#71 Osbourne Head Knife Steel?

[Petros]

Good day all,

After searching through the site quite a bit for a head knife I ended up ordering the #71 Osbourne. This is not my first choice, but all that I really found that was easily obtainable. I have never had this type of knife before, so making one would be sketchy being I'm not certain what the dimensions are on them. I did see the Danny Marlin through I believe Hidecrafters, however there was no pic and poor info. Weaver also had an alternative, but info here was again sparse. So anyways I ordered the #71. I have everything for making regular knives, but all my stock is 1.5 inches at the widest, so attatching a tang/handle propperly at 90 degrees could be hit or miss. So while not wanting to experiment because of labor and time involved from a scratch made item, I decided to possibly recontour and heat treat a unit already manufactured. My question is.... Does anyone know what type of steel these head knives are made from? If I can determine that, the heat treating tempering is pretty easy. I do have a digital heat treat oven, so I am not limited to guessing what shade of red or when the magnet ceases to stick for a good heat treat.

Thanks much, and by the way I did shoot an email to Osbourne, but don't usualy hold my breath for a reply from most places. But who knows, I could be surprised this time with an answer.

[Art]

The last time I checked it was 1063. However you might want to just call CSO to check. There isn't enough difference between 1063 and 1073 to matter, but with plain carbon steel, you can always trust the magnet.

Art

Good day all,

After searching through the site quite a bit for a head knife I ended up ordering the #71 Osbourne. This is not my first choice, but all that I really found that was easily obtainable. I have never had this type of knife before, so making one would be sketchy being I'm not certain what the dimensions are on them. I did see the Danny Marlin through I believe Hidecrafters, however there was no pic and poor info. Weaver also had an alternative, but info here was again sparse. So anyways I ordered the #71. I have everything for making regular knives, but all my stock is 1.5 inches at the widest, so attatching a tang/handle propperly at 90 degrees could be hit or miss. So while not wanting to experiment because of labor and time involved from a scratch made item, I decided to possibly recontour and heat treat a unit already manufactured. My question is.... Does anyone know what type of steel these head knives are made from? If I can determine that, the heat treating tempering is pretty easy. I do have a digital heat treat oven, so I am not limited to guessing what shade of red or when the magnet ceases to stick for a good heat treat.

Thanks much, and by the way I did shoot an email to Osbourne, but don't usualy hold my breath for a reply from most places. But who knows, I could be surprised this time with an answer.

[Petros]

The last time I checked it was 1063. However you might want to just call CSO to check. There isn't enough difference between 1063 and 1073 to matter, but with plain carbon steel, you can always trust the magnet.

Art

Yep, I spose I'll have to call them to get the inside scoop. I was/am hoping that it has a little more carbon content than that. Typical swords usualy run 1050 steel and don't get or stay sharp for long, but sure can take a beating. Maybe if it is that low, I'll hit it with some Kasinite and trace it out before reassembly. I think it will due untill I go to the next step though. Thanks for the info Art..

Petros

[mikekrall]

Art,

It surprises me a head knife would be 1063-1073. I would have thought a higher carbon steel like 1095, W1, W2, or a high carbon tool steel like 01, A2, D2 would have been the choice.

If you have knowledge on common steels used for head knives and commonly used RHc tempered numbers for them, I'd love to hear about it.

Mike

[Kevinjohnson]

Any idea what steel the old Gomphs, Rose or Osborne round knifes were made of. Someone had told me that they thought that they were made out of D1. Is there or was there that type of steel and why isn't it available now?

[Art]

Hi Mike,

That's what I was told, I know it is not 1095 just by the sparks. Anything with half a point of carbon or more can be heat treated to a pretty high hardness. Quite a few custom makers use D2, others use some Swedish variant. A2 is a little hard to work, you have to anneal a lot as it hardens very quickly, I've had it harden during moderately heavy grinding and hole drilling. The Os and Ws (and 1095) are quite red short and don't work well with a hammer. There is a reason for everything and complexity increases as carbon goes up.

Art

Art,

It surprises me a head knife would be 1063-1073. I would have thought a higher carbon steel like 1095, W1, W2, or a high carbon tool steel like 01, A2, D2 would have been the choice.

If you have knowledge on common steels used for head knives and commonly used RHc tempered numbers for them, I'd love to hear about it.

Mike

[CWR]

The Weaver catalog lists both CSO round knives as using 1075. Hope that helps.

CW

[Petros]

The Weaver catalog lists both CSO round knives as using 1075. Hope that helps.

CW

Thanks for the reply CW. Funny thing is I gave up on Osbourne after the crummy email I got back from them about steel. They said " we don't give out that information". Well same day I got the email, I recieved the Weaver catalog that stated the knife was 1075. So I purchased the Weaver Master Craft knife they offered. Seems to work great and I have had a very easy time sharpening it. The handle looks a little shorter than the Osbourne from the pics but The Weaver shape and function is right on for me. As for Osbourne, I told them not to respond to my email if that's the way they roll. Just really disgusted me to get a reply like that.

[mikekrall]

Well, I apologize to you all... I ran up a post then forgot to come back. I've got myself set to "watch" all topics I reply to with instant e-mail notification, now. This won't happen again.

It still surprises me 1075 would be considered an ideal steel for head and round knives... it's a saw blade steel in it's main cutting application, and the carbon is kept at a level (0.70% to 0.75% carbon) due to increased brittleness in higher carbon levels. That is, a saw blade needs to be tough so wear resistence is sacrificed to keep the cutting edges from chipping in use. Larger saw blades have, like 7" bandsaw blades, have nickel added to increase toughness even more with the same amount of carbon. I understand saw blades are not tempered to as high a hardness as a person would have in a knife blade, but even at higher hardness 1075 gives up wear resistence for toughness.

Anyhow, there is no D1. The D series steels start at D2 and go on through 3, 4, 5, and 7... all "high carbon, high chrome, cold work tool steels". D2, as well as A2, is an air hardening steel and the thing Art said about getting hardening from heavy grinding and/or drilling is true with D2, also. To me, the advantage of using an air hardening steel for a head knife is avoidence of warping during heat-treat. I'm figuring on profiling precision ground stock, heat-treating, then grinding in the hardened condition.

Spent 3 hours yesterday with Jack Meese (Lander, Wyo.). Jack is an amazing fellow who does (among a lot of other things) some very fine rawhide braiding. I stopped by to see if he had a head knife pattern he would let me trace and measure. Jack made a D2 head knife for my brother Jamie (used to be the saddle maker in Lander a few decades ago) and I was hoping to get a pattern for it. What Jack showed me was a head knife with two different corners, one profiled for soft curve and straight cuts, the other profiled for tight curves. It's 4 1/4" wide and about 2 3/8" from nose to start of handle. The two different corners are a little under and a little over that nose to handle dimension from the nose. The shape is slightly pointed at the nose (tighter curve) than either side curve.

Jack recommended I use 1/16" stock but I know the knife he built for my brother was at least twice that thickness, if not more. Have any of you got pro's/con's for stock thickness? I understand, the thinner the stock, the less grinding it takes to get a proper bevel, so I'm wondering if there are other reasons to have thin or thick starting stock you know of.

One last thing... Jack showed me an old Osborn head knife. One with a star. He picked it up at a yard sale for $2. Somewhere along the line someone had got more than a little carried away using it as the wrong tool for the job. It has two major edge chips in the nose area, the bigger a circular fracture measuring about 7/16" by 3/16" deep... poor old thing!

Mike

Edited February 28, 2010 by mikekrall