Ah, steel, that's what it's all about for me. Ain't nothing like it. Nothing has yet been able to replace it as the perfect material for edged and other tools. Hopefully, it'll stay that way. I think I'm safe there.

The main steel I use in knife and tool-making is W-1 tool steel. It's the simplest of the carbon steels, usually containing just carbon and a small amount of manganese. I prefer it to have at least 1% carbon, and a little more when it's possible to find it. I buy it in round bar and shape it to the stock sizes I need for the job at hand. It has some great attributes, when heat-treated carefully... it can be very hard, but tough as well. It can be quite flexible, but strong too. And it can vary over a wide range by adjusting the heat-treatment sequence to tailor it to the job at hand. It's simple to work with, and has many visible and tactile cues that make it easy to work. It's responsive to temperatures so the internal structure can be varied quite a bit... the extra carbon can be made to form a lot of carbides leaving a specific amount of carbon behind to form very strong internal structures called "lath martensite".... more on the technical stuff later.... it can be very hard for long-lasting low-wearing edges, or to the other end of the scale, where extreme toughness and flexibility is displayed. It can form hard shells and soft cores, ideal for large shock-resisting tools. And it forges wonderfully, with few difficulties. A traditional blacksmith couldn't ask for a lot more than that.

I generally use new W-1 steel presently, however, in the future I hope to be producing it on a larger scale myself, for exclusive use.

I also use a few other steels, 5160, 9260, L-6, 4150. Quite often I can find these steels as a recycled material, and when I can I use it preferentially. These steels I use in pattern-welding, and for special purposes, generally situations where extreme toughness is required, like axes, pounding tools, or prybars. These will also be on the list of steels to try to create in the future.

So, that's the steels I generally use. I'll use this page to talk more about steels and steel-making as time goes by.