O.k. you Dogs, strut your steel! Show us what you got!!!

Ironwolf

Ironwolf

The Knife Poet
A year ago I got a blade for a customer,forged from L-6,triple mar-quenched and man,was it tough. The maker showed me some pics of the knife cutting 1/2" slugs from a stainless steel rod.
The customer has sent me emails telling how he can skin out 2-3 big bucks without needing to sharpen the knife.
Soon after I got that blade,I had a young part-time maker tell me "I forge damascus that's as tough as that" (but no pics to back his claim)
What I want to know is, who here has steel that tough and good?
Show me what you got!
I'm on the hunt for suppliers of the toughest steel and damascus...
(and yes,I know it's the heat-treat and tempering that brings out the soul of a steel :) )

I want steel that can take substantial shock loads,withstand great lateral stress,shrug off heavy impact and cut til the cows come home...
I'm looking for something better than INFI steel.

Edited to add: any pics of your favorite steel in action would be great,along with what you did to get it to perform well (i.e,heat-treat etc)
 
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I use 0-1 on most my knives and one of the knives I gave to a friend field dressed 7 deer this year. (no, not all his) It made it through 6 with no problem and had to be touched up on the 7th. I was very happy with the feedback. On the other hand, an identical knife of 1095 I gave to another buddy did not hold up as well to the chore. I don't make the best looking knives but my heat treat seems to be doing well. Here are two that were taken in Canada.
 

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UncleBilly,if those are your knives in the pics,
they ain't no eyesore brother.
Good serviceable classic designs,both.
And dude,6+ deer?!!? I'd say you got your game down pretty good!
(and nice looking bucks too!)
 
WA Martin said:
Boy, you don't ask for much, do you, Ironwolf.

I can't wait to see what people have either...
Click to expand...
I haven't heard of too many knives that rival the performance of Jerry's knives.
However,I have heard of some forged blades that out-cut them.
I simply want to make the best danged stock-removal knives I possibly can,until I learn to move hot steel...
I want to find a steel that will offer all the toughness and edge-holding ability of INFI (with the right heat-treat)
that I can offer folks.
I aim to make knives that I can't break,and if they survive me,they'll survive just about anyone.
 
UncleBillyKnives said:
I don't make the best looking knives but my heat treat seems to be doing well.
Click to expand...

Your knives look pretty good from here! Besides, if I had to choose I'd take great HT over good looks any day. O1 doesn't always come up in toughness discussions, I think folks forget that it is indeed a tool steel.

Ironwolf said:
I want to find a steel that will offer all the toughness and edge-holding ability of INFI (with the right heat-treat)
that I can offer folks.
Click to expand...

So far, I can only go on what I've read but it does appear that CPM-3V is about the closest rival to INFI that an average maker can actually order up a bar. M4 seems to be in the running too. If you look at cutting competitions from recent years, you'll see an awful lot of winners using knives made of either 3V or M4... those guys put more hard use on their blades in a matter of minutes than most people do in a month.
 
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"if I had to choose I'd take great HT over good looks any day"

yessir James,you're right:
a knife has to work hard and well,and looking good doing it is just a bonus.
(...that's what I tell my woman about me too...luckily she agrees ;) )
 
I forgot to ask in my original post,
any pics of your favorite steel in action would be great,along with what you did to get it to perform well (i.e,heat-treat etc)
Thanks for playing!
 
Here is a 3V chopper I build. It is heat treated to a RC60. After heat treat before finishing I put it thru it's paces. I took the edge down to .020" sharpened and chopper pressure treated 4x4's and 2x4's, then I brought it to the buyer. He chopper thru 5 or 6 2x6's, cut up 20 or so boxes, and puonded the blade thru eight 8 penny nails. All that with zero edge damage.

All that performance comes at price. This stuff is a bear to work with. It eats belts like crazy, especially after HT. Took nearly 40 hours to put a nice 600 grit hand rubbed finish on it. Toasted a few files, filing in the guard shoulder.

I also build a 5" hunter out of the stuff, which turn out really nice. I had this one HT to RC62, because of the tuffness of the 3V. I will have more feedback on this one when I finally build a sheath for it and sell it.

James

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James,first,let me say that's a beautiful knife!
And thanks for the performance comments.
I'm looking forward to hearing how that hunter works out!
 
I tested one of my CPM-154 prototypes last night, the one in my new avatar. Details here. For a thin blade I was very pleased how well it held up to chopping and digging through a 2"x4" without chipping dulling or breaking. Peters really nailed the heat-treat!
 
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