Just steels...

[bearfacedkiller]

We have had a lot of discussions/debates/arguments about high carbide vs low carbide on here and some are reasonable but I must admit this thread is a train wreck. I might find vg10 and s30v to be great and adequate steels for my edc needs and I might want to see scandvik or white #1 done by spyderco but this thread has taken on a sad tone. Jim, I am thankful for your contributions as much as Cliff's because you both have put forth more time, energy and resources than most of us. We all are entitled to our own opinions and our own needs, desires, abilities, understandings and experiences are different. Let us not forget that most steels have a proper application. I favor steels like vg10 or s30v for edc but the southfork in S90v will smoke them both in processing game. At times I have not agreed with either Cliff or Jim and at times I have but they both have more experience than me and have both contributed more honest scientific information than me. We are so off track at this point that I am not even sure what the point of this thread was anymore.

We need to remember a couple of things.
1) this is a discussion forum and we are supposed to discuss. We are not supposed to argue, berate, belittle or be rude. Sometimes the conversations get heated but we usually come full circle and sort it out.
2) you can learn more from someone you disagree with than you can from someone you agree with but only if you are civil and you keep the conversation grounded in reality

[Blerv]

Back to the thread, my non-aggravating preferances...

Since the blade is a fraction of the total knife I choose the package over one of the parts. If given a choice I also pick the higher carbide standard version (if available) or a sprint due to difficulty/cost of tracking one down later. My angles are factory or slightly thinner depending on how much I muck up the sharpening :p. Even my regrinds haven't chipped so while steels like Superblue are great I prefer the mindless sharpening ease to the edge stability.

[bearfacedkiller]

Can I ask? What can we expect from HAP40? This seems to be one of the next steels we can expect to experience. What will that behave like and what effect does all that Cobalt have on the properties of the steel? What applications would it excel at? Which of the original categories would it fall into?

[Ankerson]

Can I ask? What can we expect from HAP40? This seems to be one of the next steels we can expect to experience. What will that behave like and what effect does all that Cobalt have on the properties of the steel? What applications would it excel at?

Depending on finial hardness it should be in the S30V/S35VN range or better, closer to CPM 4V at high hardness I would think if it's in the 62-63 range.

Will have to wait and see what it does though....

In the process of testing 4V now at different hardness ranges etc....

[WorkingEdge]

Jim - what do you feel 4V brings to the table? From some older threads, I gather it would be less tough but more edge retention compared to 3V. Similar to Cruwear?

[JD Spydo]

First of all I"ve been screaming for a Sprint Run of the original FB05 Temperance fixed blade model in another blade steel for at least 4 years now. I'm not sure I would want it in the one you suggested in post #1 but I have gone on record suggested it would be great to have an H-1 version offered in the Salt Series. But I wouldn't mind seeing a Temp 1 model in S3V or Hitachi Superblue steel coated in DLC or Titanium Nitride. It may not happen because of the success that the Southfork is currently enjoying.

It's a great idea to exploit all the possible uses of different special use blade steels or even other exotic materials like "cermet". stellite or new high tech ceramics which I do think may be the future of a big portion of the overall commercial knife market.

Also let's not overlook the abrasives or sharpening media that it's going to require to keep all these great materials sharp and useable. This is an interesting discussion to say the least.

[The Mastiff]

Mastiff, can you go into why you're liking these steels? I haven't heard of a couple of them.

Bodog, most of them are steels from Japan and Europe that I've seen over the years used and thought they looked interesting. To be honest I'd take Cruwear or 10V over any of them. It's difficult for me to come up with steels for a wish list without feeling guilty asking for too much. Spyderco has hit on so many of my wish list steels that not only is it a stretch finding more that look interesting but also how greedy am I being asking for more when I have had most of my wish list satisfied. All but HAP 40 and PM 60 wouldn't really be "super steel" class like the S110V, 10V and arguably a few others. Though 10V/A11 class steels can be bumped aside in the wear resistance category I'm kind of the opinion that going higher into the carbide fraction department will bring about more problems than solutions and practical performance.

That doesn't mean I don't want to try them but I'm not really ready to throw my weight, such as it is behind Spyderco investing time and money into these steels. I've tried S125 at rc 64.5-62 and rc 62, and would take S110V exactly the way Spyderco heat treated it any day. Likewise 10V. Both lower carbide and lower wear. All around I think they perform better taking edge stability etc. into account.

Again, only one persons opinion. I have a slab of 15V I've put off making a knife from for years now so I'm not against having fun, and learning at the same time.

Joe

[The Mastiff]

Jim - what do you feel 4V brings to the table? From some older threads, I gather it would be less tough but more edge retention compared to 3V. Similar to Cruwear?

I'm not Jim but I have knives in 3V,Vascowear, Cruwear, PD#1, and had Z wear ( sold it). I also have a very nice custom 4V @ rc 63, as well as a production piece in 4V at rc 59-60 ( Bark River).

To be honest the performance between them isn't as noticeable as one might think. They are pretty closely matched performance wise and between them you can get more difference in performance from changing the heat treat schedule and final hardness than is organically there from the differing chemistry. That being said they are all excellent and come very close to being the one steel I could live with for the rest of my life if I had to choose. Their balance enhancing toughness and wear resistance over still decent corrosion resistance is about just right for my tastes. Jim wouldn't choose this class and enjoys, and works with true "super steels" more than I do.

I still very much enjoy W2, O1, 52100 and other knife steels that aren't the best in wear, toughness or corrosion resistance. I still enjoy them very much though. :)

"To each his own". Is that how it's said?

Joe

[Bodog]

In the process of testing 4V now at different hardness ranges etc....

Looking forward to seeing your results. If Molletta can push out a knife in a similar steel and video that knife cutting through bolts without significant edge damage, then I'm guessing that it'll be a VERY good steel at cutting through bone or cardboard or whatever else may be thrown at it. It'd be nice to see a mule in 4V taken to a significantly higher HRC than what 3V can be taken to. 3V is optimized at what, 59 or 60 hrc, while 4V and V4E are optimized at what, 63 or 64 hrc and still retain significant toughness? That's crazy.

The only thing I'm worried about is the significance of the austenite retained and if it'd need multiple cryo cycles that a production company would have a hard time justifying.

[Philo Beddoe]

After using the K2 for about 5 weeks now my vote goes to: 10V

[Bodog]

Sounds like we have similar tastes in steel.

Jim - what do you feel 4V brings to the table? From some older threads, I gather it would be less tough but more edge retention compared to 3V. Similar to Cruwear?

I'm not Jim but I have knives in 3V,Vascowear, Cruwear, PD#1, and had Z wear ( sold it). I also have a very nice custom 4V @ rc 63, as well as a production piece in 4V at rc 59-60 ( Bark River).

To be honest the performance between them isn't as noticeable as one might think. They are pretty closely matched performance wise and between them you can get more difference in performance from changing the heat treat schedule and final hardness than is organically there from the differing chemistry. That being said they are all excellent and come very close to being the one steel I could live with for the rest of my life if I had to choose. Their balance enhancing toughness and wear resistance over still decent corrosion resistance is about just right for my tastes. Jim wouldn't choose this class and enjoys, and works with true "super steels" more than I do.

I still very much enjoy W2, O1, 52100 and other knife steels that aren't the best in wear, toughness or corrosion resistance. I still enjoy them very much though. :)

"To each his own". Is that how it's said?

Joe

[Cliff Stamp]

We all are entitled to our own opinions....

The critical point is though these are not really matters of opinion. Asking a question such as "Does A2 have a higher apex stability than D2?" isn't a matter of opinion. The truth of that statement isn't subjective. Now you can answer it wrong and say D2, but you can't then argue something like "Well it is my opinion that it is D2 and I am entitled to my opinion!" . This is like saying something like "Helium is more dense than Lead." and defending it as everyone just has their opinions about densities of materials. This has caught on as of late as a way for people to argue against actual facts by pretending that everyone is on equal footing and it is all just subjective perspectives. But that isn't the case for everyone as not everyone just gives opinions. I don't give opinions on steels or knives in general any more than I give opinions on how to solve differential equations in calculus. There are things I know and I share what I know about them. If I am just giving an opinion which isn't well justified and is just some kind of personal preference I will in general note that explicitly.

[Ankerson]

Jim - what do you feel 4V brings to the table? From some older threads, I gather it would be less tough but more edge retention compared to 3V. Similar to Cruwear?

I think it has possibilities that's for sure from what I have seen so far. :)

Will wait until I am done before i make any real opinions though.

[Ankerson]

In the process of testing 4V now at different hardness ranges etc....

Looking forward to seeing your results. If Molletta can push out a knife in a similar steel and video that knife cutting through bolts without significant edge damage, then I'm guessing that it'll be a VERY good steel at cutting through bone or cardboard or whatever else may be thrown at it. It'd be nice to see a mule in 4V taken to a significantly higher HRC than what 3V can be taken to. 3V is optimized at what, 59 or 60 hrc, while 4V and V4E are optimized at what, 63 or 64 hrc and still retain significant toughness? That's crazy.

.

I guess we will see how it does over time as it gets into more people's hands.

[Cliff Stamp]

[...]

So call out the conspiracy, name names as to who is behind this push for low carbide steels.

There are two names which are strongly connected to information behind steels with high apex stability, Alvin Johnston and Roman Landes. They have almost near identical arguments from two almost completely different backgrounds and are about a decade or so apart. They were both very open about their perspectives and more importantly why they had them. Roman has argued for example that he doesn't use/see the sense in HSS because of the complication of hardening involved and since you don't need hot hardness in a knife why not just use stainless steels which can be hardened if you have the method to use HSS obviously. These are two of the most out spoken individuals and while they do sort of have an agenda of sorts it really isn't one of personal gain as much as it is to share what they actually know. Alvin didn't sell knives he just gave them away, Roman makes knives but it isn't a hobby and he isn't hurting for sales (just try to buy one of his knives).

There are a couple of others, well many but they are not really that vocal to that extent. Ed Fowler was a strong proponent of 52100 (which has even less abrasion resistance through carbide volume than AEB-L), Jimmy Fikes did a lot of work with 1084 and similar steels and was maybe one of, if not the first to do actual cutting type comparisons on video and do rope cut counts, chopping, stabbing, etc. . Again, 1085 has an even lower low stress abrasion resistance than AEB-L. Kevin Cashen has spoke at length about the values of balance of performance and how this is well achieved in a knife in 1084 and similar steels. It isn't as if these people can't harden high carbide steels, Cashen has that much gear it doesn't even resemble a knife shop any more as much as a metallurgy lab, he simply doesn't value the performance gained as much as what is lost.

In regards to what I write, it isn't well represented by how it is being characterized here. The most of what I would tend to say is that you can't simplify knives to such an extent you can argue carbide = good, more carbide = better and less carbide = worse. For my personal knives, while I have knives of the type that Alvin and Roman make (including knives from Alvin directly) I have knives in pretty much ever steel imagined and I was using ultra-high carbide steels long before this form even existed. I also often carry knives which have lower apex stability in order to gain performance in other areas, a Paramilitary in S30V being one of my most long carried knives. But of course even Roman noted that he carried high carbide steels as well when he didn't want/need high sharpness edge retention and was just doing coarse slicing. I also will use low apex stability steels in the other direction (lose hardness not carbide volume) such as using 3Cr13 steels vs 5Cr13 steels to gain ease of grinding and durability in extreme work. Similar I would prefer something like Calmax over O1 or AEB-L in a large chopping blade even though Calmax has lower apex stability it has more edge durability in extremes.

I don't in general see an actual advantage to the ultra-high carbide steels for long term slicing edge retention for reasons I noted with the earlier graphs. I can modify the apex angle and grit finish on a low carbide steel to enable it to have extreme edge retention in those areas and thus easily slice 500-1000 pieces of 1/2" hemp with a 3Cr13 (420) knife and quite frankly in actual use I am far more likely to grate the edge across something hard/dirty and blunt the edge immediately vs doing 1000+ clean cuts when I am working. Then the ease of grinding of the 3Cr13 steel comes into play readily and as well there is the indirect benefit of it simply being cheaper and more replaceable. Are you willing to grind your knife with an essentially zero grind, ~5 dps edge and sharpen it on a 100 grit stone - as that will shorten the lifetime, even though it maximizes the performance? With low carbide steels the cost often makes this a real practical yes.

--

As for steels, there are some interesting ones, I am still curious about Ferro-Titanit because of how it is very different on a fundamental level from other high carbide steels so it may behave differently. I would also be curious about using steels like 4340 in the larger blades that Spyderco offers. The problem however with using some materials like that is that perception bias is likely to skew the results strongly. Still the curiosity is there which is why I have plans to make blades in both.

On a more practical level, it would be interesting to see if Carpenter would be willing to make a Nitrobe 77 type steel, similar to LC200N however just with a higher maximum hardness. Now as to the practical advantage of eliminating more nitrogen, unless you are getting LC200N to rust readily then you can't make an argument for practical advantage. Still with less carbon there is more of a break in the hardness/carbide connection which allows more flexibility in final characteristics.

[Cliff Stamp]

Not at high hardness it doesn't.... Start getting 1095 much over 62 and it's not all that stable.

Jim, apex stability is a materials property, it isn't a vague lay term, for the details on it then look at Roman's work which is based on peer reviewed and published materials data which is what I am citing. The apex stability of 1095 will be maximum at 66/67 HRC (assuming proper microstructure), and it will steadily decrease as the hardness is drawn. The torsional impact toughness which represents toughness in a twisting load is also maximum right at about that hardness which is what results from a ~325 F draw. This is again a material property which is in the literature. The reason it decreases (torsional impact toughness) as the steel is drawn through a lower hardness is because of the strong 500F embrittlement due to precipitate formation which is why it is always recommended to temper strongly above (as ESEE does) or below that range (as Alvin did).

Now in general apex stability is often linked to general chip resistance of the edge, but it doesn't measure that and is only linked to it indirectly. It is not the case that you can say something like "as apex stability increases then edge chip resistance increases" because that isn't what it measures. For example if you look at A2 and D2 at the same hardness with the same micro-structure then A2 will have higher apex stability and general toughness/durability of the edge. However if you were to look at Calmax vs O1 then O1 in general has higher apex stability but lower edge toughness/durability. Again, apex stability isn't a measure of toughness, it is a measure of strength and of the apex directly, not the edge. It is linked to edge toughness only indirectly and it only measures it, and chip resistance on the micro-scale of the apex, not the edge itself.

[Ankerson]

Not at high hardness it doesn't.... Start getting 1095 much over 62 and it's not all that stable.

Jim, apex stability is a materials property, it isn't a vague lay term, for the details on it then look at Roman's work which is based on peer reviewed and published materials data which is what I am citing. The apex stability of 1095 will be maximum at 66/67 HRC (assuming proper microstructure), and it will steadily decrease as the hardness is drawn. The torsional impact toughness which represents toughness in a twisting load is also maximum right at about that hardness which is what results from a ~325 F draw. This is again a material property which is in the literature. The reason it decreases (torsional impact toughness) as the steel is drawn through a lower hardness is because of the strong 500F embrittlement due to precipitate formation which is why it is always recommended to temper strongly above (as ESEE does) or below that range (as Alvin did).

Now in general apex stability is often linked to general chip resistance of the edge, but it doesn't measure that and is only linked to it indirectly. It is not the case that you can say something like "as apex stability increases then edge chip resistance increases" because that isn't what it measures. For example if you look at A2 and D2 at the same hardness with the same micro-structure then A2 will have higher apex stability and general toughness/durability of the edge. However if you were to look at Calmax vs O1 then O1 in general has higher apex stability but lower edge toughness/durability. Again, apex stability isn't a measure of toughness, it is a measure of strength and of the apex directly, not the edge. It is linked to edge toughness only indirectly and it only measures it, and chip resistance on the micro-scale of the apex, not the edge itself.

That's the reason why we see it in the 55-58 range normally in mass produced blades and depending on the maker and use around max 62 MOST of the time in customs, but they usually keep it in the 58-61 range... Like I posted before...

[Steel_Drake]

5. Now the fun. White 2, White 1, Blue, Super Blue, O1, 1095, W1, W2, 52100, AEB-L, 13C26, 15N20, A2, M2, M4,

I still very much enjoy W2, O1, 52100 and other knife steels that aren't the best in wear, toughness or corrosion resistance. I still enjoy them very much though. :)

Trying to keep this thread on track, I would agree with the above suggestions for a 3 or 3.5" light-duty EDC folder.

I've pointedly tried to stay out of the debate on this thread because I think there's plenty of room in Spyderco's line-up for people with various preferences to be happy. If you like high-carbide steels and think they are way better at everything, cool, no problem, I'm certainly not going to argue with you about your steel preferences.

However, as I said before, Spyderco already produces a large number of models in various high-carbide steels so those of you who prefer such steels are already well served with choices. All I'm asking for is for a couple of models in the above kinds of steels (AEB-L, 13c26, O1, 1095, 52100, etc.), since outside of the Aogami Super sprint runs, and the two Gayle Bradley models (which I personally don't like for aesthetic reasons), Spyderco doesn't currently produce any folders in these kinds of steels, and I would very much like them to.

Really, to simplify, I just want a Caly (3 or 3.5) or a Delica (if it must be FRN) in one of those steels run with an appropriate heat treat. The success of the Aogami Super sprint run models indicates there is a customer base for these kinds of steels, and that people are willing to take the extra care necessary for a carbon steel of this variety.

[Cujobob]

The Delica is a Japan only product atm so I doubt it's a good platform. I would like to see a model created or used similar to how the Mules are but in a folder.

[Ankerson]

However, as I said before, Spyderco already produces a large number of models in various high-carbide steels so those of you who prefer such steels are already well served with choices. All I'm asking for is for a couple of models in the above kinds of steels (AEB-L, 13c26, O1, 1095, 52100, etc.), since outside of the Aogami Super sprint runs, and the two Gayle Bradley models (which I personally don't like for aesthetic reasons), Spyderco doesn't currently produce any folders in these kinds of steels, and I would very much like them to.

Really, to simplify, I just want a Caly (3 or 3.5) or a Delica (if it must be FRN) in one of those steels run with an appropriate heat treat. The success of the Aogami Super sprint run models indicates there is a customer base for these kinds of steels, and that people are willing to take the extra care necessary for a carbon steel of this variety.

Those are made in Japan so other than using a Japanese steel it just won't happen....

SB is a Japanese steel....

That's something that has been pointed out a number of times before... A large number of times.....