I have 15N20 and O1 right now and am wondering which one would be better for a kitchen knife.
both would work well, with your set up 15n20 is a better choice.
MP
Kevin,
Many apprentice smiths get caught up in using different steels. My best advise that I can give you is to use a forgiving steel like 1084 for all of your blades until you know the steel inside & out. Make at least 50 blades from it before using anything else. You'll be glad that you did.
|quoted:
Kevin,
Many apprentice smiths get caught up in using different steels. My best advise that I can give you is to use a forgiving steel like 1084 for all of your blades until you know the steel inside & out. Make at least 50 blades from it before using anything else. You'll be glad that you did.
I enjoy making damascus and I also tend to like trying new steels now and then. I also religiously check a heat treatment app that is managed by ATSM international even with steels I know well. Its called heat treatment and is free.
Note: i have 3 years experince but am mostly sticking to my Likely 5160 salvage for prototyping and practice as i am not selling quite yet. for known steel's i stick then the 10xx high carbon, w1, and 15N20. however, i also like 52100 but am mostly out of it.
Well here's the first finished Chefs knife I made out of 15N20. i call this version a Fantasy chefs knife do to the cutout at the blade riccoso junction. The reason for the cut out is i had a butter finger moment and dropped the thing right after i quenched it and a crack developed in that spot. I did not have time to finish the thing if i started over so i tried grinding out the crack and figured out how to use the slack part of my grinder to make the cutout. i likely could have done something similar to this using my Dewalt angle grinder but I am glad did it on my 2x42. I feel that the tang is way too thick for a kitchen knife and i had every intention of grinding it down however i kinda forgot to until after i gave it was already given to its new owner my aunt's husband paul. The polish on the back bevel is 1000 gritstone well the riccoso was taken to 2000 using sandpaper and the main bevel I took to a 5000 grit. the scratches left do to the fact that i do not have a buffer at this time, i ordered a leather belt that i believe i can use for buffing instead of a buffer.
