[A. G. Maisey]

Ian, I most sincerely doubt that Philippine smiths would ever use tool steel. I have absolutely no experience nor knowledge of the Phillipines nor of smiths working there at the present time, nor at any time in the past, but i do have extensive & intensive hands on knowledge of Javanese smiths, Balinese smiths & Australian smiths, as well as book knowledge of British forge work.

What I know is this:- smiths will use any steel that has a carbon content high enough to take & hold an edge after appropriate heat treatment. In the past carriage springs were favoured, when carriages disappeared, motor vehicle springs were used. In fact even low carbon steel can be used to produce a blade that is adequate for undemanding work, you just bring to critical & quench but do not draw. Worn out, damaged, broken tools like files & rasps often make very good blades, but of course these are too small to produce larger blades.

In recent years, smiths have sometimes used a tool steel for bespoke orders, my own preferred tool steel is 01, but I have made one hell of a lot of good serviceable blades from motor vehicle spring steel.

Tool steel is not cheap : motor vehicle springs cost nothing or next to nothing.

Working smiths in the places I know do not use expensive tool steel, especially for working blades such as have been shown in this thread. I doubt that Philippine smiths would either.

There is another thing too, & it is something that is not widely known. In times past, & through to the present day, in the rural areas of less than advanced societies, the people who actually used agricultural & other tools frequently preferred a blade made from low carbon steel, or from a high carbon steel that had been drawn to a lower hardness. The reason for this was that in the field & away from home or workshop, softer edges were easier to put a working edge on than were blades that had harder edges. This applied all through Jawa & Bali, it applied in Nepal and India, it applied in historic Britain. I don't know about present day factory made butchers knives, but up until about the 1960's, many butchers knives were drawn to a soft temper, back then butchers had a belt holster worn on one side that held several knives, and a sharpening steel worn on the other, they would use the steel in harmony with the blade, they would cut, then do a couple of passes on the steel,knives used in this way were always sharp. This method of work seems to have disappeared, the couple of working butchers I know now have multiple sets of knives, but they do not sharpen them themselves, they use them until the blades will not work satisfactorily, then they send them away to be sharpened.