Wayne,

I agree that O1 is a great steel, and in some ways it's good for beginners. (I'm still in that category, so take my statements with a grain of salt.) I would go so far as to say that O1 is a fantastic steel, especially for razors. My only beef with it right now is that I'm having trouble drilling holes after forging, and I wasted a few hours over the last couple of weeks messing around with this stinkin' blade... The extra carbon in the steel forms nasty carbides once it's heated to forge, and I haven't figured out how to soften it again for drilling. But anyway...

The stuff about O1 needing to soak to get maximum benefit out of the steel is from Kevin Cashen, who is a well regarded bladesmith and really knows his metallurgy. In order to get full hardness from the quench, O1 needs a proper soak. That will put the blade up into the RC 67 range out of the quench, and the temper will draw it down from there. Kevin's point is that O1 has the potential to outperform simple carbon steels if heat treated properly. If a simpler treatment is used, it will "just" equal other less expensive steels.

Using non-magnetic as a marker will still get the blade very hard, and I'm sure it's plenty hard to make a great razor. I've shaved for several months with a razor that's probably in the 52-55 range, and it works great. Yours are probably a lot harder than that, as I messed up the heat-treatment on that particular blade.

But for a guy who's just starting out, I think I would recommend something like 1080 carbon steel. It's much cheaper than O1, and with a basic heat-treatment setup it'll probably be just as good. I think you UK guys have a hard time getting some of the steels we have over here in the U.S., so that changes things a bit.

Josh