Steel suggestion

B

buckaroo

Well-Known Member
I have an order for a survival type knife. The customer want a high carbon steel. He wants to be able to baton with it so it needs to be tough. He wants it to be easy to sharpen with good edge retention. What steel would be good to use?
 
Can't go wrong with 1095 or O1 in my opinion. Most of my knives I've purchased are these steels. Had some in S30V and S35, but wasn't super impressed. Good ol' 1095 has never let me down in field. Then again I myself haven't made any yet in that steel. Got to get the blanks heat treated.
 
I've made a few choppers and bushcraft knives out of 5160. Very tough and has reasonable edge retention. Sharpened well in the field with a small diamond stone. Heat treat has a lot to do with any steels performance.
 
Consider 80CRV2 from Aldo. Similar toughness to 5160 and more consistent HT than 5160. By the way, he wants toughness, edge retention and easy sharpening. Ideally, that's three knives. Some compromise will be required.
 
If the H/T and geometry are right any of the steels mentioned above will do fine. Personally, I would go with O1, at 61 HRC, & .010" at the edge before convexing to sharp.
 
By the way, he wants toughness, edge retention and easy sharpening. Ideally, that's three knives. Some compromise will be required.
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AMEN!!!! Probably the least understood aspect of knifemaking, by both Clients and Makers is that just about everything we seek in a knife requires a "trade-off".....I can't count the number of times that a client has requested those very three things.....and I always ask, Which of those three is MOST important TO YOU? I then explain that if he wants "toughness", he's gona give up a bit of edge retention......and so on.

My answer to which steel? Depends on forging of stock removal. Forged would be 52100 for me, and stock removal would be 80CRV2.
 
You could get toughness and ease of sharpening out of something like 1075, one of my personal favorites. 2 out of 3 ain't bad, eh? ;) Any steel mentioned above would be good too. Also, to confuse the matter, w2 or Cru Forge V could be considered.

The real questions are what steel are you comfortable using and/or are confident that you can get the most potential from?

Secondly, is the guy going to use the knife as a knife? Or would a hatchet, saw or prybar better options?

The real answer is: Any steel mentioned in this thread is more than capable of providing a serviceable blade for any one of those tasks, with this caveat: a blade of any steel that does a wide range of tasks, is likely to be mediocre at all of them and not excel at any of them.

Any of those steels with a heat treat and edge geometry tailored for one specific task might not do very well at another task. There are tradeoffs to everything knife related. The blade that will slice cardboard, paper, rope, meat and vegetables with ease and stay sharp all day long doing it is not the same blade that is going to excel at batonning knotty pine into firewood size pieces.

Personally, to try to answer the question............knowing there will be tradeoffs...........I'd go for 1075, w2, or 80crv2..............in that order.

Good luck. :)
 
J,
Your last post reminded me of some classic requests.
" A great cutting easy to sharpen hunting knife & steel that I can use to pry open man hole covers and chop down trees with!
Oh, and won't ever rust."

Sure! That's no problem! There is usually a little education that goes into each order. lol
 
Thanks for the input guys. I know that there is no one size fits all steels out there. I also understand that the heat treat plays a critical role in performance. Just wanted to see what others thought would come close.
 
I've got a friend that forged a few knives recently from 80CRV2. I was so impressed I bought some, even though mines will be stock removal.

What's his idea of a survival knife? Something crazy with a saw on the spine, or more bushcrafty that could be similar to a Blind Horse Bushcrafter?
 
80CrV2, also known as L2, or 1080+, is great stuff. My very first knives were made with it, and I will continue to use it as long as it is available. Aldo has it in 3/16" and up, which is too thick for most of the knives I make. Alpha Knife, who like Aldo I LOVE doing business with, have it in thinner stock, namely, around 1/8". It is indeed like 5160 on steroids, with much better edge retention. But it is basically 1080 steel with a touch of chromium and vanadium. Simple carbon steels with Cr and V are superb performers in my shop!!!
 
1. Use the top half dozen steels from "Aldo", Mike, Harry, Brad or any other source to make 6 identical knives.

2. Use the knives doing real world knife tasks.

3. Ask yourself: "Is there any real world performance difference between the steels?"

ps There is no knife task that a well made knife made from any good steel can't do.
 
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