- Joined
- May 19, 2009
- Messages
- 1,161
Well I've been looking around for a full tang 4" blade scandi for awhile now (for a bushcraft and general purpose knife). I eventually decided on a scandi-ground Enzo Trapper blank, which had the exact sort of profile, geometry and thickness I was looking for whilst being in my price range and giving me the option to set it up as I want (I'll be adding cocobolo scales and making a left-handed sheath).
So the knife was offered in O1 or D2 - I decided to go with the latter. Doing some reading though, I find that a lot of people seem to dislike D2 for bushcraft knives, citing micro-chipping, difficult sharpening and the lack of necessity for the semi-stainless properties amongst some of the reasons. I might be completely off base as I've never owned a knife in D2 until now, but I'd really like to revisit this topic and get some fresh input.
To me, I don't see how D2 hardened to 60-61 HRC could be so brittle as to produce microchipping from your typical bushcraft tasks (unless the heat treat was poorly done). Now I could see it perhaps happening if you're cutting inorganic substances or batoning through hard, knotty wood... but the former I don't see myself doing much and the latter I tend to avoid anyways with this small a blade - firstly, because it's not long or thick enough to be worth the effort and secondly because carrying this small a blade lets me justify carry an axe (either a 10" Wetterlings or a Gransfors Bruks SFA depending on the situation).
As for the difficulty in sharpening, that obviously goes hand in hand with a harder, more wear-resistant edge. And I think this is a perfectly fine trade-off. I'd much rather sharpen an edge less often and have it last longer, even if that means a couple more minutes on the stones.
Lastly, I think that stain resistance is a VERY overlooked issue when it comes to picking out a general purpose/bushcraft knife. Mostly because when people talk about it, they're mostly concerned about rust and staining. However, that's not really the big issue - the real problem is micro-oxidization destroying your edge. The majority of my knives are 1095, 0170-6 / 50100-B, or 5160 and whilst I can work wood with them for hours and still have a shaving edge afterward, 15 minutes worth of food prep (slicing tomatoes and such) and they completely lose their ability to shave hair (wooden cutting board by the way, just so we get that clear). Of course I understand that stainless steel knives (unless we're talking ones made of more expensive steels like 154CM and up) generally aren't fit for survival/bushcraft knives, I see no reason to not factor in this level of performance degradation when picking out what type steel to go with. While not technically stainless, I think D2's 12% Chromium content would go a lot further to helping with oxidization resistance than the 0-1% found in most other carbon steels.
All that said, I think I'll cut myself off there and open the topic up for discussion. I feel like speaking too much on the topic without having any previous experience with D2 knives is a tad presumptuous. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and give myself time to revisit this later after I assemble this knife and get some usage out of it :thumbup:
So the knife was offered in O1 or D2 - I decided to go with the latter. Doing some reading though, I find that a lot of people seem to dislike D2 for bushcraft knives, citing micro-chipping, difficult sharpening and the lack of necessity for the semi-stainless properties amongst some of the reasons. I might be completely off base as I've never owned a knife in D2 until now, but I'd really like to revisit this topic and get some fresh input.
To me, I don't see how D2 hardened to 60-61 HRC could be so brittle as to produce microchipping from your typical bushcraft tasks (unless the heat treat was poorly done). Now I could see it perhaps happening if you're cutting inorganic substances or batoning through hard, knotty wood... but the former I don't see myself doing much and the latter I tend to avoid anyways with this small a blade - firstly, because it's not long or thick enough to be worth the effort and secondly because carrying this small a blade lets me justify carry an axe (either a 10" Wetterlings or a Gransfors Bruks SFA depending on the situation).
As for the difficulty in sharpening, that obviously goes hand in hand with a harder, more wear-resistant edge. And I think this is a perfectly fine trade-off. I'd much rather sharpen an edge less often and have it last longer, even if that means a couple more minutes on the stones.
Lastly, I think that stain resistance is a VERY overlooked issue when it comes to picking out a general purpose/bushcraft knife. Mostly because when people talk about it, they're mostly concerned about rust and staining. However, that's not really the big issue - the real problem is micro-oxidization destroying your edge. The majority of my knives are 1095, 0170-6 / 50100-B, or 5160 and whilst I can work wood with them for hours and still have a shaving edge afterward, 15 minutes worth of food prep (slicing tomatoes and such) and they completely lose their ability to shave hair (wooden cutting board by the way, just so we get that clear). Of course I understand that stainless steel knives (unless we're talking ones made of more expensive steels like 154CM and up) generally aren't fit for survival/bushcraft knives, I see no reason to not factor in this level of performance degradation when picking out what type steel to go with. While not technically stainless, I think D2's 12% Chromium content would go a lot further to helping with oxidization resistance than the 0-1% found in most other carbon steels.
All that said, I think I'll cut myself off there and open the topic up for discussion. I feel like speaking too much on the topic without having any previous experience with D2 knives is a tad presumptuous. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and give myself time to revisit this later after I assemble this knife and get some usage out of it :thumbup:
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