Spyderco Forums

What kind of real world toughness can I expect from this steel? I'm buying two pm2 for gifts, but I am concerned with chipping and blade deformation.

Justin

It'll hold up fine at 30 degrees inclusive for everything except opening cans of baked beans.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75303
For that, make it 35 inclusive and you're good. :)

Thanks. I think that will be great for my friends

Justin

crazywednesday wrote:What kind of real world toughness can I expect from this steel? I'm buying two pm2 for gifts, but I am concerned with chipping and blade deformation.

Justin

It will chip, and probably never roll. ZDP-189 is roll proof because it's so hard, and Maxamet is supposedly harder than zdp-189. Edge will always "deform", just depends on how it happens. Generally speaking, a roll is preferable because you can "push" the rolled part back into place in the apex and resume whatever you were doing if need be, but of course that part is going to be weaker and will dull quicker. Chip is bad because to get your edge/apex uniform again, you have to grind the whole chip out. How severe the chip is depends on how "thick" or high your edge angle is. You want to keep a high angle with these steels to avoid a catastrophic chipping.

A benefit of these really hard steels is that even though the edge is not very "tough," they are strong edges. Some rolls can be just as bad as a chip, depends on what you're doing. So if you have a thick edge, and a hard steel, you can at least cut 1/2 of the problem out and deal with small chips here and there, depending on edge thickness. That is one reason why I enjoyed zdp-189.

I thought I remembered some discussion of this when the Maxamet Mule was announced, that there was speculation that you couldn't make a practical knife out of the steel because of low toughness. I have gone back and searched but have not been able to find that discussion since. Since Maxamet has been available in Mules and Manix 2s I have not heard of any problems with lack of toughness. I am still going to guess that it isn't an appropriate steel for a prybar but seems to be good enough for knife uses.

If you are giving these as gifts consider that they will require good sharpening tools that the average person may not have.

I have no problems with my Manix 2. A lot of people assume that with high hardness a knife chips quickly. Well this is not the case with Maxamet. I cut ziptights, carved dried wood, cardboard, food and plastic with it and there is no edge deformation, chipping rolling or any other problem. The only downside is that it form a patina really quick. Just dont go below 16dps angle with sharpening and you will have a great edc knife

Mine has held up well. No chipping or rolling. I have used it fairly hard.

Hi Crazywednesday,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

It's definitely tougher and less chip prone than ZDP-189. I find it less chip prone than M4 as well.

Thanks Sal. I've carried a centofante for many years. It was a great knife. Now it resides in my backpack and a sage 2 in my wallet. Accidentally bought a fake pm 2, but fell in love with that form factor. I plan on replacing it, but I'm going to try out a 204p Millie first. Once i hells the pm2 I knew it was the knife I was going to buy as gifts.

Justin