A tweaked version of Delta 3V, Magnacut. or Cruwear ...

Crucible Industries collapsed late 2024/early 2025 and Erasteel bought the rights for their products in bankruptcy auction.

There is still Crucible product being sold and distributed, but Erasteel has begun producing it now, after working to dial in the process with their hardware. Itā€™s taken a while, but the results are finally where they need to be. In testing, there seems to be improvements in toughness with Erasteelā€™s product, which has some people excited. From a pragmatistā€™s perspective, no one is likely to notice the disparity in use, but the knife steel world loves to concern themselves with theoretical absolutes.


IMG_7692-XL.jpg



IMG_7693-XL.jpg



IMG_7694-XL.jpg



IMG_7695-XL.jpg





Ultimately, this is all good news, but the Crucible CPM Magnacut blade you have in your pocket wonā€™t immediately be useless because of any improvements in the Erasteel product, and CPKā€™s heat treatment has already been demonstrated as exceptional.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Crucible Industries collapsed late 2024/early 2025 and Erasteel bought the rights for their products in bankruptcy auction.

There is still Crucible product being sold and distributed, but Erasteel has begun producing it now, after working to dial in the process with their hardware. Itā€™s taken a while, but the results are finally where they need to be. In testing, there seems to be improvements in toughness with Erasteelā€™s product, which has some people excited. From a pragmatistā€™s perspective, no one is likely to notice the disparity in use, but the knife steel world loves to concern themselves with theoretical absolutes.


IMG_7692-XL.jpg



IMG_7693-XL.jpg



IMG_7694-XL.jpg



IMG_7695-XL.jpg





Ultimately, this is all good news, but the Crucible CPM Magnacut blade you have in your pocket wonā€™t immediately be useless because of any improvements in the Erasteel product, and CPKā€™s heat treatment has already been demonstrated as exceptional.
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Should I send my Magnacut sebenza back to CRK for a Magnacut re-blade? šŸ¤£
 
JACKMANDU said:
Should I send my Magnacut sebenza back to CRK for a Magnacut re-blade? šŸ¤£
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No.

The right thing to do is buy a new one. That way, youā€™ll have an investment grade ā€˜vintageā€™ US manufactured version, AND a new one for daily use, due to itā€™s obviously improved characteristics.


šŸ˜
 
Crucible was the last domestic company to produce this sort of material entirely in the US.


Most of Erasteelā€™s product is made and HIP processed in Sweden (although some of the powder products are being shipped to the US for HIP processing), then the enormous billets are shipped to Niagara Specialty Metals where it is precision rolled to final dimension and distributed around the world.
 
So even with the current tariff issues notwithstanding, one could reasonably deduce that with this steel being produced in Sweden and then shipped to be processed in here by Niagara, the U.S based manufacturers and consumers should see some price increases with Magnacut steel blades. While Nathan is always more than fair and almost always absorbs such PPI increases in his stride as "mere rounding errors" I expect some far larger makers not to be so gracious as Nathan. I have no idea how this will affect smaller boutique type makers. Maybe purported price increases will be somewhat insignificant (don't see how if for instance energy prices rise along with some other factors) or the juice will just not be worth the squeeze.
 
Casinostocks said:
So even with the current tariff issues notwithstanding, one could reasonably deduce that with this steel being produced in Sweden and then shipped to be processed in here by Niagara, the U.S based manufacturers and consumers should see some price increases with Magnacut steel blades. While Nathan is always more than fair and almost always absorbs such PPI increases in his stride as "mere rounding errors" I expect some far larger makers not to be so gracious as Nathan. I have no idea how this will affect smaller boutique type makers. Maybe purported price increases will be somewhat insignificant (don't see how if for instance energy prices rise along with some other factors) or the juice will just not be worth the squeeze.
Click to expand...
I can tell you how it affects the smallest boutique maker. Not much at all.
The price of magnacut, per blade, for a hobbyist buying just enough for a few blades at a time, is in the $20-$50 range. Even if that doubled it would be a small part of the overall process and final cost.
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Crucible was the last domestic company to produce this sort of material entirely in the US.


Most of Erasteelā€™s product is made and HIP processed in Sweden (although some of the powder products are being shipped to the US for HIP processing), then the enormous billets are shipped to Niagara Specialty Metals where it is precision rolled to final dimension and distributed around the world.
Click to expand...
So itā€™s a HIPster steel? šŸ˜®
 
Casinostocks said:
So even with the current tariff issues notwithstanding, one could reasonably deduce that with this steel being produced in Sweden and then shipped to be processed in here by Niagara, the U.S based manufacturers and consumers should see some price increases with Magnacut steel blades. While Nathan is always more than fair and almost always absorbs such PPI increases in his stride as "mere rounding errors" I expect some far larger makers not to be so gracious as Nathan. I have no idea how this will affect smaller boutique type makers. Maybe purported price increases will be somewhat insignificant (don't see how if for instance energy prices rise along with some other factors) or the juice will just not be worth the squeeze.
Click to expand...

The price of material goes up and we adapt. That skinner used to be $150, 15-20 years ago.

Raw materials are going up quite a lot. And, when it was going to an American company, I felt pretty good about that. And it still is, kind of. But Crucible is gone and that makes me sad. They were a TITAN in the industry and they're gone. Y'all don't know what a high-speed steel lathe tool blank is and the role that Crucible played in American manufacturing for the last 100 years. But believe me when I tell you, we lost something precious.

Niagara Specialty Metals is an ultra high-end boutique steel producer (edit to add: under considerably better management than Crucible was) with extraordinary skill and capabilities and also phenomenal service and integrity and I honestly don't know what we (and everyone else in the industry) would do without them. There is no substitute. There is no other equivalent in the world. Bob Shabala is a national treasure. It is people like him that make America great and why I have so much optimism for our future.

But the fact of the matter is, things are becoming expensive. Making things is becoming expensive.

Something I did not expect was the cost of service of the machine tools to go up as drastically as it has. I'm paying $200 an hour just for the guy to sit in traffic on the way to the shop, to reload some undocumented parameters lost in a power surge. Some rather basic repairs (that I cannot do myself anymore because they've made these things so freaking complicated to try to work on) were recently $9,000. And the electrical kit to prevent a repeat of these repairs was 10 grand for the main piece and the ancillary stuff. And that's biting the bullet and installing it myself.

Try to buy large copper in 2026.

The cost of carbide is out of sight. The quarter inch SGS carbide that I use for our profile cuts is getting up to $30. Each. For a quarter of an inch carbide endmill.ā† tiny. We use these by the fistful everyday. This cutter was $7 when I first started doing this process.

Wages have doubled (this is a good thing, I love my crew, I want to triple it)

Steel has doubled

Carbide has tripled

Abrasives have more than doubled

And just the basic stuff that I need to operate a business such as a truck and trailer have doubled.

Everything related to producing anything in America has become so incredibly expensive in the last 10-20 years.

Except electricity, for some reason. Which is great. I should go knock on wood.

Oh yeah, shop space. Shop space in Mooresville has doubled

10 or 15 years ago, the 10,000 sq ft shop I needed was 1 million dollars. I can't swing that.

Now it's a million dollars for 5000 sq ft. I still can't swing that.

(If anybody here wants to help me with a million dollars for a shop in town with better power and a loading dock, please send me a PM. I will make you a really nice butter knife and give you a large portion of our annual profits, worth literally hundreds of dollars a year. It will literally pay for itself before the sun moves from a hydrogen cycle to a helium cycle!)

(Timmy, I might need that butter knife back bro)

I'm doing okay because I don't pay 10k in rent (the shop is here on the compound, I own it), and I am mostly able to do everything I need myself, so we are okay, but I see so many other awesome people who lack the skills and capacities who just want to run a business and do good stuff struggling and failing. This is a difficult time (with no end in sight) and people complaining about the cost of groceries don't understand how bad it is for folks making stuff. You think ground beef is bad? Buy a high performance 2" flute length, half inch carbide endmill and go through three or four of those in a day and then talk to me about how expensive your chicken breast with broccoli is.

These cost increases disproportionately affect the best makers producing killer work without a lot of fluff in their pricing. You make rough little 01 work knives with a cord wrap for 400 bucks and your hard costs go up $50? You're going to be fine. You're part of the 98% of the knife makers who have a $5 heat treat? And it doubles? You're going to be fine. These cost increases affect the good makers more than most.

If you are making a $50 tube of lipstick and your cost doubles from .45 cents to .90 cents, you're going to be okay.

But when you are producing a high bang-for-the-buck high value product where the hard costs are the majority of the costs, and your brand value is not just the "brand" but the actual value, these costs disproportionately affect those of us who are actually doing the best work. It ain't just me, and I feel bad for those just a little younger than me who don't have the war chest and 12 machine tools already paid for, trying to maintain a business in this environment, who's rent keeps doubling.

The production of the best manufacturing concerns in America is a savage distillation process. These times are tricky, but it ultimately makes us stronger. I do mourn the loss of Crucible though.
 
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Nathan the Machinist said:
The price of material goes up and we adapt. That skinner used to be $150, 15-20 years ago.

Raw materials are going up quite a lot. And, when it was going to an American company, I felt pretty good about that. And it still is, kind of. But Crucible is gone and that makes me sad. They were a TITAN in the industry and they're gone. Y'all don't know what a high-speed steel lathe tool blank is and the role that Crucible played in American manufacturing for the last 100 years. But believe me when I tell you, we lost something precious.

Niagara Specialty Metals is an ultra high-end boutique steel producer with phenomenal service and integrity and I honestly don't know what we (and everyone else in the industry) would do without them. There is no substitute. There is no other equivalent in the world. Bob Shabala is a national treasure. It is people like him that make America great and why I have so much optimism for our future.

But the fact of the matter is, things are becoming expensive. Making things is becoming expensive.

Something I did not expect was the cost of service of the machine tools to go up as drastically as it has. I'm paying $200 an hour just for the guy to sit in traffic on the way to the shop, to reload some undocumented parameters lost in a power surge. Some rather basic repairs (that I cannot do myself anymore because they've made these things so freaking complicated to try to work on) were recently $9,000. And the electrical kit to prevent a repeat of these repairs was 10 grand for the main piece and the ancillary stuff. And that's biting the bullet and installing it myself.

Try to buy large copper in 2026.

The cost of carbide is out of sight. The quarter inch SGS carbide that I use for our profile cuts is getting up to $30. Each. For a quarter of an inch carbide endmill.ā† tiny. We use these by the fistful everyday. This cutter was $7 when I first started doing this process.

Wages have doubled (this is a good thing, I love my crew, I want to triple it)

Steel has doubled

Carbide has tripled

Abrasives have more than doubled

And just the basic stuff that I need to operate a business such as a truck and trailer have doubled.

Everything related to producing anything in America has become so incredibly expensive in the last 10-20 years.

Except electricity, for some reason. Which is great. I should go knock on wood.

Oh yeah, shop space. Shop space in Mooresville has doubled

10 or 15 years ago, the 10,000 sq ft shop I needed was 1 million dollars. I can't swing that.

Now it's a million dollars for 5000 sq ft. I still can't swing that.

(If anybody here wants to help me with a million dollars for a shop in town with better power and a loading dock, please send me a PM. I will make you a really nice butter knife and give you a large portion of our annual profits, worth literally hundreds of dollars a year. It will literally pay for itself before the sun moves from a hydrogen cycle to a helium cycle!)

(Timmy, I might need that butter knife back bro)

I'm doing okay because I don't pay 10k in rent (the shop is here on the compound, I own it), and I am mostly able to do everything I need myself, so we are okay, but I see so many other awesome people who lack the skills and capacities who just want to run a business and do good stuff struggling and failing. This is a difficult time (with no end in sight) and people complaining about the cost of groceries don't understand how bad it is for folks making stuff. You think ground beef is bad? Buy a high performance 2" flute length, half inch carbide endmill and go through three or four of those in a day and then talk to me about how expensive your chicken breast with broccoli is.

These cost increases disproportionately affect the best makers producing killer work without a lot of fluff in their pricing. You make rough little 01 work knives with a cord wrap for 400 bucks and your hard costs go up $50? You're going to be fine. You're part of the 98% of the knife makers who have a $5 heat treat? And it doubles? You're going to be fine. These cost increases affect the good makers more than most.

If you are making a $50 tube of lipstick and your cost doubles from .45 cents to .90 cents, you're going to be okay.

But when you are producing a high bang-for-the-buck high value product where the hard costs are the majority of the costs, and your brand value is not just the "brand" but the actual value, these costs disproportionately affect those of us who are actually doing the best work. It ain't just me, and I feel bad for those just a little younger than me who don't have the war chest and 12 machine tools already paid for, trying to maintain a business in this environment, who's rent keeps doubling.

The production of the best manufacturing concerns in America is a savage distillation process. These times are tricky, but it ultimately makes us stronger. I do mourn the loss of Crucible though.
Click to expand...


Well said Nathan the Machine

Thank you to you ,Jo and the rest of the crew
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
The price of material goes up and we adapt. That skinner used to be $150, 15-20 years ago.

Raw materials are going up quite a lot. And, when it was going to an American company, I felt pretty good about that. And it still is, kind of. But Crucible is gone and that makes me sad. They were a TITAN in the industry and they're gone. Y'all don't know what a high-speed steel lathe tool blank is and the role that Crucible played in American manufacturing for the last 100 years. But believe me when I tell you, we lost something precious.

Niagara Specialty Metals is an ultra high-end boutique steel producer (edit to add: under considerably better management than Crucible was) with extraordinary skill and capabilities and also phenomenal service and integrity and I honestly don't know what we (and everyone else in the industry) would do without them. There is no substitute. There is no other equivalent in the world. Bob Shabala is a national treasure. It is people like him that make America great and why I have so much optimism for our future.

But the fact of the matter is, things are becoming expensive. Making things is becoming expensive.

Something I did not expect was the cost of service of the machine tools to go up as drastically as it has. I'm paying $200 an hour just for the guy to sit in traffic on the way to the shop, to reload some undocumented parameters lost in a power surge. Some rather basic repairs (that I cannot do myself anymore because they've made these things so freaking complicated to try to work on) were recently $9,000. And the electrical kit to prevent a repeat of these repairs was 10 grand for the main piece and the ancillary stuff. And that's biting the bullet and installing it myself.

Try to buy large copper in 2026.

The cost of carbide is out of sight. The quarter inch SGS carbide that I use for our profile cuts is getting up to $30. Each. For a quarter of an inch carbide endmill.ā† tiny. We use these by the fistful everyday. This cutter was $7 when I first started doing this process.

Wages have doubled (this is a good thing, I love my crew, I want to triple it)

Steel has doubled

Carbide has tripled

Abrasives have more than doubled

And just the basic stuff that I need to operate a business such as a truck and trailer have doubled.

Everything related to producing anything in America has become so incredibly expensive in the last 10-20 years.

Except electricity, for some reason. Which is great. I should go knock on wood.

Oh yeah, shop space. Shop space in Mooresville has doubled

10 or 15 years ago, the 10,000 sq ft shop I needed was 1 million dollars. I can't swing that.

Now it's a million dollars for 5000 sq ft. I still can't swing that.

(If anybody here wants to help me with a million dollars for a shop in town with better power and a loading dock, please send me a PM. I will make you a really nice butter knife and give you a large portion of our annual profits, worth literally hundreds of dollars a year. It will literally pay for itself before the sun moves from a hydrogen cycle to a helium cycle!)

(Timmy, I might need that butter knife back bro)

I'm doing okay because I don't pay 10k in rent (the shop is here on the compound, I own it), and I am mostly able to do everything I need myself, so we are okay, but I see so many other awesome people who lack the skills and capacities who just want to run a business and do good stuff struggling and failing. This is a difficult time (with no end in sight) and people complaining about the cost of groceries don't understand how bad it is for folks making stuff. You think ground beef is bad? Buy a high performance 2" flute length, half inch carbide endmill and go through three or four of those in a day and then talk to me about how expensive your chicken breast with broccoli is.

These cost increases disproportionately affect the best makers producing killer work without a lot of fluff in their pricing. You make rough little 01 work knives with a cord wrap for 400 bucks and your hard costs go up $50? You're going to be fine. You're part of the 98% of the knife makers who have a $5 heat treat? And it doubles? You're going to be fine. These cost increases affect the good makers more than most.

If you are making a $50 tube of lipstick and your cost doubles from .45 cents to .90 cents, you're going to be okay.

But when you are producing a high bang-for-the-buck high value product where the hard costs are the majority of the costs, and your brand value is not just the "brand" but the actual value, these costs disproportionately affect those of us who are actually doing the best work. It ain't just me, and I feel bad for those just a little younger than me who don't have the war chest and 12 machine tools already paid for, trying to maintain a business in this environment, who's rent keeps doubling.

The production of the best manufacturing concerns in America is a savage distillation process. These times are tricky, but it ultimately makes us stronger. I do mourn the loss of Crucible though.
Click to expand...
Damn well said! šŸ„°
 
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