A2 Steel Update

[DangerZone98]

Ehem... about that...

Yeah, I won't trust my life to liner steel.

They also never replied to any of the multiple threads complaining about Secure-ex dulling the knives. Their flame suit is holding them so well that they can't even reply. I guess it's getting hot in there...

About video, they have 3 options:
1. Use the old O1 version
2. Sharpening their knives every minute, possibly break, roll or chip several of those in the proces
3. Stab and slash piece of meat and rabmle about the knife some more

Watch the Latin D guard machete video on youtube, machete got bent - at 2:52 you can clearly see it when Lynn picks it up, and then it's very soon cut and he suddenly has a new one in his hands. I don't know about old ones but their new videos are edited, fake and ridiculous.
Edit: At 2:30 you can also see bent blade next to that jelly while Lynn is playing with it.

Also read the Amazon reviews on Cold Steel machetes, go to surprisingly large 1 star section, their quality is going down significantly...


This comment sums it up, if I wanted crappy pot metal knives I would order them from Wish or AliExpress instead, and I'd spend 8€ with shipping to get something that's probably piece of junk not good for anything except to be a wall hanger. If I wanted flea market knives I'd go to flea market, yet Cold Steel is here bringing flea market to us.
Cold Steel will be joining the ones like M-tech, Frost, Tac-Force and Gerber.

Indeed. SK5 or 1095 would’ve been good low-cost options, but I suppose those “weren’t available” either.

 

[Man with no name]

A letter from Lynn Thompson.

Dear BladeForums,

We regret to inform you that the knives made from A-2 steel will not be delivered. We have made two attempts to obtain high quality A-2 steel but in both instances the steel was found to be inferior and knives made from it could not pass our high standard. We will be switching the knives in question to 4034 Stainless which we can obtain in very high quality and which has proven to be extremely tough and strong in our tests.

Sincerely,

Lynn C. Thompson
President - Cold Steel, Inc.
_____________________________

Open discussion below, I've got my flame suit on.

Just go back to O-1 Tool Steel and end this nightmare, please!

 

[not2sharp]

They are making them in Taiwan. How hard can it be to get a supply of steel there? Just about everyone is making all kinds of knives and other products on that island. Just send it down on the next container ship. If they can find good steels in remote areas like Nepal, there is no excuse for not doing so in Taiwan .



N2s

 

[DangerZone98]

They are making them in Taiwan. How hard can it be to get a supply of steel there? Just about everyone is making all kinds of knives and other products on that island. Just send it down on the next container ship. If they can find good steels in remote areas like Nepal, there is no excuse for not doing so in Taiwan .



N2s

Indeed. It sounds like just another cost-cutting measure to maximize profits. If that’s indeed the case, I will be very disappointed.

 

[Chris_Texas]

Indeed. It sounds like just another cost-cutting measure to maximize profits. If that’s indeed the case, I will be very disappointed.

What else could it possibly be?

In Cold Steel's defense, I get it. I own my own business. It is a constant question and debate as to what price point to focus on. For us, I make the most money on the lower end products, but continue to offer and promote enough of the high end stuff to ensure that my customers associate my company name with quality. On paper it costs me money and I would be better off ditching all of the high end stuff, but my gut tells me that maintaining the high end products is critical to my company's long term success. None the less, we debate this question regularly.

I suspect that Cold Steel has decided to go where the money is, and that for them it's the lower end product. This might be disappointing to the Knife Aficionados that enjoy Cold Steel products, but business is business. That said, I am disturbed by the statement from Mr. Thompson stating that 4034 was "very high quality" steel. I consider that statement deceptive.

Worst case for the Cold Steel fans here, there are plenty of other Knife Companies out there offering some really cool stuff. I just got a new Blackjack knife in A2 and it is everything you could possibly want in a weapon of that size. The fit and finish are flawless, the sheath is quality leather, and it's made in the USA. It's the kind of knife I wish that Cold Steel still made, but I fear that those days are past.

 

[Smiling]

Worst case for the Cold Steel fans here, there are plenty of other Knife Companies out there offering some really cool stuff.

True, we're not obligated to buy Cold Steel, they did offer us some good designs and very good knives for the price, but nothing lasts forever, and since these days are now gone, I'll cherish my old Cold Steel knives and memories on what Cold Steel used to be, but I'll have no option but to move on to different manufacturers if I need a knife in the future considering the path Cold Steel has taken now.

 

[Man with no name]

O-1 Tool Steel. Do it for the children!

 

[Chris_Texas]

True, we're not obligated to buy Cold Steel, they did offer us some good designs and very good knives for the price, but nothing lasts forever, and since these days are now gone, I'll cherish my old Cold Steel knives and memories on what Cold Steel used to be, but I'll have no option but to move on to different manufacturers if I need a knife in the future considering the path Cold Steel has taken now.

Well said. If I planned on reselling my Cold Steel knives I might be angrier, but I don't care about that. If they want to be the Harbor Freight of knife companies that's their decision. I damn sure am not interested in collecting flea market knives, no matter what name is on the box.

 

[goldie]

As long as i have my Trailmaster in carbon v and san mai. my Recon Scout in carbon v and 01,ill be ok, but it wouldve been nice to add and have them in A2 as well. Hopefully they come out with new stuff that isnt marketed for the fishbowls in the gas stations. AD10 and 15 were great knives to put out hopefully others like an AD20 come out too.Still a customer just a little disappointed.

 

[Cold Steel Knives]

An Update From Lynn Thompson

Dear valued customer,

Thank you for all of your comments and concerns. I truly love my customers and your suggestions and criticisms are always taken into consideration.

I bought two different batches of A-2 steel overseas to evaluate for use in our big Bowie knives, Tantos and Kukris after getting good results with knives made out of American A-2 steel. After making a bunch of samples with multiple heat treatment “recipes' ', I couldn’t duplicate the performance I obtained from my A-2 knives made in our shop in Pennsylvania. Finally, after a lot of time and expense, we tracked down the problem and it turned out that my foreign purchased A-2 steel was substantially inferior to America A-2 steel, and no matter how good my heat treatment was, I couldn’t compensate for the faults in the steel. Now let me interrupt you before you say, “why don’t you just use American made A-2 steel?”. The answer is that it’s just too expensive to use without affecting the price of the knives drastically. By the time I buy the steel, water jet cut it, surface grind it, mill the tang for the guard and ship it overseas, the cost was prohibitive in light of the suggested retail price I was trying to achieve.

Now let’s get back to the criticism of 4034 Stainless Steel. While we were testing A-2 steel and trying to make it perform up to our standard, we received a new delivery of our Outdoorsman Lite knife, which is made from 4mm thick 4034 Stainless Steel. As is our common practice, Andrew Demko was asked to test a number of them picked at random. The results were very good, so I asked Andrew to increase the severity of the test and go all the way to destruction.

Andrew and I were both surprised and truly impressed as the 4034 knives proved to be very strong, tough and compared favorably to knives made of CTS-XHP and S35VN. This led me to believe that we could replace the faulty A-2 steel with easily obtained 4034 Stainless Steel from Japan. Yes 4034 costs less than A-2 and is even more reasonably priced when compared to very expensive powdered steels like XHP and S35VN which take up to 9 months to obtain and are subject to price increases every three months!

Yes most powdered steels have greater edge retention than 4034 BUT for long blades, like Bowie Knives, Tantos and Kukris where strength, toughness, and sharpness are paramount, 4034 proved to be a viable choice.

I made the above choice based on my experience of breaking hundreds of blades and went with a steel that I believe has the lowest probability of failing when your life is on the line. I made the choice to go with a steel that’s readily available even in 8mm and 9mm thicknesses and can be reordered in only a few months. I went with a steel that can be very accurately ground, heat treated, and polished at a reasonable cost and could be sold to my customers at an affordable price.

Believe me it’s very hard to obtain any of your favorite powdered steels in those thicknesses. It’s even more difficult to find anyone who wants to grind and polish a fully hardened 9mm thick blade made of powdered stainless steel as they are very difficult to work with and can be hard on equipment which increases the cost even more.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am going to abandon premium steels. I absolutely love 3V as a steel and I hope to bring out three more knives made of this wonderful steel in the near future but they are going to be expensive. Not as much as if they were made of S35VN or XHP but still, they will not be cheap. Please continue to be patient with me as I have a number of super high performance, high edge retention knives and swords in the hopper. And don’t believe for one minute that Cold Steel is a “sell out” for using 4034. It’s a great steel whose strength, toughness, and impact resistance are sure to impress you in the days to come as I personally demonstrate what big knives properly made from 4034 can do.

I hope you all are well, I honestly appreciate your feedback and concern, and I hope you will give me the opportunity to prove to you that this is the right course of action.


Sincerely,

Lynn C. Thompson

 

[nephron]

An Update From Lynn Thompson

Dear valued customer,

Thank you for all of your comments and concerns. I truly love my customers and your suggestions and criticisms are always taken into consideration.

I bought two different batches of A-2 steel overseas to evaluate for use in our big Bowie knives, Tantos and Kukris after getting good results with knives made out of American A-2 steel. After making a bunch of samples with multiple heat treatment “recipes' ', I couldn’t duplicate the performance I obtained from my A-2 knives made in our shop in Pennsylvania. Finally, after a lot of time and expense, we tracked down the problem and it turned out that my foreign purchased A-2 steel was substantially inferior to America A-2 steel, and no matter how good my heat treatment was, I couldn’t compensate for the faults in the steel. Now let me interrupt you before you say, “why don’t you just use American made A-2 steel?”. The answer is that it’s just too expensive to use without affecting the price of the knives drastically. By the time I buy the steel, water jet cut it, surface grind it, mill the tang for the guard and ship it overseas, the cost was prohibitive in light of the suggested retail price I was trying to achieve.

Now let’s get back to the criticism of 4034 Stainless Steel. While we were testing A-2 steel and trying to make it perform up to our standard, we received a new delivery of our Outdoorsman Lite knife, which is made from 4mm thick 4034 Stainless Steel. As is our common practice, Andrew Demko was asked to test a number of them picked at random. The results were very good, so I asked Andrew to increase the severity of the test and go all the way to destruction.

Andrew and I were both surprised and truly impressed as the 4034 knives proved to be very strong, tough and compared favorably to knives made of CTS-XHP and S35VN. This led me to believe that we could replace the faulty A-2 steel with easily obtained 4034 Stainless Steel from Japan. Yes 4034 costs less than A-2 and is even more reasonably priced when compared to very expensive powdered steels like XHP and S35VN which take up to 9 months to obtain and are subject to price increases every three months!

Yes most powdered steels have greater edge retention than 4034 BUT for long blades, like Bowie Knives, Tantos and Kukris where strength, toughness, and sharpness are paramount, 4034 proved to be a viable choice.

I made the above choice based on my experience of breaking hundreds of blades and went with a steel that I believe has the lowest probability of failing when your life is on the line. I made the choice to go with a steel that’s readily available even in 8mm and 9mm thicknesses and can be reordered in only a few months. I went with a steel that can be very accurately ground, heat treated, and polished at a reasonable cost and could be sold to my customers at an affordable price.

Believe me it’s very hard to obtain any of your favorite powdered steels in those thicknesses. It’s even more difficult to find anyone who wants to grind and polish a fully hardened 9mm thick blade made of powdered stainless steel as they are very difficult to work with and can be hard on equipment which increases the cost even more.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am going to abandon premium steels. I absolutely love 3V as a steel and I hope to bring out three more knives made of this wonderful steel in the near future but they are going to be expensive. Not as much as if they were made of S35VN or XHP but still, they will not be cheap. Please continue to be patient with me as I have a number of super high performance, high edge retention knives and swords in the hopper. And don’t believe for one minute that Cold Steel is a “sell out” for using 4034. It’s a great steel whose strength, toughness, and impact resistance are sure to impress you in the days to come as I personally demonstrate what big knives properly made from 4034 can do.

I hope you all are well, I honestly appreciate your feedback and concern, and I hope you will give me the opportunity to prove to you that this is the right course of action.


Sincerely,

Lynn C. Thompson

Nice!

 

[jlauffer]

Thanks for the update. Was hoping the change to 4034 was just temporary to get out of a pinch, but doesn't appear to be the case. But I still don't get it. You had to know this wouldn't go over well, and you guys still use AUS 8A and now 10A too, so why not use one of those?

ETA: Regardless of how impressed you claim to be by 4034, it's going to be a very hard sell, which is why if you had to switch to stainless, AUS 8A or 10A would have made much more sense. People still wouldn't be too happy about it, especially those wanting carbon steel, but think either of those would be far more acceptable.

 

[Smiling]

Thanks for the update. Was hoping the change to 4034 was just temporary to get out of a pinch, but doesn't appear to be the case. But I still don't get it. You had to know this wouldn't go over well, and you guys still use AUS 8A and now 10A too, so why not use one of those?

Or why not SK-5 or 52100?
Nobody even mentioned XHP or S35VN for those knives.

I'm looking forwards to 3V knives, but I also see that Cold Steel is working at cost reduction. 4034 is cheaper to obtain and machine than SK-5 or 52100 I'd say.

About results - we'll wait and see. This is lowest end stainless for a reason.

 

[MolokaiRider]

Kudos to Lynn for taking the time to hear our grievances and thoughts on the steel choice and the reasoning behind it.

I don’t doubt how difficult it is to run a successful business, even more so during these trying times.

In this instance, selling 4034 to the folks here is a tough sell, as we have a keen interest and experiences in the details and performance expectations.

Personally I get a lot of joy and utility from many of Cold Steel products. However, in this case for these flagship large blades, 4034 is not the direction I was hoping for.

That said, once I get one in my hands and start putting it to use, I will hold my criticism.

If it performs like how many of us are suspect it will, these models are not gonna get a whole lot of positive praise.

 

[insta9ves]

Andrew and I were both surprised and truly impressed as the 4034 knives proved to be very strong, tough and compared favorably to knives made of CTS-XHP and S35VN

I find it hard to believe... unless we are strictly talking about toughness...... But if we are only testing toughness, i suggest 304SS or 301.

 

[insta9ves]

Believe me it’s very hard to obtain any of your favorite powdered steels in those thicknesses. It’s even more difficult to find anyone who wants to grind and polish a fully hardened 9mm thick blade made of powdered stainless steel as they are very difficult to work with and can be hard on equipment which increases the cost even more.

No one is asking for any powdered steels i believe. I think most of the people here are saying O1, A2, 1095, 1085, Carbon V etc. 3V is probably the only powdered steel suitable for this application IMO.
I don't like that Lynn is comparing 2 extreme end of the spectrum here and said that people are only asking for XHP and S35VN steel for these kinda bowie/kukri knives. This is a complete misrepresentation of what your customers are asking for.
Look at the past 10 pages of this thread, who, at any moment asked for XHP or S35VN to replace A2???
We aren't dumb enough to confused between folders and large fixed blade(maybe this is why Lynn keeps making large fixed sized folders???)

 

[insta9ves]

I made the above choice based on my experience of breaking hundreds of blades and went with a steel that I believe has the lowest probability of failing when your life is on the line. I made the choice to go with a steel that’s readily available even in 8mm and 9mm thicknesses and can be reordered in only a few months. I went with a steel that can be very accurately ground, heat treated, and polished at a reasonable cost and could be sold to my customers at an affordable price.

The only words in this paragraph that applies to 4034 are "reasonable cost" and "affordable price".

 

[jlauffer]

No one is asking for any powdered steels i believe. I think most of the people here are saying O1, A2, 1095, 1085, Carbon V etc. 3V is probably the only powdered steel suitable for this application IMO.
I don't like that Lynn is comparing 2 extremely end of the spectrum here that people are only asking for XHP and S35VN steel for these kinda bowie/kukri knives. This is a complete misrepresentation of what your customers are asking for.
Look at the past 10 pages of this thread, who, at any moment asked for XHP or S35VN to replace A2???
We aren't dumb enough to confused between folders and large fixed blade(maybe this is why Lynn keeps making large fixed sized folders???)

Probably not just responding to us here on BF...guessing they got plenty of backlash from everywhere, and maybe others mentioned those steels. But yeah, that doesn't address why they didn't simply stay with a good carbon steel.

 

[insta9ves]

Please continue to be patient with me as I have a number of super high performance, high edge retention knives and swords in the hopper.

Based on your description of 4034 steel's performance, i can only expect these "super high performance, high edge retention knives" to be made out of 4034.

 

[insta9ves]

Probably not just responding to us here on BF...guessing they got plenty of backlash from everywhere, and maybe others mentioned those steels. But yeah, that doesn't address why they didn't simply stay with a good carbon steel.

I'm not sure where else Cold Steel Knives posted about this. Not on Facebook, not on Instagram, not on Youtube where Cold Steel seems to only pay attention to. They've close their own forums, so BF is the only place this announcement happened.
I suspect they are testing the water here to see what kinda backlash they are getting before putting it out there.