Thread: Too much of a good thing: choosing the right steel

Yeah, Niolox would do fine for that application.

My wife doesn't mind rinsing and drying the knife after use. So we've got laminated Blue Paper Steel at RC63 in our kitchen :-)

i know this is an old thread so sorry for bumping this but i used some 52100 and had the opposite problem. i bought a slab of this stuff and got it all laser cut and now im having issues treating it... i had them rockwell tested and got 54-59, i knew i had a problem when i shaved with the blade and the hairs were damaging the edge lmao... so now im back in the shop only using 01 from here on, from a suggestion i had from a memeber here is what im going to live by and he mentioned looking at the industrial purpose of the steel and use metals that are used to cut, since 52100 is ball bearings im not going to use the material any longer... but for now i am sending this stuff off to a local company to harden for me...

I would bet that you didn't get it hot enough or let it soak enough.
Butch uses 52100 for anything that isn't stainless and he has made several razors with it.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I would bet that you didn't get it hot enough or let it soak enough.
Butch uses 52100 for anything that isn't stainless and he has made several razors with it.

I HT at 1600 realized it didn't harden then bumped it up 25 degrees all the way up to 1675, I thought I had hardened steel but when I got it tested they didn't get as hard as I like them to be.. I also heard that there are decarb issues with 53100 and I wasn't using tool wrap so I'm almost wondering if I lost too much carbon on my normalizing cycles... I'm sending off for heat treatment on the rest of here blanks..

I remember Mike Blue telling me when I was beginning: Stay with simple steels, they will keep you busy and are plenty good enough. I still use 1095 a LOT and O1 is my second go to. I am just now venturing into the other steels, of which Hitachi Blue steel is really getting my interest. I've got quite a few steels here at home to "try", some niolox, 52100, and Alabama Damascus to name a few.

Even though this is a old thread brought back to life...it stands true as does most bladesmithing stuff that is tried and true.

I tend to shun exotic steels, but I honestly have always had a hankering to try a razor made from the material David Boye uses. I believe that today he uses Cast Dendritic Cobalt with zero forging.

That said, I doubt I'll ever get a razor made from it.

Oh well......


Regards

Christian

If you want to be a good at something, stick to that something. Wootz has caught my fancy and I've literally gone through thousands of dollars of wootz easily. I've come a long way and there are still things I need to improve at or where I don't know as much as I would want to know.

It doesn't really matter what takes your fancy, as long as you get to know it so well that if you start at A and have to go to B, you know exactly how to get there no matter where A or B are. you'll mess up along the way and waste steel and time but you'll get there. That is why it is important to pick something and stay with it. If you go from O1 to O2 to 1095 to 52100 to an old file again, it's hard to become consistent.

This thread is really cool to read. OP then and now is quite an inspiration to say the least!

52100 is by far my favorite steel, but a PITA to forge. At forging temp it doesn't move very well at all, even with a power hammer, and a very bad idea to raise temps to forge easier as this will cause grain growth. Add in multiple thermal cycles while forging and it's not a fast steel to forge either. Heat treat is not bad, but not as easy or simple as some of the other steels. All that said, what I've found is it really likes heavy stock reduction, and lots of heat cycles. When all is said and done it will produce a blade that will hold an edge for a long time, takes a very very fine edge, is very easy to sharpen and is pretty tough. But there is a lot that can go wrong if care hasn't been taken at each stage of the process, it's not a beginner steel for sure.

For something that works well and is not nearly as much work, I'm really liking 80CRV2. I'm slowly using it to replace my stock of 1084 and O1.

Hey, I'm glad I found this post. N.J. Steel Baron suggested the 52100 to make a razor with, but I see that, for most of you smiths, it is a pain to work. What is probably the best, all-round, easiest to make a razor with, that really holds a fine, hard edge. I want to have or to make myself, a near wedge/real wedge razor. I want it to be about 1 3/8" wide and 3" long and a bit over 1/4" thick at the spine, like maybe 5/16" or 11/32.