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Your Favorite Steel.
- Thread starter paintfool
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2000
- Messages
- 5,179
Craig thanks for the reminder of Rosta Frei steel and its properties! And Mike thanks for the link to all the detail. Somehow I forgot all about it. 
My 440C experience has been excellent. I used it exclusively when I started making and always had it heat treated by TKS. One knife has been used skinning Kansas deer for almost 15 years; I recently got it back to refurbish and that sucker was still respectably sharp - not shaving sharp by any means but it still had an edge on it. Amazing.
For the last few years I've been using O1. I switched because I want to do my own HT and until I get an oven stainless is out. O1 is a forgiving steel to heat treat and a dream to work. It'll take any finish you want to put on it. I'm going to keep using it until I get my HT down perfectly; then I'll try something else to see how it stacks up. But I know what to expect from O1 and am slowly learning to get the most out of it, and my customers who have put it to work are happy with the results. Danny's Axe has skinned and dismembered several deer so far and reportedly is still shaving sharp. That's a pretty good recommendation for O1 as far as I'm concerned!
For what it's worth, Travers Tool has Starrett O1 and A2 on sale this month.
My 440C experience has been excellent. I used it exclusively when I started making and always had it heat treated by TKS. One knife has been used skinning Kansas deer for almost 15 years; I recently got it back to refurbish and that sucker was still respectably sharp - not shaving sharp by any means but it still had an edge on it. Amazing.
For the last few years I've been using O1. I switched because I want to do my own HT and until I get an oven stainless is out. O1 is a forgiving steel to heat treat and a dream to work. It'll take any finish you want to put on it. I'm going to keep using it until I get my HT down perfectly; then I'll try something else to see how it stacks up. But I know what to expect from O1 and am slowly learning to get the most out of it, and my customers who have put it to work are happy with the results. Danny's Axe has skinned and dismembered several deer so far and reportedly is still shaving sharp. That's a pretty good recommendation for O1 as far as I'm concerned!
For what it's worth, Travers Tool has Starrett O1 and A2 on sale this month.
Alpha Knife Supply
Always Innovating
- Joined
- Oct 14, 1998
- Messages
- 2,157
How about leaking a little information now?tom mayo said:
What were you impressions of this steel?
How easily did it finish?
What finish did you apply?
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2004
- Messages
- 280
Well I heard from the pros... and I am duly humbled. 
I was not aware of the 700 degree change for ATS, and I see that many professional makers use 440c as a using knive (Dave, yours was the most impressive to me). I won't rule 440c out of the books, and I'll stick around to learn more!
~Brian
I was not aware of the 700 degree change for ATS, and I see that many professional makers use 440c as a using knive (Dave, yours was the most impressive to me). I won't rule 440c out of the books, and I'll stick around to learn more! ~Brian
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2000
- Messages
- 5,548
I'm not ML, but I've used it.John Andrews said:
I first got a couple of bars a few years ago from John at Tru Grit. I had heard a lot of horror stories about how hard it was to work, and didn't know what to expect.
I sit down at the bandsaw, and get my push stick ready for a long, heavy push to get the steel through the blade, and before I could blink(it seemed), I was 1" into my push stick.
The stuff cut like wood(almost).
When I ground it, it was so easy, that I had to slow the grinder way down so I wouldn't run past the parallel center lines on the blade.
It was way easier than 440C to grind. Finishing it was no problem either.
One was for my Nephew, who likes to hunt wild hogs/boars, and he has had problems dulling blades, trying to get through their dirt encrusted hide, and he said the BG42 worked very well, indeed.
I'm surprised more people don't use it.
Edited to add; It was in fact, so easy to cut, and grind that I thought maybe someone had grabbed the wrong steel when they filled my order.
I even sent a piece to Latrobe steel(the maker) for them to test.
The tests confirmed it was BG42.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2001
- Messages
- 849
Well I forge most of my blades and use a lot 5160 but have started to us 10XX steels and like there ease of use, kinda moving to 1075 to 1095 for knives and 1050 for hawks.
Now a note on 440C & ATS34 several years ago I made two kitchen knives that were identical one with each steel. Now I don't take care of these knives like a fanatic would, thy spend a lot of time in the sink all dirty and knocked around, real world treatment.
I slice Lemon's and Tomato's, Tomato's are by the way are a good Gage of how sharp a blade is, only with these knives plus other things. The result of these real world test is that I could not keep the ATS34 blade sharp while the 440C did much better and both blades were HT by Mr. Paul.
I then concluded that 440C had much better resisting corrosion and I was finding that the ATS34 blade had a lot more rust spots than the 440C.
I now use only 440C for kitchen duty blades.
Gib
Now a note on 440C & ATS34 several years ago I made two kitchen knives that were identical one with each steel. Now I don't take care of these knives like a fanatic would, thy spend a lot of time in the sink all dirty and knocked around, real world treatment.
I slice Lemon's and Tomato's, Tomato's are by the way are a good Gage of how sharp a blade is, only with these knives plus other things. The result of these real world test is that I could not keep the ATS34 blade sharp while the 440C did much better and both blades were HT by Mr. Paul.
I then concluded that 440C had much better resisting corrosion and I was finding that the ATS34 blade had a lot more rust spots than the 440C.
I now use only 440C for kitchen duty blades.
Gib
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2005
- Messages
- 20
My favorite is definitely 440c. When I first decided to make knives, I got as many different types as I could (but could not get alot of the "super steels"). Without listing them all, I beleive I had a good cross section, and I made finished blades minus the handle and then bent, pounded, soaked in salt water, and otherwise destroyed them. I did not have any test equipment, so I had to make my opinion based on what scientific method my admittedly addled brain could conceive. I think I did OK, and 440c and some of the 10xx series took some real abuse and remained somewhat knifelike. I never really talked to other makers, and dont read magazines because they are all adds looking to sell me something. I always wanted some D2. Really, I think alot of a knife is not so much the steel, as the prep and heat treat, and the stability and usage of the equipment for heat treating. I still have a 440c combat knife I made with my first crude forge, one of my first keeper knives, its still going strong, and holds an edge well. Respectfully, Levi
BG-42 is wonderful but we must be aware of its sharp tempering curve. BG-42 requires tight oven chamber tolerance in tempering. For our purposes it is best tempered within the 1000 F range and should be within a maximum deviation of 15 F along the blade length. She is tight on tempering.
RL
RL