Sandvik Steel Spydercos?

SpyderEdgeForever · #1

I did not see a similiar thread: Has Spyderco considered using the high-quality Sandvik Stainless Steel from Sweden on any Spyderco Knives? I have some with it, such as EKA Swedish knives and Opinel and also Mora Knives, it seems to be pretty good.

Cliff Stamp · #2

They have used MBS-26 which is similar to 19C27. The curious thing is that Sandvik markets that as a coarse steel, but when you compare it to most cutlery steels it is finer than average. Spyderco's MBS-26 sharpens trivially, even on soft / natural stones. 14C28N would be a nice steel to use in a small very thin folder.

#3

Hi Spyderedge,

We wanted to try 19C and we've tried to get sample steels from Sandvik with little success. We wanted to make a Mule Team. They said they were interested, but their follow up was less so.

Cliff,

What, in your opinion, would be the best steel Sandvik makes that we could use in our knives?

sal

chuck_roxas45 · #4

What steels does Sandvik have that are high wear resistant, high hardness, and high carbide volume?

Invective · #5

sal wrote:Hi Spyderedge,

We wanted to try 19C and we've tried to get sample steels from Sandvik with little success. We wanted to make a Mule Team. They said they were interested, but their follow up was less so.

Cliff,

What, in your opinion, would be the best steel Sandvik makes that we could use in our knives?

sal

I'm not Cliff, nor do I have anywhere near as much knowledge on steels as him, but I would like to see a 19C27 Mule. With more carbon and less Cr than 14C28N, that sounds like a good mix to me. If my knowledge of steels is halfway decent, it looks like it'd be able to take a fine edge and hold it for longer than 14C does, which sounds great. I loved the 14C28N in my Skyline so I'd love to see what this upgraded stuff could do.

chuck_roxas45 wrote:What steels does Sandvik have that are high wear resistant, high hardness, and high carbide volume?

According to them the highest wear resistant steel they have is 19C27.

http://www.smt.sandvik.com/en/products/ ... vik-19c27/

Having tried their 12C27, 13C26, and 14C28N, I especially liked their 14C28N in the Kershaw Skyline platform. Took a great edge and seemed to hold it longer than the VG-10 on my Endura.

#6

That's what I came up with.

sal

chuck_roxas45 · #7

Invective wrote:
According to them the highest wear resistant steel they have is 19C27.

http://www.smt.sandvik.com/en/products/ ... vik-19c27/

Sounds interesting...

Zenith · #8

chuck_roxas45 wrote:Sounds interesting...

Chuck

Play around on Sandviks site, they do not advocate high carbide volume steels and wear resistance as ideal steel properties IMO, but rather a knife to have a keen edge, high level of sharpness and edge stability.

Sandvik steel is widely used in South Africa because of their availability and customer support, they are heavily involved in our mining industry. There are makers that run 14C28N at 62 HRC, seems thinly ground and they did toughness experiments by cutting through round bar by beating on it with a 5 pound hammer with no visual signs of damage to the primary, or where the hammer hit. That was on a kitchen knife. (Will post the test when I am not on the phone)

12C27 is also very popular and makers get consistent HRC of 61 with deep freeze quench.

Since my experience with Nitrogen steels such as H-1 (started my search) and most recently Nitrobe-77 have been very favorable I have been looking for similar since Nitrobe-77 is being discontinued and it is a high hardness completely rust proof steel the only steels that seem available for knives in strip form is Vanax (currently under re-design) and 14C28N.

It would be interesting to see 14C28N in a production knife being pushed to its max IMO. Vanax and Nitrobe require much more intensive heat treat and temper compared to 14C28N if I remember correctly. So 14C28N will be the most cost effective option for a steel at high hardness, high level of stain resistance and have properties I like in a knife (high hardness, keen edge, high level of sharpness and edge stability). YMMV.

IMO and from what I have experienced with local hunters and users that are not knife nuts (they put a knife flat on a stone or even brick to sharpen) steels with these properties can also take a low level of sharpness for abrasive cutting so it offers the user the option to cater the edge for their needs. I have spoken with many hunters that do not like S30V or even 154CM because they can't sharpen it like their old Joseph Rodgers, Victorinox, Old Khapi (uses simple carbon steel) etc and find it too time consuming. They tend to like it at the biggining but the problem comes with resharpening. Keep in mind DMT etc are very expensive in our country, never mind easy to obtain, so people will rather buy a $2 stone from the hardware store.

Of course, markets differ over the world.

FCM415 · #9

My experience with Sandviks on Kershaws were good but I'm content with the steels Spyderco uses which is practically everything other than Sandvik

Helios · #10

why not use AEB-L very similar to 13c26 but from (Bohler-uddeholm)

chuck_roxas45 · #11

Zenith wrote:Chuck

Play around on Sandviks site, they do not advocate high carbide volume steels and wear resistance as ideal steel properties IMO, but rather a knife to have a keen edge, high level of sharpness and edge stability.

Sandvik steel is widely used in South Africa because of their availability and customer support, they are heavily involved in our mining industry. There are makers that run 14C28N at 62 HRC, seems thinly ground and they did toughness experiments by cutting through round bar by beating on it with a 5 pound hammer with no visual signs of damage to the primary, or where the hammer hit. That was on a kitchen knife. (Will post the test when I am not on the phone)

12C27 is also very popular and makers get consistent HRC of 61 with deep freeze quench.

Since my experience with Nitrogen steels such as H-1 (started my search) and most recently Nitrobe-77 have been very favorable I have been looking for similar since Nitrobe-77 is being discontinued and it is a high hardness completely rust proof steel the only steels that seem available for knives in strip form is Vanax (currently under re-design) and 14C28N.

It would be interesting to see 14C28N in a production knife being pushed to its max IMO. Vanax and Nitrobe require much more intensive heat treat and temper compared to 14C28N if I remember correctly. So 14C28N will be the most cost effective option for a steel at high hardness, high level of stain resistance and have properties I like in a knife (high hardness, keen edge, high level of sharpness and edge stability). YMMV.

IMO and from what I have experienced with local hunters and users that are not knife nuts (they put a knife flat on a stone or even brick to sharpen) steels with these properties can also take a low level of sharpness for abrasive cutting so it offers the user the option to cater the edge for their needs. I have spoken with many hunters that do not like S30V or even 154CM because they can't sharpen it like their old Joseph Rodgers, Victorinox, Old Khapi (uses simple carbon steel) etc and find it too time consuming. They tend to like it at the biggining but the problem comes with resharpening. Keep in mind DMT etc are very expensive in our country, never mind easy to obtain, so people will rather buy a $2 stone from the hardware store.

Of course, markets differ over the world.

Thanks, I appreciate the information. I don't hunt, nor do I do bushcrafty things for days or weeks at a time. I do use my knives for cutting dirty cardboard and dirty rope and dirty wood. If S30V or even S90V are examples of steels with low edge stability, then I don't find low edge stability a disadvantage for me and my uses. I like a steel like 52100 for my kitchen use but I don't particularly like 8Cr13Mov because at high polish it will quickly lose that bite and it just slides off material for me. At a coaser finish, I also find that it loses "tooth" fast and loses aggressiveness fast. I also don't like very low bevel angles because I just hate edge damage and repairing it.

I don't particularly need very high sharpness knives at very low bevel angles because I can get high alloy steels sharp enough for my uses. Yes, low angles and high hardness, high edge stability knives might be fun to play with, but I really don't have the skill or often the time to pussyfoot about cutting chores.

If the Spydercrew find it fit to make a knife out of low alloy stainless, I'm sure it will satisfy a lot of end line users but it will not interest me in the least bit. I will wait for another steel that I will be interested in. :)

#12

Hi Helios,

Welcome to our forum.

We're trying to get some AEB-L for a Mule Team. Seems harder to get that stuff in the US, but we'll keep trying.

Zenith, Chuck, thanx for the info. Good stuff to know. We'll keep trying to bring some Sandvik to the marketplace in some Spyderco form. Making knives over a broad range of performance for the many user applications is part of the challenge.

We are fortunate that at this time, we have many of the foundries competing for boutique blade steels and there is great variety.

sal

chuck_roxas45 · #13

sal wrote:Hi Helios,

Welcome to our forum.

We're trying to get some AEB-L for a Mule Team. Seems harder to get that stuff in the US, but we'll keep trying.

Zenith, Chuck, thanx for the info. Good stuff to know. We'll keep trying to bring some Sandvik to the marketplace in some Spyderco form. Making knives over a broad range of performance for the many user applications is part of the challenge.

We are fortunate that at this time, we have many of the foundries competing for boutique blade steels and there is great variety.

sal

And that's what makes Spyderco a leading company for steel heads Mr. G. How else would we find out what works for us if we don't have a range of performance to try for ourselves?

polyhexamethyl · #14

i love this company!
i just thought the other day about that!
sounds amazing! i'd be so stoked about a Sandvik mule!
hopefully its gonna work out!

macatac · #15

I work with some folks from Sandvik. We use their 25-22-2 and 2Re10 for some exotic corrosive applications. I mentioned Spyderco to this guy who is a mid-level manager in their weld materials division before, and he brought out a couple of pretty cool knives. (Didn't give me one though) I will put the bug in his ear again, you never know what might happen. I should be seeing him again soon.

macatac

Phil Wilson · #16

Hi Sal and all, I made some fillet knives with 12C27 and some Chef's with AEBL and was satisfied with the performance for that application. The material I got was called "strip" or roll steel and it was only available at the time in thin thickness like 2.5 mm. It was a problem for me during heat treat since on cooling it wanted to return to the roll radius and warp into a bow like it was on the large roll. I made it work by an anneal but just another step and I drifted away from it. It might work with a plate quench or now it might be available in sheet stock. I will see if my contact at Bohler can give us some info on it. Phil

#17

Hi Phil,

Thanx for chiming in. If you were going to make the ultimate all purpose knife and you were going to use Sandvik steel. what would you think optimal?

Susan is working with Bohler to get some AEB-L. I don't know how successful she is being? If you have some contacts, please share.

sal

#18

macatac wrote:I work with some folks from Sandvik. We use their 25-22-2 and 2Re10 for some exotic corrosive applications. I mentioned Spyderco to this guy who is a mid-level manager in their weld materials division before, and he brought out a couple of pretty cool knives. (Didn't give me one though) I will put the bug in his ear again, you never know what might happen. I should be seeing him again soon.
macatac

Hi Macatac,

We'd love to test some exotic material from them, if possible?

Good for them to see useage, good for us to know and buy steel and good for steel junky's to taste.

sal

Price_is_Right · #19

Sal,

That would be nice if you could get AEB-L steel for the Mule series, especially if you could harden it above 60 HRC. Also, it would be interesting if you could go thinner behind the edge, too, maybe "0.015" or thinner.

#20

Hi Price_is_Right,

Welcome to our forum.

sal