Thread: Kitchen knife
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Old 09-04-2019, 12:02 AM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Now live in Las Cruces NM.
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Go to Alpha knife supply

Then take a look at their blade materials. They have a good description of each of their knife steels. Do you have a way to heat treat like a ht oven? Or do you just have a forge or no way to ht except to send it out? If you just have a forge I'd recommend you get either some of the tool steel O1 or 8CrV2 which are a lot less picky than 1095. The .2% Vanadium they have seriously restricts grain growth if you get too hot, it gives you some breathing room. Understand that in a forge you are not going to get the best the steel has, but it will still get plenty hard enough. The instructions of heat until nonmagnetic (1420F)will get the steel hard, but with the O1 and 80CrV2 can get as hot as 1550 and it won't hurt them. So heat for two minutes or longer than nonmagnetic depending on how hot your forge heats up, but at any rate two minutes should suffice.

O1 is best done in an oven at 1475 for 15 minutes to get all of the chrome and tungsten into solution for austenizing, then quench in 120 degree F canola oil. Alpha Knife Supply has ht instructions for the 80CrV2 which is a much more forgiving steel than 1095 and O1.

If you want stainless I suggest 440C or AEB-L which are fairly inexpensive and are easy to ht with an oven. You can send them out to Texas Knife Supply for heat treat or Peters ht. Tx.KS does not ht steels that have to be oil quenched air quench only, so no carbon steel, but they do cryo treatment which is a nice extra and a shallow cryo (dry ice @ -115F) or -95F is a must for AEB-L. TxKS will use a deep cryo with liquid nitrogen at -340F on the 440C as well for an extra 4 bucks, well worth it.
By the way don't buy your 01 from Alpha because they have a poor selection, try New Jersey Steel Baron or Jantz Supply.

http://https://www.knifemaking.com/default.asp

http://https://newjerseysteelbaron.com/
https://www.alphaknifesupply.com/shop/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/privacy.php#services
https://www.petersheattreat.com/

Last edited by jimmontg; 09-04-2019 at 12:05 AM.
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