Hello All,
I hope you all had a good holiday season.
I have another fun project here, and another first for me as well. Basically, here I have a completed blade, and you can get to pick all the finer details. Some of the little things that really tailor a blade to its owner. The handle material, handle dimensions, style, and the point of balance and so on.
D2 is a steel that requires very little introduction in the knife world, and none at all to those versed in pocket knives. I've been hearing about D2 tool steel for a long time, it was probably the first higher performance steel I'd ever heard of. It has a well established reputation, as it is one of the first high performance steels used by knifemakers. D2 is renowned for having good edge retention and the ease with which it forms a very sharp edge.
Conventional D2 tool steel has very large carbides that make it somewhat ill suited to very acute edges such as those found on kitchen knives, and so its formed a reputation as a somewhat brittle steel, but this is the CPM version, which is a very different animal in that respect. CPM-D2 has much finer and more evenly distributed carbides and is in the order of 2x (or a little better) tougher than conventionally produced D2 at the same hardness. For the above reasons this steel in particular has been on my mind a while, and I'm really happy I tried it! I really like this stuff. At this hardness it has edge retention somewhere in the lower range for MagnaCut, and Z-Wear, but is more easily serviced on conventional aluminum oxide stones than those steels, (as the primary carbide forming element in D2 is chrome). Regarding corrosion resistance, D2 is often referred to as a semi stainless, it's alloyed with 12% chrome. It will rust if left wet for too long, but it is less corrosion prone than conventional carbon steels and doesn't require quite the same degree of care.
I really enjoyed working with this steel, I plan to use it more going forwards (and to try out CPM-154CM just for fun) maybe for a couple of suji in the near future.
Attached are pictures of some of the more exotic handle material I have on hand. I also have red, green, red/black, and black micarta. (Note: Block#370 is gone)
Best wishes in the new year,
-Matt
I hope you all had a good holiday season.
I have another fun project here, and another first for me as well. Basically, here I have a completed blade, and you can get to pick all the finer details. Some of the little things that really tailor a blade to its owner. The handle material, handle dimensions, style, and the point of balance and so on.
D2 is a steel that requires very little introduction in the knife world, and none at all to those versed in pocket knives. I've been hearing about D2 tool steel for a long time, it was probably the first higher performance steel I'd ever heard of. It has a well established reputation, as it is one of the first high performance steels used by knifemakers. D2 is renowned for having good edge retention and the ease with which it forms a very sharp edge.
Conventional D2 tool steel has very large carbides that make it somewhat ill suited to very acute edges such as those found on kitchen knives, and so its formed a reputation as a somewhat brittle steel, but this is the CPM version, which is a very different animal in that respect. CPM-D2 has much finer and more evenly distributed carbides and is in the order of 2x (or a little better) tougher than conventionally produced D2 at the same hardness. For the above reasons this steel in particular has been on my mind a while, and I'm really happy I tried it! I really like this stuff. At this hardness it has edge retention somewhere in the lower range for MagnaCut, and Z-Wear, but is more easily serviced on conventional aluminum oxide stones than those steels, (as the primary carbide forming element in D2 is chrome). Regarding corrosion resistance, D2 is often referred to as a semi stainless, it's alloyed with 12% chrome. It will rust if left wet for too long, but it is less corrosion prone than conventional carbon steels and doesn't require quite the same degree of care.
I really enjoyed working with this steel, I plan to use it more going forwards (and to try out CPM-154CM just for fun) maybe for a couple of suji in the near future.
- Blade: 225mmx52mm CPM D2 (64-65 HRC) scotchbrite belt finish
- Neck: 18mmx?
- Handle: ?
- POB: ?
- Spine: 3.79mm at the neck, 3.04mm at 11.5cm, .63mm 1cm from the tip
- Grind: flat to convex, right hand bias
- Weight: ?
- Relieved choil and spine
- Edge: .17mm@1mm, .25mm@2mm, .74mm@5mm, 1.13mm@10mm Measured at the midpoint.
Attached are pictures of some of the more exotic handle material I have on hand. I also have red, green, red/black, and black micarta. (Note: Block#370 is gone)
Best wishes in the new year,
-Matt
Attachments
Last edited:
