0-1 is perhaps the most forgiving of any knife quality steel
other than the very simple alloy types, and produces a blade of
excellent quality for most normal use. It can be heat treated very
easily. Further references? Well, the ole' master, Cooper, used it
for many years and folks do love his blades because they're tough.
Awhile back, one of the best of the blade smiths said that well
treated 0-1 would out cut any Damascus, and no one argued with
him. Edge holding is exceptional. 0-1 is precision ground unless
you're lucky enough to stumble across some mill bar. Goof up the
heat treat and 0-1 will let you try again as often as you like, as
long as you don't overheat the metal. Tough on grinding belts.
0-6 is the next step up from 0-1 easy heat treat but pure hell to
grind. It's significantly tougher, with finer crystalline
structure and hard graphitic particles that resist wear.
Stock is both hot rolled and precision ground. Hot rolled prices
are reasonable. Very tough to grind. Edges are incredible, lasting
even longer than the best Damascus and even 0-1. Has an odd,
rather orange spark.
W-1, W-2, and the series of 10-- steels from 1045 through 1095
are the ultimate in simplicity and very shallow hardening so they
may be used to make a selectively hardened edge as one sees on old
Japanese swords. Toughness is outstanding, with these alloys being
used for grader blade edges, truck springs and files. Uses up
grinding belts at quite a rapid rate. Edges are acceptable with
1045, good with 1060, nice with 1084, and excellent with 1095, W-1
or W-2. Those last two are often referred to as O-F, old file. It
is very easy to get the higher carbon end of this series way too
hard to make a good knife.
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