Why is 1095 steel popular amongst knife makers?

[Scandi Grind]

....

....

....., but it can be used for full on broad swords, so it's tough enough for me. .....

Really? They do that? Honest question, I thought for a sword they´d rather go with 1065...

I don't know what would tend to be the preferred steel for many makers, but more than a couple swords have been made on Forged In Fire out of 1095 and stood up fine to brutal testing. Some people try using a differential heat treat to make it tougher, but it has worked without it as well.

[Ankerson]

....

....., but it can be used for full on broad swords, so it's tough enough for me. .....

Really? They do that? Honest question, I thought for a sword they´d rather go with 1065...

I don't know what would tend to be the preferred steel for many makers, but more than a couple swords have been made on Forged In Fire out of 1095 and stood up fine to brutal testing. Some people try using a differential heat treat to make it tougher, but it has worked without it as well.

You actually believe what you see on forged in fire TV is real?

[Scandi Grind]

I do when Dave Baker makes it at the very least. Curious though, are you saying it's just staged?

[Ankerson]

I do when Dave Baker makes it at the very least. Curious though, are you saying it's just staged?

It's reality TV...

[SolidState]

I do when Dave Baker makes it at the very least. Curious though, are you saying it's just staged?

It's reality TV...

Walter Sorrels uses a 1095/1050 mix ( averages to about 1070, but has nice, subtle contrast for hada effect) in beautiful Japanese style swords with high performance. He does straight 1095 sometimes.

Michael and Gabe Bell use EIPS (1095) wire rope for their katana as well. Those are tough cutting tools. Wayne Goddard made knives from that stuff for decades to good effect. The OKCA had a lot of Goddard-influenced makers using it.

I have personally made swords with both. They take a good hamon, harden and temper nicely, and handle abuse quite well. The failure mechanism of the EIPS wire rope knives is really neat, as they come apart more like a cable than a mono steel blade.

Generally, Japanese style swords have hamaguriha (convex grind) which helps mitigate the issues brought up earlier in this thread.
Now, I tend towards Aldo's W-2 because of the low manganese for more intricate hamon, but when you look at the chem, the carbon is not too far off from 1095, and the other elements are comparable.
I have seen a lot of very good 1095 swords, and I have seen them perform well in tameshigiri as well as abusive testing. My current "yard sword" is made of the cut off, tack-welded billet ends of layered 1095 and EIPS wire rope (1095) with a smattering of 7018 rods all folded up and drawn out. I use it to cut switches of black walnut from my coppiced and pollarded trees for wattle fencing. It holds up great. It's a spring tempered pinuti fwiw. It only sees long hours of abuse, and it's doing just fine. I touch it up on the 100 grit slack belt about once a week, and it never complains.

[SolidState]

Euro swords with a spring temper usually are more in the 1050 to 1070 range though.

I should zap a chunk of my folded w2 from Aldo and folded 1095 from Admiral just to see how much carbon burns out on orikaeshi tanren. I have to calibrate my spectrometer anyway. I doubt I burn 30% of the carbon out.

[Ankerson]

I do when Dave Baker makes it at the very least. Curious though, are you saying it's just staged?

It's reality TV...

Walter Sorrels uses a 1095/1050 mix ( averages to about 1070, but has nice, subtle contrast for hada effect) in beautiful Japanese style swords with high performance. He does straight 1095 sometimes.

Michael and Gabe Bell use EIPS (1095) wire rope for their katana as well. Those are tough cutting tools. Wayne Goddard made knives from that stuff for decades to good effect. The OKCA had a lot of Goddard-influenced makers using it.

I have personally made swords with both. They take a good hamon, harden and temper nicely, and handle abuse quite well. The failure mechanism of the EIPS wire rope knives is really neat, as they come apart more like a cable than a mono steel blade.

Generally, Japanese style swords have hamaguriha (convex grind) which helps mitigate the issues brought up earlier in this thread.
Now, I tend towards Aldo's W-2 because of the low manganese for more intricate hamon, but when you look at the chem, the carbon is not too far off from 1095, and the other elements are comparable.
I have seen a lot of very good 1095 swords, and I have seen them perform well in tameshigiri as well as abusive testing. My current "yard sword" is made of the cut off, tack-welded billet ends of layered 1095 and EIPS wire rope (1095) with a smattering of 7018 rods all folded up and drawn out. I use it to cut switches of black walnut from my coppiced and pollarded trees for wattle fencing. It holds up great. It's a spring tempered pinuti fwiw. It only sees long hours of abuse, and it's doing just fine. I touch it up on the 100 grit slack belt about once a week, and it never complains.

I don't really care, not really.

I was talking about the TV show, it is reality TV.

[SolidState]

Having known a number of competitors, there are many reasons I do not go on there, it is reality tv. You're not wrong about that.
Implying that 1095 shouldn't be used for swords though - that's ridiculous.
1095 can absolutely be used to make highly functional, large-scale cutlery.

[Ankerson]

Having known a number of competitors, there are many reasons I do not go on there, it is reality tv. You're not wrong about that.
Implying that 1095 shouldn't be used for swords though - that's ridiculous.
1095 can absolutely be used to make highly functional, large-scale cutlery.

I never said it wasn't.

It wouldn't be my 1st choice however, but...

[standy99]

1095 and 15n20 steel make a mighty fine Damascus

[VandymanG]

I do when Dave Baker makes it at the very least. Curious though, are you saying it's just staged?

It's reality TV...

Walter Sorrels uses a 1095/1050 mix ( averages to about 1070, but has nice, subtle contrast for hada effect) in beautiful Japanese style swords with high performance. He does straight 1095 sometimes.

Michael and Gabe Bell use EIPS (1095) wire rope for their katana as well. Those are tough cutting tools. Wayne Goddard made knives from that stuff for decades to good effect. The OKCA had a lot of Goddard-influenced makers using it.

I have personally made swords with both. They take a good hamon, harden and temper nicely, and handle abuse quite well. The failure mechanism of the EIPS wire rope knives is really neat, as they come apart more like a cable than a mono steel blade.

Generally, Japanese style swords have hamaguriha (convex grind) which helps mitigate the issues brought up earlier in this thread.
Now, I tend towards Aldo's W-2 because of the low manganese for more intricate hamon, but when you look at the chem, the carbon is not too far off from 1095, and the other elements are comparable.
I have seen a lot of very good 1095 swords, and I have seen them perform well in tameshigiri as well as abusive testing. My current "yard sword" is made of the cut off, tack-welded billet ends of layered 1095 and EIPS wire rope (1095) with a smattering of 7018 rods all folded up and drawn out. I use it to cut switches of black walnut from my coppiced and pollarded trees for wattle fencing. It holds up great. It's a spring tempered pinuti fwiw. It only sees long hours of abuse, and it's doing just fine. I touch it up on the 100 grit slack belt about once a week, and it never complains.

Thank you for the phenomenal information. Love hearing from knife and sword makers. I follow Walter Sorrels YouTube channel religiously. I just got my first cheap belt grinder based off of information from his videos. My wife got me the grinder as a birthday gift. Looking forward to making scales with it and some knives from billets.

[skeeg11]

Reliable and predictable ease of maintenance and performance. Carbon steel Sabatier, Henckel, Gustave Emeril Ern grace many a kitchen. Heck, even Universal L F &C and Cattaraugus continue to turn out many a fine meal across the nation. So why not custom design in time proven steel?

[Murphy Slaw]

It's popular among knife MAKERS because people buy them...

[Ankerson]

It's popular among knife MAKERS because people buy them...

Not really.

MOST people buy from a maker due to their reputations, what types of knives and or other cutting tools they specialize in.

Steel doesn't really matter so much.

There are a lot of non stainless steels that makers use other than 1095.

1080, 1070, 5160, 52100, L6, 80CrV2, A2, D2, O1, White, Super Blue, and etc...

[Pacu0420]

It's already been said, but yeah, its cheap and easy to work with. It blows me away when I see $200+ knives made from 1095. I could care less how good someone is at blade smithing, no knife made of 1095 is worth that much. That's like paying $50 for a McDonalds cheeseburger. (Which I suppose isn't too far off) Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of angry replies from the 1095 lovers. Oh well

[Ankerson]

It's already been said, but yeah, its cheap and easy to work with. It blows me away when I see $200+ knives made from 1095. I could care less how good someone is at blade smithing, no knife made of 1095 is worth that much. That's like paying $50 for a McDonalds cheeseburger. (Which I suppose isn't too far off) Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of angry replies from the 1095 lovers. Oh well

A long time ago it was said that a good custom knife maker would only need to use 2 steels and they would cover anything reasonable knife use wise.

They are A2 and CPM 154.

I agree with that personally.

[vivi]

Gimme a salt folder or two and otherwise I could get by with those steels. Love them both.

[vivi]

It's already been said, but yeah, its cheap and easy to work with. It blows me away when I see $200+ knives made from 1095. I could care less how good someone is at blade smithing, no knife made of 1095 is worth that much. That's like paying $50 for a McDonalds cheeseburger. (Which I suppose isn't too far off) Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of angry replies from the 1095 lovers. Oh well

ESEE is approaching those prices these days. A new Izula 2 lists for more than I paid for a 3V SRK. I know it's comparing US made to taiwan but still.

[dsvirsky]

It's already been said, but yeah, its cheap and easy to work with. It blows me away when I see $200+ knives made from 1095. I could care less how good someone is at blade smithing, no knife made of 1095 is worth that much. That's like paying $50 for a McDonalds cheeseburger. (Which I suppose isn't too far off) Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of angry replies from the 1095 lovers. Oh well

There's more to a knife than just the choice of blade steel:

[Fireman]

I would only want Tops and Esse 1095. 1095 with good customer service and return policy is better than a mid grade steel with a bad return policy and bad customer service.