I've been asked to make some fillet knives for Pro salt water fisherman. I normally use 440C for all my knives and was going to use it for this project as well. but I was wondering if anyone had a better/different suggestion? Most likely going be 8"ish in length and .040"ish thick. I just found the pole option! Let's try a pole.
I would definitely go with aebl for its superior toughness. 440C has pretty bad toughness, so I'd be a little scared to have it for a task requiring flexing. Also, make sure you do cryo to raise the yield stress. I've done for fillet knives 1980F austenitize temp > cryo > temper 2x 2hr 350F This should get you around 62hrc with still quite high toughness. Aebl however has worse edge retention than 440C.
Thanks for the help, AEB-L it is. I only have a house hold frezzer for my cold treatments, but from reading the Knife Engineering book something is better than nothing. Again thank you for the help.
Np! Freezer definitely gives it a noticeable bump if you do it immediately after the quench. The longer you wait the less effective it becomes.
You can get dry ice from a local welding store. Bring a cooler and save a couple bucks for the bag. Dry ice is more than enough for AEBL. Another option is H1. I don't think the edge retention is nearly as good as AEBL but it's supposed to be nearly impervious to rusting. depends what is more important. AEBL will rust in salt water.
