Which kinda steel?

A

Alex C.

Joined
Apr 27, 2005
Messages
170
Hey there, I'm a newb to knife making and I'm trying to decide which kind of steel to buy. So far I'm considering 440c, 1095, 5160 and 0-1. lol the idea is to narrow it down to one, which I'm gunna order from Admiral Steel. Anyways any suggestions as to steel type, or even where to buy it from, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,

Alex
 
Stainless steel is not for beginners. The best would be 5160 and 1080. Before you start read as many tutorials as you can, it will save you lots of problems.
 
are you gonna do the heat treat yourself, or send it out? That may make some difference also.
 
It comes down to 2 things:

1. Ease of working (1095 or 5160 is the best of that short list)
Some stuff is hard, some stuff is easier. Some stuff is easy to heat-treat, some stuff is really tricky, depending on if you want to do it yourself.

2. What you want it to do.

If you want a knife to be snap-proof, tough as nails, etc. use 5160. If you want your knife to be, and stay, razor-sharp, choose M2. Stainless qualities come into play as well. 1095 is kinda in the middle of it all.

Assuming price isn't a concern, that is...

_z
 
Hey thanks for the quick replies.
mete, i'v been readin any tutorials i can get my hands/eyes on, and yeah i'd heard that stainless is quite a pain to work with if you're not set up to do it. the only reason i was considering it was that i wouldn't have to worry about rust. but i guess that's why anyone uses it. lol

z, yeah i was kinda leaning towards 1095 or 5160 because i'd heard they were some of the easiest to deal with. the HT on it wouldn't be a big deal. if i can do it, great. but if it'd be too difficult then i wouldn't have much of a problem sending it to someone who knows how. the only issue would be that then i wouldn't be able to say i did it lol. edge retention is a major factor obviously, but not a huge deal because i can sharpen it easily enough. i've heard that 1095 field sharpens easily...

Alex
 
The heat treat on O1 is pretty easy. I believe it is more forgiving than 1095 where a fast quench is important.

If you are going with O1, I would suggest Toolanddie.com or flatground.com as they are a lot cheaper on tool steels than Admiral is.
 
If heat treating yourself scratch stainless and scratch 1095. My choice for your first heat treat experience is O1. The 10XX series are shallow hardening and O1 being a medium hardening steel will be among the friendliest to you as a beginning heat treater. 1095 requires a good bit of quenching experience. I have spent as much as ten days trying to find proper quenchant temperature and in-quench timing on moderatly heavy 1075 blades.

As Shgeo advises, I would get my O1 from Tool and Die.

RL
 
I like 0-1. Feild sharpens nice. Will you be heat treating it? What heat sources do you have?
 
I think what I might do is buy some 0-1 to work my way into heat treating, and buy some 1095 as well and get someone else to HT it. Truth is, I can't stop drooling over Mr Linger's WSK knife, but I'm too broke to buy one lol. So I figured I'd take a swing at makin my own. That said, I'd like it to be able to take a beating without me having to baby it (more than I would anyway). Which leads to the question, how much care do you have to take on 1095 for rust prevention? I'd imagine that it's more rust resistant than 0-1, otherwise I might just use 0-1 for it. Thanks much,

Alex
 
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