[Fantasy knife] 420j2 steel question

Dagon said:
> 420J2 is significantly lower quality than 420HC, especially when the 420HC in question is Buck's.

Yes, I know, but it's still pretty low-end compared to today's steels, and yet nobody dismisses the Buck 110 for that reason. Nostalgia?
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Go look at catra and some recent user done edgeholding tests here on bladeforums, and you'll see why it isn't dismissed :) It's a tough, clean steel with good edge stability. No one dismisses sandvik 12c27 and it's a very similar steel. The extra .15 percent carbon makes a big difference compared to 420j2. The only thing it doesn't do as well as modern supersteels is wear resistance, which in my experience has not been the most important factor in edge holding.
 
I would question not just the quality of heat treatment, but the mere presence of heat treatment.
 
420J2 is the same stuff your forks and spoons are made out of. No joke.
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Not really. Usually forks, spoons and table knives are made of 18/10 stainless steel (18% Cr, 10% Ni and no carbon IIRC). They do not need to be hardened unlike "real" knives. And 420 series steels are martensitic, ie. hardening, just wiht a low carbon content.

On another note, dismissing 420 series steels as inferior "quality" is quite funny, because they are really very good steels, just in wrong use as knife blades. Many injection molding molds are made of 420 series steels because they machine well, take great polish and are extremely corrosion resistant as far as martensitic stainlesses go. Check it out for yourselves :).
 
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