I have a dumb question.

[Squawsach]

I started a blade many moons ago and I was pulled away from the project. I recently found the blade laying under some junk. I had forgot all about it but it's a cool blade and I'm going to finish it if I can figure out what kind of steel it is. I forgot what kind of steel it is. It's D2 or S30V but I don't know for sure. Is there a simple way to find out?

 

[Ausbrooks]

One test you could try is seeing how the blade takes an etch, compared to a known piece of S30V, which should reject the etch much better than D2, as it is 14% chrome compared to 12% for D2, which takes an etch fairly easily. You could put some on the handle area of the blade where it won't hurt finished blade.

 

[rhinoknives]

Another method is a spark test, take a know piece of each steel and see how they spark compared to the blade.