What are the advantages of 01 Tool Steel?

S

Sprayman

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Nov 15, 2014
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Hi Guys:

I'm still very much in the experimental stage. I've made a few blades out of repurposed steel, a few out of 1084, and a few out of 1095. So far, I prefer 1084 because of the relative ease of heat treating it. I'm looking to try a different steel. I'm not ready for stainless. I've seen a lot of talk about 01 tool steel and was hoping to get some opinions on it. Why do some makers prefer it?

Thanks,

Sprayman
 
according to kevin cashen, 01 needs to be held @ 1450-1500 F for 10-30 min before quenching. i do not consider it a simple to heat treat steel because of this.
 
O1 is an excellent knife steel. It offers better wear resistance than spring steels like 1084, 1095, due to the Tungsten content. To heat treat O1 and bring out it's advantages, it needs to be held at a tight temp window with a soak, as John mentioned above. ~1475F 10 minutes. Using a torch to heat treat it is not ideal, as it is extremely difficult to hold 1475F (not going above 1500) for the required soak time. You can make a serviceable knife with the torch, but to bring out the advantages O1 offers, tight temperature and soak is critical.
 
Yeah I would not put O1 in the "easy for newbs" category. Personally O1 does not hold my attention much any more. Not saying it's a bad steel I just don't care for it. I much prefer 52100 or A2. But honestly if a new person asked for my advice on what steel to start with I would tell them 1084 or 15n20. Not 1095 or O1 get something with a tad less carbon and less aloy in the mix.
 
JTknives said:
Yeah I would not put O1 in the "easy for newbs" category. Personally O1 does not hold my attention much any more. Not saying it's a bad steel I just don't care for it. I much prefer 52100 or A2. But honestly if a new person asked for my advice on what steel to start with I would tell them 1084 or 15n20. Not 1095 or O1 get something with a tad less carbon and less aloy in the mix.
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I agree with JT. Even in toolmaking if I was given a choice of using O1 or A2 on a print, I would typically opt for using A2, though not for all the same reasons. If you're going to go to the trouble of stepping away from 1084, 15n20, 1075 which I believe are the main "easy" heat treats, then I'm going to go right past O1 to 52100 or W2 or A2.

Which may be completely unreasonable and subjective based on my preconceived misconceptions. But there are enough alloys out there to pick from so I don't feel I'm missing anything not using O1.

The only thing I like using O1 for is drill rod for custom cutting tools.
 
I agree with what everyone said here. I find 15n20 at Rc62 performs almost as well as O1 at Rc60. Of course O1 can do better with Rc61/62, but you need a kiln or temp controlled forge to make O1 work right. Once I had the kiln, I went to 52100 and W2 and haven't looked back. There is nothing wrong with O1, but for knives, we can do better with other steels that don't require any further upgrade in equipment. You might want to consider cruforge-v. It Can be heat treated similar to 1084, but does better with a soak and temp controlled heat treat. The vanadium keeps the grain boundaries pinned, and there is enough to form carbides. I would do 3 or 4 tempers if not using a kiln though, as there is enough carbon to get retained austentite. You won't fix it completely, but you will help it along. The best solution is try some 15n20. I liked it better than 1084 right from the get go. The nickel helps edge toughness at higher hardnesses, and it takes a fine edge with good edge stability. 15n20 far exceeded my expectations. It's like a non stainless Aeb-l.
 
I would go with slightly higher hardenability than plain carbon steels which means that you can do an interrupted quench in oil for a few seconds and once the temperature dips below 400 C, (for most knife dimensions), air cooling at that point will guarantee martensitic transformation without significant bainite.
 
The advantage of O1 is that it is super available. Metal supermarkets, fastenal etc. tend to have it in stock in multiple sizes.
 
i should have mentioned i use a propane venturi forge, which cannot hold at a certain temp. if you have a heat treat oven, then yes i would consider it a simple to treat steel. many years ago i used 01 without properly holding because i did not know any better, and it still did the 2x4 chop twice and shave, so although it was not terrible, it was not at its optimum either.
 
"not ready for stainless"

The only thing that should be hold your back is the cost for heat treatment.
 
O1 is a decent choice if you are forging AND have decent heat control. 52100 is more difficult to heat treat, A2 isn't a good choice for forging and W2 is sometimes hard to find and requires a fast quench oil. If you do have an oven, O1 is a nicer steel to forge and heat treat without a lot of extra fuss, while still having the advantages of high carbon tool steels. Kind of the least fussy "grown up" steel.

But I agree that there are better choices - especially if you don't want high hardnesses. And it isn't dirt cheap, either. O1 is actually one of the most expensive carbon steels - a bit more expensive than A2, and much more expensive than 52100, 80CrV2, 1084 or 15N20.

I think someone who is producing nicer forged blades with a reputable named steel would do well to consider O1 if they want to minimize the amount of time it takes to heat treat. It isn't a good starter steel and there are better stock removal choices.
 
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RX-79G said:
O1 is a decent choice if you are forging AND have decent heat control. 52100 is more difficult to heat treat, A2 isn't a good choice for forging and W2 is sometimes hard to find and requires a fast quench oil. If you do have an oven, O1 is a nicer steel to forge and heat treat without a lot of extra fuss, while still having the advantages of high carbon tool steels. Kind of the least fussy "grown up" steel.

But I agree that there are better choices - especially if you don't want high hardnesses. And it isn't dirt cheap, either. O1 is actually one of the most expensive carbon steels - a bit more expensive than A2, and much more expensive than 52100, 80CrV2, 1084 or 15N20.

I think someone who is producing nicer forged blades with a reputable named steel would do well to consider O1 if they want to minimize the amount of time it takes to heat treat. It isn't a good starter steel and there are better stock removal choices.
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O1 is most definitely cheaper than A2!
 
Forging is one reasion I stepped away from O1, I found it picky with the forging heat and had a tendency to crumble and crack if you forged it at the wrong temp. This became a big problem in my Damascus a few times at welding temps so I opted for 52100 and W2 for Damascus cores. 52100 can be red short as well but I feal its lees picky then O1. For me my list goes somthing like this, This list covers just about everything you could want a knife to do besides being stainless.
1084, 15n20, W2, 52100, A2, D2, 3V, 10V

You will notice I did not include a few steels that are rumered to be the most "newbe" friendly. This would be 1095 and 01 and 5160. The only one out of these three I would consider a good starter steel is 5160. I have used a ton of 5160 in days past and it is simple to work with. It does require some soaking for optimum heat treat but is not the end of the world if it does not get it. I would place it between 15n20 and W2 on my list but I was never really happy with its performance. Sure it was fine and nothing wrong with it but just never preformed how I wanted. The same is said for 1095 with me, why go 1095 when W2 can whoop it's butt. Its also picky with heat treating but it's cheep. One great thing about knife making today is the shear number of steels we have at our finger tips. So no reasion to be like I was and get stuck on one steel (5160) because it's easy to find.

I could be way off my rocker as I just got off work and am tired or I could just be crazy lol
 
Yes it can. You just need a smaller burner and a thermocouple. I saw a mini Fogg forge in use and it could hold temps under 5 degrees. Before I gory even,I used to use a smallbruner and a piece ofbalck iron pipipeas a muffle in my Chili Forge to HT W2.
john april said:
i should have mentioned i use a propane venturi forge, which cannot hold at a certain temp. if you have a heat treat oven, then yes i would consider it a simple to treat steel. many years ago i used 01 without properly holding because i did not know any better, and it still did the 2x4 chop twice and shave, so although it was not terrible, it was not at its optimum either.
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52100 isn't difficult to heat treat. It depends on the condition the steel arrives in. Aldo's is course spheroidized, and needs normalization and thermal cycling. It's super easy if you have a kiln. If you get stock from AKS, you can stock remove and austenitize without cycling, as the steel is in a more heat treat friendly condition. If you forge, you need to normalize and cycle anyway, so normalizing is a normal part of the process. With Aldo's steel, I normalize and cycle all the carbon steels (except 15n20- my testing showed no difference) Not a biggie, it just lets me get consistent results.
 
JTknives said:
Forging is one reasion I stepped away from O1, I found it picky with the forging heat and had a tendency to crumble and crack if you forged it at the wrong temp. This became a big problem in my Damascus a few times at welding temps so I opted for 52100 and W2 for Damascus cores. 52100 can be red short as well but I feal its lees picky then O1. For me my list goes somthing like this, This list covers just about everything you could want a knife to do besides being stainless.
1084, 15n20, W2, 52100, A2, D2, 3V, 10V

You will notice I did not include a few steels that are rumered to be the most "newbe" friendly. This would be 1095 and 01 and 5160. The only one out of these three I would consider a good starter steel is 5160. I have used a ton of 5160 in days past and it is simple to work with. It does require some soaking for optimum heat treat but is not the end of the world if it does not get it. I would place it between 15n20 and W2 on my list but I was never really happy with its performance. Sure it was fine and nothing wrong with it but just never preformed how I wanted. The same is said for 1095 with me, why go 1095 when W2 can whoop it's butt. Its also picky with heat treating but it's cheep. One great thing about knife making today is the shear number of steels we have at our finger tips. So no reasion to be like I was and get stuck on one steel (5160) because it's easy to find.

I could be way off my rocker as I just got off work and am tired or I could just be crazy lol
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I use 1095 for people who want a hamon, but want a cheaper knife. It cones in thinner stock than W2, and I can avoid the time consuming forging stock thinner. It doesn't hamon as dramatic, so I polish less, and charge less.
 
Thanks, guys. This has been very educational. I think I will try 15n20 next, and see how that compares to the 1084. I really appreciate this forum and all of the friendly, wonderful advice I get here.
 
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