Knife makers

[1shot]

Thanks for the help

[Foot Patrol]

I buy all my steel from Aldo!!! Great guy and the steel is top notch.

[akey]

Aldo's website is confusing and hard to navigate for sure. The steel I have gotten from them has been top notch though. I have heard the site is not very up to date on what they have.

My last few purchases have been from Admiral and I have no complaints.

[Aggie0959]

I purchase my stuff from Jantz and njsb

[muzzlebrake]

Ditto on Aldo!
Much of Aldo's steel is, from what I researched, formulated specifically for the knife maker and to Aldo's own specs.
All the steel I have gotten from him has been clean and pure and I almost never have problems with it. His 1095 is the best I have ever used. I also like his 80CrV2 and 51200 for my blades. I will take Aldo's steel over Alpha or Jantz x 10.
Shipping costs for steel is never going to be cheap because of it's weight.
Now if I could just find me some good USA made damascus for cheap

[Bjankowski]

Are you saying that 1095 (or any other steel) bought from steel baron is going to be better than 1095 (or any other steel) bought at Jantz or Texas Knifemaker? I thought 1095 was 1095, and it was pretty much all the same.

Sam correct 1095 is 1095 however 3/16 steel from Aldo is .210 from Jantz I'm lucky if its even .185. Jantz cost more for a piece of pitted steel that I have to run through my surface grinder to give me a good enough piece of steel that I can sell to my customers.
just not a good value on steel!

[Jason Fry]

Ditto on Aldo!
Now if I could just find me some good USA made damascus for cheap

Lol, if you find a unicorn, let me know.

Alabama Damascus is USA made, and cheap relative to some of the other options. Good-ish, at least. Not my favorite.

[muzzlebrake]

Lol, if you find a unicorn, let me know.

Alabama Damascus is USA made, and cheap relative to some of the other options. Good-ish, at least. Not my favorite.

Once cold weather gets here and I can stand the heat from my forge I will solve the problem myself------------------maybe?

[muzzlebrake]

Where do you buy your steel and what kind to you prefer?

Thanks

To answer last part of the original question, I like 1095 overall for hardness and sharpness and edge holding for the amount of work I have to do with it to get a good blade. 80CrV2 or 1084+ as some have called it is the easiest for me to work , grind and heat treat and have great edge holding and not rust as bad as some, therefore I use more 80Crv2 than anything else. 51200 is some badd azz steel but requires a lot of time to heat treat properly. It takes a scary sharp edge and will keep it thru a lot of use. No matter what steel the final result is always in the heat treatment. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I like Aldo's carbon steels since it comes annealed is easy to grind and doesn't always require the normalizing steps that some steels do.

[1shot]

Man its been a while since I've made anything. Life got in they way but I actually got to where I enjoyed working with D2 the best, and there was a guy in Arlington that was selling it for prices that Aldo sold 1095.

[Aggie0959]

I like 52100. As well I have gotten into making my own Damascus