

[shqxk]

I think there are a lot of people that would disagree that getting the best properties from 52100 via a straightforward heat treat really works. With an extra .1% carbon, getting that carbon where it should be takes more than just normalizing. It requires thermal cycling as well to get the carbon to the right places without causes grain growth at the same time.

It is easy to make an okay blade from 52100 without thermal cycling, but you're really not getting the most out of the alloy, and it will have a bunch of either pearlite or RA in it preventing the performance of the steel from being as good as a lower carbon alloy that put the carbon where it belongs.

52100 isnt difficult steel to HT at all compare to other hypereutectoid steel. All you need is just properly temp control kiln and decent quench oil. Thermal cycling is also just step down normalizing which is nothing complicated. 52100 is very popular steel here and compare to O1 the later are noticeable more difficult at forging thus much higher fail rate due to micro cracking problem.

 

[kuraki]

WHAT 52100 is not magic, that is why you edge pack it that is where the magic is.

No, edge packing only works if you have magnets on your anvil. That's where the magic is, because no one knows how magnets work. They just do.

 

[Willie71]

I don't know your process - whether you were forging or grinding and what state the steel started in. But if you went up to normalizing temps but never did any thermal cycling around quench temps, then it is unlikely 52100 got as hard as it can or should.

I have a great knife I made a long time ago by heating 1095 up over magnetic and quenching in water. It is very hard and holds an edge, but I realize that without at least a soak the carbon did not get where it should be, and what I made wasn't much different than if I had used 1075.

Reread my post. I specifically said normalizing and thermal cycling.

 

[Willie71]

No, edge packing only works if you have magnets on your anvil. That's where the magic is, because no one knows how magnets work. They just do.

Don't forget the quench tank pointing north.

 

[JTknives]

Last time I tryied pointing my round verticle quench north it did not turn our so good.

 

[samuraistuart]

I don't know your process - whether you were forging or grinding and what state the steel started in. But if you went up to normalizing temps but never did any thermal cycling around quench temps, then it is unlikely 52100 got as hard as it can or should.

I have a great knife I made a long time ago by heating 1095 up over magnetic and quenching in water. It is very hard and holds an edge, but I realize that without at least a soak the carbon did not get where it should be, and what I made wasn't much different than if I had used 1075.

The normalizing is needed because of how heavily (coarse) spheroidized Aldo's 52100 is. Chuck from Alpha knife has indicated that his 52100 is fine spheroidized, thus does not need to be normalized at all. Normalizing is done to break up carbide networks and heavily spheroidized carbides that would otherwise not be available if you simply tried to harden it (again.....Aldo's 52100). Thermal cycling (after a normalizing is done) has nothing to do with how hard a steel gets. It is done to "shrink" the aus grain that has been/may have been blown up by the high normalizing heat. So in other words, starting with Aldo's 52100, stock removal, no normalizing no cycling.....probably 62-63HRC max out of quench (standard soak times). Normalize Aldo's 52100 no thermal cycling.....66HRC+ but with possible larger aus grain than ideal. Normalize Aldo's 52100, add 3 thermal cycles.....66HRC+ and fine aus grain out of quench. If you forge Aldo's 52100, the forging heats will break up the spheroidized carbides, and it's always good practice to normalize after forging anyway.

 

[Shaw Blades]

O1 is also super consistent from suppliers. 52100 and W2 are not in my experience. Also O1 can take in insanely thin edge and hold it while being staying stable.