What steel to use for a filet knife?

jhiggins

jhiggins

Joined
Jul 11, 2003
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The title of this thread says it all. What would be a nice, flexible, yet sharp and durable steel, preferably stainless? I want to make a few filet knives for me and my friends. 440c? 154CM? I'd like to get something that'll flex properly, but still cut like a ginsu... did I say that out loud? LOL! :eek:
 
I use 440 (I hate making fillet knives) and it works pretty good. Phil Wilson has made a LOT of fillet knives using the 400 series CPM steels with great sucess, I think 420 CPM, mostly. Man, does that stuff cut and cut and cut! I don't know just how flexible the blade would be, but a super cutter.His fillet knives have few equals and are mostly saltwater blades.
 
The flexibility is due to the thinness of the blade not the steel .In fact there are stiff fileting knives on the market they just have thicker blades. 440C will work fine ,154CM even better or go all the way and use S30V .
 
Thanks, John, and thank you, Mete. You are saying S30V? Thats a super-duty stainless steel, right? Pricey.
 
S30V is pretty pricy and harder to grind but it sure is a superior steel ,well suited for fillet knives, I make quite a few fillet knives used for salmon on the west coast, after trying a fairly stiff blade ,thats what they order from me.,
 
Jeff, I made one years ago for a couple friends that was out of 440A and I'm still hearing how great the knife is. They even say it holds a good edge and they use the heck out of it. I've heard different about the 440A but they sure like it. A-2 is another steel that would work well but rust would be more of a problem because its only got 5 to 6% crome. I also did some 440V along time ago, its a belt eating steel.....
 
is there a way to make this type of knife, and cheat a bit?


is there a type of band saw blade that I could order that I would then just have to cut to shape?

The reason I ask is that I need to make this type of knife, but it has to be able to really bend, the blade has to be very thin.....

I want to make a fillet knife for many guys I know, they all keep asking when I will start to learn this,,,,But there is no way I can grind a blade that thin.

how do we cheat?
 
I bought the thinnest gauge ATS 34 and let Paul Bos heat treat the few Ive made. The bevel is put on after HT. They work awesome. Very flexable too.
 
Definitely the flexibility comes from how thin you grind the steel. I use both 440C and ATS-34 for my fillet knives, both have worked well. In recent months I seem to have switched almost entirely over to ATS-34 for my fillet knives as it holds a better edge than 440C.

CPM S30V would be a great choice I would think. I haven't used it for a fillet knife yet but use it for other fixed blade knives. It's definitely more expensive and takes longer to grind (and more belt wear) than the other steels mentioned.

If I were you I would choose a less expensive steel to do your first few fillet knives than S30V. It's amayzing how fast something can go wrong when you are grinding stock as thin as 1/16" to start out with.

Have fun.

Sean
 
Just found on 1sks, microtech has a new knife - the Microtech Marlin ,a filet knife of S30V .
 
Some few months back I posted this same type question. Rhino, which I have missed for a long time now and wonder about his well being, seemed to rather insist upon BG-42, as my memory recalls. Rhino specializes, I hope still, in kitchen type knives and there abouts and for that I gave great weight to his preferences toward my question.

BG-42, as I have learned, is very touchy about tempering temperature and oven cavity consistancy is critical and becomes more critical as blade length increases. Fifteen tempering degrees can kill you and tempering of this steel is done at the 1000 degree F range. Fantastic steel though if you can do it right.

Roger
 
Daqo'tah...

Shoot me an email with your address, and I'll ship you some perf-blade stock to play with. Its very flexible, and already hardened and tempered. It's the steel blade type we use on printing presses to make the perforations across the form that you tear off.

Others...

Thanks for the insight on usable steels for filet knives. Do you guys think that sand-blasted G-10 would be a good handle material or too porous?
 
I just finished grinding 15 fillet blades. I used D2, S30V and ATS-34. They are at Bos's for heat treat now. I asked Paul to not cryo one each of the three steels so I can do a series of cutting tests on each of the three steels with and with out cryo. It'll take a awhile to get all the cutting tests done but I'll post them here when I've finished. I'm putting my money on the S30V with Cyro but we'll see. I'm going to do a blind cutting test so I can try and keep my bias out of it. I'm guessing D2 and ATS-34 come in close enough that the more stainless ATS-34 will give it a leg up on the D2. I can tell you that 1/16th is the thickest you want to start with. What a pain to grind.
 
if you want High carbon I have a source for used commercial bandsaw blade in two thicknesses.
two of our formites got some from me back along, maybe they will chime in
and say what they think of it? the thinnest I have is .066 :)
 
tmickley said:
I can tell you that 1/16th is the thickest you want to start with. What a pain to grind.
Click to expand...

I find it interesting that the lowly, workhorse filet knife can be one of the most-intimidating blades to make for us.

Tracy, are you saying that 1/16 is the thinnest to grind BEFORE heat-treat? I'm wondering if you mean 1/16 at the edge. I was thinking the ricasso could be thicker, but taper out nicely towards the tip. For filleting striper and cod, I'm thinking a 10" blade would do well, and I was thinking of making a machined or texturized micarta or G10 handle, with stainless corby pins.

I also should say that when I think filet knife, I only have salt-water applications in mind, so anything other than stainless just isn't a consideration. I do have some nice .125 ATS-34 stock I can use. I think I might go with that.
 
go for talonite then....:eek: $$$ :eek:


Seriously, 1/8" is too thick to start with for a filet. You won't ever get it "springy". Needs to be 1/16" at most. ATS-34 is good too. And a mild convex edge. ;)
 
Hey Jeff, 1/16th is the thinnest to start with otherwise you will be grinding quite a while to get to a 'traditional' thickness (what ever that is) fillet knife. I have used a fillet knife that was 1/8th on the tang that had a strong distal taper until almost nothing at the point. I personally didn't like it, as it felt very stiff. It was my Dad's Old Timer fillet. He must not have liked it either as I don't remember him every using it. I think it's what you grew up cleaning fish with kinda thing. I always used flexible Rapala's. The last few years I've tried several other fillet knives and these were usually less flexible and I've grown to prefer them. I made a bird and trout a couple years ago I like the best for pan fish so far.
I finally got around to making several different fillets for myself with different flex characteristics so I can decide what I actually do prefer. The pain in the a** part will be catching all those fish to test with.:D
(Did I mention I just got back from South Padre Island, TX and went fishing there? Caught a 44" Drum that guesstimated out 35# and a keeper just at 38" and 20#. Max length for a keeper is 38". Also caught a ton of Sand Trout and Whiting. It's good to be me.)

I sent them to Paul almost completely done on the grind. I will knock off the grey stuff with a x15 and then x5 Norax and call them done.

I called Paul up initially to ask him the favor of not cryo treating 3 of them. He agreed even though it's a huge PITA for him. I told him I wouldn't do that to him again in the (near) future. He was concerned that they were finish ground and that warping might be a problem. I expected that some of them would warp when sent to heat treat that thin and I had no problem with that.

I just now got off the phone with him. He called me to tell what he had done. He took the D2 to 57.5 rockwell the S30V to 59 and the ATS tested out at 60.5. He was concerned that the D2 would be too brittle at 59 like we had talked about initially. He told me initially that a lot of guys ask for 55 to 57 rockwell on fillet knives but that kind of defeated the purpose for me. My main concern was edge holding and not a radical flex that impressed my friends so I asked for 59.

Anyone interested in doing a double blind cutting test on six knives? I'll supply it all.
 
I've made a few out of 15n20 and 1084, they are pretty tricky to heat treat using a forge because of there thickness, but if you place a pipe in the forge and turn the gas way down it can be done. The high carbon steels work great,you just need to wipe the blade clean when finished but that goes for any knife, stainless or otherwise.

Have fun,

Bill
 
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