Martin, I could be wrong, but I don't think Jeremiah forges the 07.
Beautiful knife, with great geometry and "neo-tribal" type styling, at any rate.
Thanks for posting it here Jeremiah.
I only forge when it is necessary. the O7 comes in different sizes of flat stock.It is clean, modern numerically controlled and very fine grained.
so the forging opens the steel, coarses the grain, adds tension, deforms flat stock and so on. This is resulting in higher costs and more expense, which makes it counterproductive.All this is with O7 not necessary.Simple standard heat treating makes a blade that is so superior that I think it is the best steel I ever worked with.
I use it permanently for 17 years now.
I think forging this steel is like forging 52100, its ok, but fire welding is really difficult, it has a very small "time-forging-window" .
there is another steel from this cold-work-tungsteen-tool steel family I use very often, it is 1.2442 (115 W 8). this is a steel that dissapeared with the up coming of HSS-steels.It is not produced by the Industry anymore, but we threw money together and Achim ordered 3Tons of it.
this is were You can get it :
-Achim-@web.de
this steel we ordered in flat stock too.This steel has 2% Tungsteen compared to O7 with 1% Tungsteen.It has an amount of carbides they need to be shattered through forging which results in a steel that is quite a bit tougher than O7 which is more abrassive resistant.
This steel can be ground nearly paper thin like a straight razor and it still will whittle giraffe bone.
also a steel that is highly recomendable and it forges very easy and welds as easy as well, cause of the low Cr content of 0,15-0,25%( O7 = 1%).
This steel will make a damascus that performs really impressive.
Thanks, Guys!