Best place to buy W2 or better carbon steel??

Lerch

Well-Known Member
Im getting ready to start working with carbon steels and oil quenching and after reading a lot have had a hard time figuring out what steel is best to work with for a good Hamon line. I looked at 1095, W2, and 52100 and I dont know if one is better than the other. Can anyone recommend anything or where to buy these steels? also is there any precision ground peices of the steels available??


thanks
steve
 
You can get W2 from Aldo Bruno at www.njsteelbaron.com . I haven't tried it but they say his 1075 gives a great hamon and is much simpler to H/T. Aldo can also grind any steel he has but I'm not sure what he charges. Hope this helps.
 
Steve,
I'm not sure how much you know about the steels you mentioned, but 52100, I don' think will make a hamon line ( I could be getting them confused with another steel though), 1095 is difficult to make one happen and W-2 is a totally different beast all together, I'm learning how to use it now. My recommendation is to go with Aldo's 1084V, it gets a great hamon, sharp as it gets, makes a wonderful all around knife, especially big choppers. 1095 and W-2 are Hypereutectoid steels, they require a kiln with a certain amount of soak time, at specific temps, with 1084 you can HT it in a forge!
Just my 2 cents, Rex
 
Rex is right about 52100 too much alloy to produce a real hamon , It may make a line ?? but not a whole lot more.
Any good high carbon low alloy steel especially manganese , will produce a nice hamon . My choice would be 1075 from aldo or his W-2 . Some 1095 will produce a hamon but low alloy 1095 is hard to find . W-2 can be forged and ht'ed . I have made quite a few japanese style blades with W-2 (forged ) and ht in my kitchen oven . Dont over do it in the tempering , it will reduce the brightness of the hamon , heat is the biggest enemy of a differentially treated Blade. The bigger blades are W-2 and the small blades are 1095
Bubba
 
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I would not expect a hamon with 52100. It's too complex of a steel that is too deep hardening. Even with clay hardening I would not expect a hamon or even differential hardening. Plus it's not a steel to start out with. Steve's suggestion of 1084 from Aldo (The New Jersey Steel Baron) is good though the 1095 that he carries was made with the knife maker in mind. He brought some to a hammer-in I attended last year and it was easy to heat treat and produced a hamon by the reports of those who worked with a sample. He has 1070 but, as I understand it, he recommends a water quench. It will form more ferrite in the clay coated area and help show a hamon better. Kelly Cupples carries 1065, at least he did the last time I looked up his information, but again I think that you will probably be looking at a water or brine quench to miss the nose of the cooling curve. It will form slightly more ferrite than the 1070 will. If you want to see what Cupples carries go to Hight Temperature Tools and Refractory and there is a link there on the bar for steels.

Doug
 
Doesnt Ed Fowler use 52100 on his knives? He has temper lines on his knives, maybe im mistaken

I am using a EvenHeat kiln so soak times and temp control shouldnt be a problem, though i am not 100% sure how to do the clay and quenching and all that is involved with differential hardening.

I have 40lbs of satanite clay and a 5 gal bucket of Parks 50 on the way right now, should buy a roaster today or tomorrow to quench in. I am just undecided on which steel to start with
 
Howard clark produces a pretty good hamon on L-6 ? Never tried it but I am sure you can differentially ht any steel , it just may not show a hamon ! 52100 will show a line sometimes ! I dont consider a small line through blade a hamon ! It should have a little activity also. "Hamon" in its true translation means " ripple ring on the water.
 
Don't confuse differential hardening with a hamon. Unless the blade steel is air quenching you can always do a differential hardening by edge quenching and the part of the blade that cooled slowly will form pearlite and free ferite or cementite and might form a quench line. Also the higher the carbon content the thinner the plates of ferite in the cementite will be and visa versa. The less ferite formed the fainter the differential etching. 52100 with it's high carbon content will produce less ferite when cooled slowly but it might form enough to show some differential etching with a fine polish on the blade. If I was really wanting to show a hamon I would choose a simple steel with 60-70 points of carbon. This will be a trade off between toughness and display of ferite formation and hardness and edge retention. The alloy chosen for a hamon need to be shallow enough hardening that a coating of clay will delay the cooling of the steel enough for the conversion of austinite to pearlite.

Doug
 
Aldos 1075 low manganese is the best I have seen next to tamahagane, Steve, yes by all means do not confuse differential
hardening with a hamon , steel can be treated so but, not show a hamon, but show different hardness when tested.
Use the 1075 and you will be happy if you HT properly. I teach a class at St Louis university On japanese steel mfg. With that I also teach a class on Differential HT . All my work is done by sight and color of steel I use no temp gauges , timers, or anything modern Except my wives kitchen Range. If you lived close I could teach you the Japanese techniques. Good luck ..... Bubba
 
thanks for the info, I had read some of Fowlers books and with the 52100 he was able to show temper lines, now they werent as bold as some of the hamon lines i have seen on the board here but they were fairly defined, more of a blurred look.
 
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