Best steel for a fillet knife?

J

jaymeister99

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Sep 14, 2010
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I was planning on making a fillet knife. Any ideas on the steel to use and rc?

Has to be stainless, so far I'm leaning towards M390 or Elmax but not sure what Rc would be best. Needs to flex a bit but hold a good edge.
 
Someone on the forum IIRC makes them from CPM154.Couldn't be much better than that . An HRc of 59-60 should do it.

FLEX is not determined by hardness or steel type !!! It's only a function of thickness !
 
I now use CPM-S35VN in .06" and .09" I go for Rc 60-61.
At that thinness, just profile, drill the tang holes, and HT. Grind the bevels after HT.
 
mete said:
Someone on the forum IIRC makes them from CPM154.Couldn't be much better than that . An HRc of 59-60 should do it.

FLEX is not determined by hardness or steel type !!! It's only a function of thickness !
Click to expand...


+1,but I also use 1/16" 440-C that way I don't have to thin it as much,shoot for Rc 59 and cryo is a must.

Stan
 
At 1/16" do you really even grind bevels or is it just (almost) putting a sharpened edge on it? Thats got to be one heck of a small angle to grind!
 
jaymeister99 said:
At 1/16" do you really even grind bevels or is it just (almost) putting a sharpened edge on it? Thats got to be one heck of a small angle to grind!
Click to expand...

Yep grind bevels,just doesn't take long and you can screw up quick,I profile then H/T then grind,a little trick I learned was to cut a paint stir stick the same profile as the knife and use it as a backup to keep it from flexing.Start ginding with a 120 grit ceramic belt.
Stan
 
i dont know 100 percent but i think elmax would be excellent for the job. heat treat it to around 61-62 (pretty sure that one of the best hardnesses for elmax for edge holding) and make it THIN like less than 1/16th of an inch. that thing would cut you just by looking at it
 
i use cpm154 at 62-63 jsut liek alot of my other kitchen knives but will try out the CTS XHP soon to see how the finer grain works
 
Nice work galadduin! Yep, the thinner blade stock reduces the difference in tension/compression between the two sides of the blade, allowing you to do like in the first pic. Very impressive ;-)
 
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