[driftwould]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Sorry I missed your previous post, James. I'm sure it would have made good reading. Probably a bit like some of my posts that I've withdrawn from time to time. Much more entertaining than the polite ones.

Yeah, agreed 100%, the best steel depends on what it is used for.

During the 1980's when I was doing a lot of custom forge work I used to get an order from time to time from a couple of blokes who lived in Canada. I don't know exactly what they did, but they seemed to spend a lot time in the bush. The order was for two blade patterns, one something like the old Marbles pattern knife from the 1920-30 era, and one like an ordinary butcher's knife. They wanted them forged from recycled motor vehicle spring steel and given a spring temper. They reckoned that anything they could buy was not able to be sharpened when they were away from home, so they wanted a tough knife, to their own specs that they could sharpen on a stone in camp. Over about a 5 year period I probably supplied these blokes with about 30 or so knife blades.

I have no idea at all what Rockwell they ran at, they were pretty rough blades, and I did not have to fit handles, just provide a stick tang.

Far from being offended, I thought it was quite informative - and entertaining! Also, thanks for going into such detail about this. As with other comments above, your input has given me useful and interesting insights to start from.