s35vn compared to s30v?

[senorsquare]

Are the blades used for CATRA tests identical as far as the grinds and bevels are concerned, with steel being the only variable? It seems to me that the exact same steel tested with various grinds and/or blade thicknesses would yield varying results, but I may not be understanding the nature of the test correctly. If you tested three or 4 different knife models that all had the same steel but different blade shapes would each get the same result?

[CrimsonTideShooter]

All of the knives in the rope cutting cut the same amount and same type of rope.

Exactly. All knives were treated the exact same way...



Also, thanks for adding info into this thread Cliff. I'm learning as I go through it. :)

[Ken44]

Spyderco has never once NOT listened to what I had to say.

Kind of sounds like they wish they hadn't listened to you about the S35VN, as it cost them a lot of time and money.

From Blade Forums last December....

Originally Posted by Sal Gesser

CTS, respectfully, my reputation for honesty and follow up is not so bad.

When you claimed CPM-S35V was a bad steel, you created quite an uproar. Niagara was involved, Crucible was involved, we stopped production and did extensive testing. Cost a lot of people a lot of time and money to follow up your statement. As it turned out, nothing was wrong with the steel.

I know you're young, I respect your intelligence and involvement. You are studying to be a doctor, aren't you? Good profession. I believe you will be a good doctor.

Sometimes the solution is easily found.

sal

I have nothing against you CTS, but I do wish you would stop talking about how you were talked to by Chris Reeve. It has been going on way to long IMO.
I had a problem with an owner a few years ago. I've never mentioned it once publicly. IMO its best to just stop buying from them and leave it at that. When one keeps on and on about a person it makes it look like they have an agenda when they talk bad of their product.

No hard feelings I hope. Just giving my opinion, which means little.

[Ankerson]

Early on what got me was the hype that was generated about S35VN and after looking at the alloy content I knew the Hype was complete BS....

Now none of that was done by Crucible as they NEVER said S35VN was more than it was supposed to be.

That said S35VN is a good steel and it does exactly what Crucible says it will, it's sad that it got hyped up to be more than it really is so the expectations were so high it could never even come close to meeting them in reality.

Again it wasn't Crucible that did it....


Most of it was by those who were drinking too much kool-aid of a certain company so to speak........

S35VN is NOT an upgrade from S30V and it was NEVER supposed to be from the start......

[Cliff Stamp]

Are the blades used for CATRA tests identical as far as the grinds and bevels are concerned, with steel being the only variable?

No.

Check this out : http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/reviews/CATRA.html

Look at the wild variations in CATRA rankings on the exact same steel.

There is in fact no guarantee that the readings you see even use the same number of cycles. There is nothing stopping someone for asking a CATRA test and asking for 120 cycles instead of 60 which obviously produces a much higher cut count.

It seems to me that the exact same steel tested with various grinds and/or blade thicknesses would yield varying results...

Exactly right.

In fact if you want 420HC to CATRA higher than ATS-34 all you have to do is reduce the edge angle on the 420HC to 15 vs 20 on the ATS-34 because CATRA is not simply edge retention it measures cutting ability.

As CATRA simply applies a given force and measures the amount of paper cut so anything which reduces the force produces a higher cut. This is a common misconception by thinking it measures edge retention directly, it doesn't.

Again it wasn't Crucible that did it....

Crucible did promote the steel as an upgrade and noted :

-no edge retention compromise over S30V
-significantly improved toughness
-easier to machine and finish

Ref : http://www.crucible.com/PDFs%5CDataShee ... v12010.pdf

In fact Jim you even claimed S35VN could be an improvement in performance over S30V because of the heat treatment issues with S30V which S35VN was supposed to resolve thus increased performance could be seen out of S35VN as it could be run harder than S30V.

However, again the issue is that S35VN blades demonstrated clear dramatic failure such as John noted and there was very poor service response to them. You can even see here people defending that blade and attempting to argue that Sebenza was not defective.

John wasn't the only person to note that S35VN blades had issues other people had issues with rolling/denting and general edge retention. Again this comes back to market performance not matching expectation and the makers/manufacturers have responsibility here for creating it.

The bias and shill mentality can also be seen because when John demonstrates a problem then out comes the claims of invalid yet the same people will happily accept marketing data, and praise work which has no manner of control at all as long as it is positive.

Now are these inherent problems with S35VN, of course not, but something was causing those problems and berating the people for pointing them out isn't a productie method of trying to resolve them. This is all that has to be done :

-clearly state if the demonstrated performance is to be expected or not

-if it is not then state the expected performance clearly

-contact the person making the claims, explain it is defective and issue a replacement

[w3tnz]

Thanks for your time and knowledge cliff, I cant argue with any of that. There was clearly some confusion about the conclusions drawn from this specific test, on my part at least.

[Blerv]

How do you address the quote from Sal on Bladeforums?

In the end knowing little about the situation it seems grossly blown out of proportion. Perhaps a few examples amidst a number of "satisfactory" ones (which on page 8 we have not defined).

If trusting Sal and Co's judgement makes one a fanboy or shill I guess some of us are guilty. I don't know what the incentive would be to propagate a conspiracy when alternatives steels are available. Their reputation is grounded in high-performance production tools; seems a risky gamble for very little gain to invalidate an internet reviewer.

[kbuzbee]

If trusting Sal and Co's judgement makes one a fanboy or shill I guess some of us are guilty.

GUILTY! It's really all I need.

(and one additional thought, if it's wrong, Sal & crew will make it right!)

Ken

[Cujobob]

I have nothing against you CTS, but I do wish you would stop talking about how you were talked to by Chris Reeve. It has been going on way to long IMO.
I had a problem with an owner a few years ago. I've never mentioned it once publicly. IMO its best to just stop buying from them and leave it at that. When one keeps on and on about a person it makes it look like they have an agenda when they talk bad of their product.

No hard feelings I hope. Just giving my opinion, which means little.

If the owner tried to make right what happened and the customer was happy, that customer could have told about the positive experience and gained the company sales. It goes both ways.

[Blerv]

If the owner tried to make right what happened and the customer was happy, that customer could have told about the positive experience and gained the company sales. It goes both ways.

Assuming any of that happened.

That isn't intended as a slight against John's character (while it totally sounds like it). Just remember, a recollection of a phone conversation posted on a forum isn't exactly court evidence. Thank goodness too...reputations take decades to forge and they could be wiped out in an instant.

[Donut]

It seems like more of a side step, but won't the increased toughness help most users?

Gringo mentioned that he has trouble getting a novelty edge on S30V. I've heard someone say (and it could be a rumor) that the whole reason S35VN was developed was because S30V was tough to polish.

[JNewell]

kind of sounds like they wish they hadn't listened to you about the s35vn, as it cost them a lot of time and money.

Spyderco has never once NOT listened to what I had to say.

From blade forums last december....

originally posted by sal gesser

cts, respectfully, my reputation for honesty and follow up is not so bad.

when you claimed cpm-s35v was a bad steel, you created quite an uproar. Niagara was involved, crucible was involved, we stopped production and did extensive testing. Cost a lot of people a lot of time and money to follow up your statement. As it turned out, nothing was wrong with the steel.
i know you're young, i respect your intelligence and involvement. You are studying to be a doctor, aren't you? Good profession. I believe you will be a good doctor.

Sometimes the solution is easily found.

Sal

i have nothing against you cts, but i do wish you would stop talking about how you were talked to by chris reeve. It has been going on way to long imo.
I had a problem with an owner a few years ago. I've never mentioned it once publicly. Imo its best to just stop buying from them and leave it at that. When one keeps on and on about a person it makes it look like they have an agenda when they talk bad of their product.

No hard feelings i hope. Just giving my opinion, which means little.

I'd forgotten that thread. HFS.

[Jay_Ev]

I have nothing against you CTS, but I do wish you would stop talking about how you were talked to by Chris Reeve. It has been going on way to long IMO.

I, for one am grateful and appreciative when this type of information is shared as it allows me to make an informed decision on whether or not I choose to support a given company. My life is short and my time is valuable and I work way too hard for my money to support a company who treats their customers this way. I don't care how nice his knives are. He can kick rocks.

[Donut]

It might be better for everyone if when every new steel that comes out, we all think it's terrible and set out to prove that it isn't terrible.

[GTPowers]

[ATTACH]22716[/ATTACH]

Applicable.
And these threads.
Predictable.

-GT

[Ankerson]

In fact Jim you even claimed S35VN could be an improvement in performance over S30V because of the heat treatment issues with S30V which S35VN was supposed to resolve thus increased performance could be seen out of S35VN as it could be run harder than S30V.

Yeah I said it might be possible, I also said that that would have to be determined after testing at the various hardness ranges or something to that effect.

That's when it was new and no real test data was available to me at that point. So I was going by the alloy content alone.

And to this day I still haven't seen anyone run S35VN much above 59-60 RC, or even heard of anyone doing it so that's still in question what it might do or not do.

Also right off the spec sheet it said exactly:

CPM S35VN is a martensitic stainless steel designed to offer
improved toughness over CPM S30V. It is also easier to machine
and polish than CPM S30V. Its chemistry has been rebalanced
so that it forms some niobium carbides along with vanadium and
chromium carbides. Substituting niobium carbides for some of the
vanadium carbides makes CPM S35VN about 15-20% tougher
than CPM S30V without any loss of wear resistance. CPM S35VN’s
improved toughness gives it better resistance to edge chipping.


That's nothing about implying an upgrade at all.

More like making it cheaper and easier for the companies to produce blades and for those who can't do a proper HT on S30V.

Toughness increase over S30V in the typical knives that the steel would be used in (Folders mostly) would be vague, that's unless they are making swords or large choppers out of it.

That said there was already another steel that already had an excellent reputation that could have been used and was already tested in the 61-62 RC range, that's ELMAX........ And I talked about that too at the time.

But then the politics being what it is........... And that was my problem with the whole issue from the beginning....... The politics of it all from the beginning.....

I am a steel guy, not much into the politics of it all because that has nothing to do with performance and that is what I am interested in.

So if the percieved change was needed then why go with a steel that offers NOTHING over S30V performance wise when there was already another steel available that IS/WAS a real upgrade to S30V both toughness AND edge retention wise...... That was/IS ELMAX......

Performance of S35VN had nothing to do with that change.

It was more like S30V was too hard to work with so they pushed for a steel that was easier to work with and HT and they came up with S35VN.

Pretty much the same player and reasons behind what caused S90V not to be adopted back in 2001 so we all had to wait 12 years before a standard production knife in S90V was produced.

It wasn't about performance then either.....

Thankfully Spyderco isn't following the pack like the others and in turn is leading the pack now in terms of pure performance.

[kurt6652]

I have read a few posts in various knife forums, where posters have indicated that they liked a steel which would roll the edge instead of chip. Many have written that they preferred vg-10 to s30v, because it was easier to sharpen and the edge would usually roll instead of chip.

S35vn seems to have some of the preferred attributes of vg-10 IE; less chip prone, easier to sharpen, corrosion resistance and similar edge holding to s30v. I think s35vn has a nice balance of properties and it makes a good user steel for 80-90 percent of most knife users. I really like the steel on my native 5.

I am sure some of the people at Crucible read the knife forums and with most manufacturers their target is the average person, the largest group of customers. I think that Crucible made exactly what they thought served the average knife user the best in producing s35vn . I know I am a average knife user and s35vn works fine for me. I also like s110v but I don't really need it for my light uses s35vn is really all I need.

[MattBPKT]

I have read a few posts in various knife forums, where posters have indicated that they liked a steel which would roll the edge instead of chip. Many have written that they preferred vg-10 to s30v, because it was easier to sharpen and the edge would usually roll instead of chip.

S35vn seems to have some of the preferred attributes of vg-10 IE; less chip prone, easier to sharpen, corrosion resistance and similar edge holding to s30v. I think s35vn has a nice balance of properties and it makes a good user steel for 80-90 percent of most knife users. I really like the steel on my native 5.

I am sure some of the people at Crucible read the knife forums and with most manufacturers their target is the average person, the largest group of customers.

I agree. It seems to be a very good 'all-round' performer suitable for most applications. Of course, there is always a better steel for specific jobs....

[Sharpdressed man]

Ankerson,
A link was posted some where in this thread to a post you did in 2010 where you had ranked steels into 9 groups according to testing you had conducted. CPM S35VN at 59.5 was in the 5 group. Now I believe the CRK S35VN is rated at 57-58, correct? Would it be fair to ask you where you think the CRK flavor of the35 would fall in your groups of nine?

In CTS's rope cutting tests he finishes the cutting in ~ 10 minutes with just a few pauses during the cutting. Would that generate enough heat to alter the steel in apex of the blade? If the same number of cuts, over one hundred, were done in a longer period of time allowing cooling between each cut would the metal fold over. Also if the rope was wet with cool water would that same blade fail in the same way?

Anyway this is a very interesting topic. I appreciate you folks sharing your knowledge, expirence and opinions with the forum.
Thanks for teaching me so much...

[Zenith]

I have read a few posts in various knife forums, where posters have indicated that they liked a steel which would roll the edge instead of chip. Many have written that they preferred vg-10 to s30v, because it was easier to sharpen and the edge would usually roll instead of chip.

S35vn seems to have some of the preferred attributes of vg-10 IE; less chip prone, easier to sharpen, corrosion resistance and similar edge holding to s30v. I think s35vn has a nice balance of properties and it makes a good user steel for 80-90 percent of most knife users. I really like the steel on my native 5.

I am sure some of the people at Crucible read the knife forums and with most manufacturers their target is the average person, the largest group of customers. I think that Crucible made exactly what they thought served the average knife user the best in producing s35vn . I know I am a average knife user and s35vn works fine for me. I also like s110v but I don't really need it for my light uses s35vn is really all I need.

It is interesting that you mention this. As I was sitting here and thinking about S35VN it struck me, IMO S35VN is similar to RWL-34 so far in my uses, but RWL-34 still feels to take a keener and crisp edge (probably to it being finer grained) though I have been surprised by S35VN.

Actually, here are the two steels compared in composition with VG-10 as well.

http://www.zknives.com/knives/steels/st ... hrn=1&gm=0

Molybdenum, Vanadium , Niobium and Cobalt contents are the big differences. Vanadium to my knowledge is used in RWL-34 as a grain refiner, I believe it functions similar in VG-10 but not so in S35VN, that might be why S35VN has Niobium.

Molybdenum (Mo)
: A carbide former, prevents brittleness & maintains the steel's strength at high temperatures. Improves machinability and resistance to corrosion. Present in many steels, and air-hardening steels (e.g. A2, ATS-34) always have 1% or more Molybdenum.

Vanadium (V)
- Contributes to wear resistance and hardenability, and as a carbide former (in fact, vanadium carbides are the hardest carbides) it contributes to wear resistance. It also refines the grain of the steel, which contributes to toughness and allows the blade to take a very sharp edge. A number of steels have vanadium, but M2, Vascowear, and CPM 10V, S90V, S125V (in order of increasing amounts) have high amounts of vanadium.

Cobalt (Co)
- Increases hardness, also allows for higher quenching temperatures(during the heat treatment procedure). Intensifies the individual effects of other elements in more complex steels. Co is not a carbide former, however adding Cobalt to the alloy allows for higher attainable hardness and higher red hot hardness

Niobium (Nb)
- Niobium is a strong carbide former and forms very hard, very small, simple carbides[NbC]. Improves ductility, hardness, wear and corrosion resistance. Also, refines grain. Also known as Columbium.

If S35VN is more geared towards a balanced steel in properties I pose the question, why not just use CPM-154 that is Crucibles answer to RWL-34? RWL-34 IMO is one of the best balanced steels available with regards to Sharpness, Edge stability, Wear resistance, Toughness and Corrosion resistance.