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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Does this acount for the joke about D2 taking a crappy edge and holding it forever?
I have also heard it has a rep for not polishing well due to the orange peel surface.
The D2 I have carried is superb.
BTW, I had a scholarship from Latrobe Steel, they were good people.
Timken is famous for their fine bearings. I had no idea they had merged.
TR
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Reaper,
Here is the problem getting information from some knifemakers. A number of us are using very high performance steels, the state of the art stuff ever produced on this planet (and if some of you guys have access to other stuff, pm me here.
) Our, ok MY, opinion is going to be a little biased and I'm trying to keep the bias out of this. That said...this isn't going to be a perfect comparison but here goes:
If we compare knives to NASCAR, I'm used to building cars that do 220 MPH all day long on the track. Your D-2 steel only does 200 because of some limitations on blade geometry and ultimate strength imposed by grain structure. Your D-2 also doesn't have rain tires.
On the street, 200 mph capability is damn hot performance.
The average day to day pocket knife user needs a "steel" that can do 60, top speed and are satisfied with the job it performs because they know it's limitations (don't pry the split rim off the farm truck wheel with it...) and can probably do the basic work of sharpening to keep it cutting.
All knife steels will need sharpening at some point.
The potiential life critical tasks demanded of a knife by those who would be in tactical or emergency situations is the reason good knifemakers use the best steel possible
Amazing knives have and are being built from D-2 but the grain size and carbide saturation present some limitations in some areas of performance.
Yes D-2 is a little hard to polish but there are others that are tougher to fine finish.
If all my knife making got limited to D-2, right now, I'd still make very good knives but no filet knives at Rockwell "C" scale 60 that can bend near 90 degrees are going to be made from it.
I also know the maker of your D-2 knives and he has the process down to a science for best possible results.
Very cool on the scholarship from Latrobe.