What kind of steel for hunting/skinning knife?

[ak15-t]

Hello all, I am new to knife making and have some questions.  I want to make a hunting/skinning knife, roughly 4" blade.  I am not sure what kind of steel to use.  I live in Alaska, and would be using it frequently hunting in the mountains and wetlands, so something rust resistant is very attractive.  I had originally thought 1095, but then realized that that is too prone to rusting.  I kind of wanted to use CMPS 90V, which is supposed to maintain a good edge, and be rust resistant, but thought that maybe for my first attempt, I should use 1095, as it is cheaper?  I want to make an extremely rugged, tough knife that will stay sharp, and not rust easily, I just need to figure out what kind of steel to use.

[Aden Cassidy]

Most stainless is harder to forge into a blade because you need a proper heat treat oven specially made for things like knives and gun parts or to send it to a company who do it profesionaly telling them what rockwell hardness you want it and what kind of steel it is.

 

Or you can just get something like D2 or 52100, basically very similar to stainless but can be hardened in the forge and tempered in oven.

[jmccustomknives]

I agree with Aden, you can source D-2 from old planer blades.  Since it is already hardened you can run it through a temper in the oven to draw it back to a hardness suitable for a knife.  52100 is somewhat more rust resistant thand 1095, but will still rust.  It is more difficult to forge than 1095.  If you are new to forging search through the stickies.  As far as what I make, L-6 is a very good materiral (sourced from old round saw mill blades), tough and forgiving.  5160 is also easy to get and makes a pretty good knife.

[Rich Hale]

L 6 would be my choice, it is workable and can be heat treated in most home smithing shops. Most stainless steels gather up alot of cracks when you try and forge them making a good belt grinder the way to go instead of forging. 440 C is stainless and with some time you can learn to forge and heat treat it at home. You can look up the heat treat data for any steel you want to consider on line, and they will tell you the time it takes at wot temperature to reach the proper temp for hardening and then tempering. REmember the data usually lis set up for one inch thick steels and it may not take a knife blank as long to reach temp needed. It will still need a soak time, you may have to play around to figure that out. i know there are folks that HT D2 in home shops. If you do that you really need to do a Rockwell test on the C scale to see how it came out. I have done that on shop HT.ed D2 and it was not even usable as a knife, I expect it would have broken quite easily in the field. The ability to do a proper temper on that steel is a problem in a forge,,,the Data will tell you more about why..

And L 6 blade with a really smooth finish,,,wiped down after use and not stored in a leather sheathe will do well for your needs. It will darken with use.and that adds just a little protection. You can also follow the directions on store bought gun browning and it will help also. It, like gun blue is a form of rust.

[WmHorus]

JM,

 

   I got a planer blade blank and the steel was M1, I had to run it to 1250 or somewhere therabouts to anneal it. I havent worked it yet , just dont have the time right now....

[jmccustomknives]

JM,

 

   I got a planer blade blank and the steel was M1, I had to run it to 1250 or somewhere therabouts to anneal it. I havent worked it yet , just dont have the time right now....

At least you know what you are dealing with, sometimes not even the manufactures will share that.   And that is the adventure of working with used/unknown material.  It's not for the faint of heart!  :lol: