A2 Steel Update

Cold Steel Knives said:
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.
Click to expand...

Hope you are well too. Poor business decision aside, i still wish Cold Steel Knives Cold Steel Knives well and continue to be successful since you produced some of my most favorite folders, just haven't seen anything good in the past few years. Hope Demko is allowed to continue to innovate for Cold Steel and hope Cold Steel stop wasting Demko's design with poor execution.
 
Im glad a response was made.I guess its easy for us to say we want certain steels that might make the knife unaffordable. Id love to see the testing of the steel and the pricing when they come out. Im still skeptical about it,but it wont stop me from buying any new offerings from CS,they always do come out with something cool. Just was so shocked about 4034 when i first heard it was being used in the legendary Trailmaster,and Recon Scout. a knife ive had and used in various steels over the last 20 years.Maybe small runs in 3v or other steels can be done without investing heavy in a large quantity that might not sell.
 
Get ready for a new series of ultra high performance 4034 steel knives:
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swn_sw911b_first_knife__78926.1559444095.jpg

2062.jpg
 
Ill tell you one thing; if that A2 that was made overseas was inferior, imagine the D2 and the other steels made overseas that may be sub par,especially in the huge amounts they are cranking out; betchya alot of the D2 made overseas isnt like the D2 Doziers been using all these years....
 
Thompson:

WHY was this not done TWO YEARS AGO??
WHY are A2 steel knives still advertised on YOUR website??
With are you marketing advertising and promoting products
you have NO INTENTION of releasing? these and others in the past.
Why do we go to your website and most models are unavailable?
Why are sk5 srk and recon 1 models available from distributors for $34
and trailmasters in sk5 were around $100???
Why are your "sales" merely discounts and I can still buy ALL "sales" items from YOUR distributors
at lower prices?
why have in the many years have you never addressed complaints of your sheaths?
Why in the many years of no to poor customer service has that NEVER been addressed?

Yes sir I do understand you own and market your company as you will.
Please understand I own my funds and determine where that goes.


I took time earlier this week to search for trailmasters from distributors. Granted MOST companies that answered the telephone or responded to emails are employees who are paid to do so. SOME were owners of companies relying on the knife business for their income and those I spoke to or responded by email did not have any trailmasters in stock AND HAD NO IDEA A2 MODELS HAVE BEEN CANCELED.
So you finally get around to telling consumers yet you still have not told your own distributors yet??
THAT one issue of incompetence alone is worth me saying adios

NO I never found a trailmaster other than san mais and not one company knew the A2 discontinued
and some even said they were expecting them in anyday now
 
Cold Steel Knives said:
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
Click to expand...

I appreciate your detailed response. I would rather have a tool steel like O1 or A2, but I will hold judgement in suspense until production. 4034 is similar to the 420HC that Buck uses for their big Frontiersman, and that knife performs well in independent testing. So, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. However, I will definitely be more pleasantly surprised if you tell us that you have decided to use a carbon steel instead. If A2 and O1 have become difficult to procure overseas, then I would rather have 1095 or SK5.

I look forward to seeing the other knives you mentioned that will be offered in 3V. They should be interesting.
 
Cold Steel Knives said:
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...

EDIT FOR LENGTH BY CHRIS
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to address the concerns and criticisms posted here. If nothing else, you offer some insight into the business issues you guys are forced to deal with. But....

I don't think this update will be the fire suppression you hope for. You make (or made) most of all of these flagship knives in two version -- a San Mai stainless (which I suspect most purchase for collecting and display) and a high carbon version for heavy field use. This has been the pattern for a long time. With the move to 4034, we will now have a high grade San Mai stainless for collectors, a low grade stainless for Walmart, and...that's it. These flagship knives will have ZERO collector value or cool factor. If you price them the way you and everyone else prices 4034, a Trailmaster in this metal should list for maybe forty or fifty bucks.

Whatever your tests might show, convincing anyone that 4034 is anything other than sub-budget metal is gonna be basically impossible. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT IS.

I'm sure this was a difficult decision. Thanks again for the update.
 
Oh well cant win em all ive had a week to drink this in, im over it now,i have my proven Carbon V trailmaster, and they always pop up on auction if i need another..........
 
Cold Steel Knives said:
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.

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.

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.

Sincerely,

Lynn C. Thompson
Click to expand...

So after reading between the lines, it looks like all of us correctly guessed the reasons for 4034: basically, the issues of availability, toughness, ease of machining, ease of heat treat, cost, selling price point. These issues still do not explain how it is possible to choose a pot metal steel to make large bowie knives like the recon scout, trailmaster, laredo & natchez. Is he saying that it was not possible to choose a simple carbon steel like 1075, 1085? Where does a company like Condor get its 1075 steel? Any of these carbon steels would be greatly preferable to pot metal stainless. I understand that business is difficult, but it really strains credibility to say that CS had to use a pot metal stainless over simple carbon steels.

On the other hand, I do like that Lynn explained some of the details of the problems with the A2. They had problems with "substantially inferior" foreign made A2, whereas the American A2 they tested got "good results". I wonder where that foreign A2 came from, anyone care to guess? And substantially inferior probably means that the steel had impurities that made it perform poorly in impact tests. All good to know, and it confirms what most of us already knew or guessed about certain foreign production quality. The question is why CS bothered to take a chance ordering steel from said foreign producers.

About the only good thing I can say about this is that the 4034 will apparently come from Japan. Which is known for much higher quality than some other countries. But it won't be enough to make me buy any large knife made out of 4034.
 
Lynn is a very good speaker, businessman and salesman.

At reading his text you at first understand, almost get warm at some of the words... but then yoi realize some things.
1. Nobody mentioned S35VN or XHP for those blades. He still didn't give answers of why not SK-5 or 52100 that he's already using? He completley avoided answering that question.
2. Sheath issues. They never either acknowledged them, addressed them or did anything for that matter. They know that there are some major issues but they keep ignoring it.
3. We all guessed it saves costs machining, we all know that Cold Steel does does want some extra saves. They also know we won't buy this so why didn't they say who's target audience of this?

And last - They say that it's very tough which I believe this time, since yes, MILD STEEL IS TOUGH TOO. At only 0.4-0.6% carbon there won't be much carbides, but Chromium isn't known as something that improvess toughness so they'll have to leave it very soft. Edge retention will obviously suffer.

Your profit is what you see, main question was avoided, complaints ignored and all we got is excuse on why is lowest end stainless steel used instead of decent carbon steel.

Tell me Lynn, why not 52100 or SK-5? Why are multiple threads about secure-ex sheath issues ignored? I'm your customer, someone who gave his money to your company, to you. And now you are ignoring me?

4034 is lowest end of low end, cheapest steel there is and good knife companies use it for liners while S&W, Mtech and the likes use them for blades. And there is a reason for that. Well heat treated SK-5 would outperform well heat treated 4034.

Cold Steel used to be first place where I'd look for knives, but all this makes me never want to buy Cold Steel product again and considering all other manufacturers out there, I don't have.

I'll pay more for a knife, but it'll be made out of decent steel and I won't have to go around looking for sheath alternatives since other brands offer materials like kydex or leather, so I get what I pay for.
 
Cold Steel Knives said:
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
Click to expand...
:) Thanks for this further update !

This doesn't truly "turn my frown upside down " , but at least we have a response . ;)

I have "hard used" both my Trail Master and Gurkha Kurkri Plus in O-1 and am well satisfied with their performance . :cool::thumbsup::thumbsup:

It's difficult to believe that 4034 stainless can match even O-1 , but I can afford to wait and see .

I'll be looking for independent consumer test results/reviews of your new big choppers in 4034 .

I very much hope they will be great hard working knives worthy of Cold Steel , and not merely shiny wall hangers . :(
 
Cold Steel Knives said:
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
Click to expand...

Horsehockey. :thumbsdown:

Best of luck on your liner material knives. You had ample viable alternatives to choose from, and you screwed the pooch.

Sincerely,

A former customer
 
Smiling said:
Lynn is a very good speaker, businessman and salesman.

At reading his text you at first understand, almost get warm at some of the words... but then yoi realize some things.
1. Nobody mentioned S35VN or XHP for those blades. He still didn't give answers of why not SK-5 or 52100 that he's already using? He completley avoided answering that question.
2. Sheath issues. They never either acknowledged them, addressed them or did anything for that matter. They know that there are some major issues but they keep ignoring it.
3. We all guessed it saves costs machining, we all know that Cold Steel does does want some extra saves. They also know we won't buy this so why didn't they say who's target audience of this?

And last - They say that it's very tough which I believe this time, since yes, MILD STEEL IS TOUGH TOO. At only 0.4-0.6% carbon there won't be much carbides, but Chromium isn't known as something that improvess toughness so they'll have to leave it very soft. Edge retention will obviously suffer.

Your profit is what you see, main question was avoided, complaints ignored and all we got is excuse on why is lowest end stainless steel used instead of decent carbon steel.

Tell me Lynn, why not 52100 or SK-5? Why are multiple threads about secure-ex sheath issues ignored? I'm your customer, someone who gave his money to your company, to you. And now you are ignoring me?

4034 is lowest end of low end, cheapest steel there is and good knife companies use it for liners while S&W, Mtech and the likes use them for blades. And there is a reason for that. Well heat treated SK-5 would outperform well heat treated 4034.

Cold Steel used to be first place where I'd look for knives, but all this makes me never want to buy Cold Steel product again and considering all other manufacturers out there, I don't have.

I'll pay more for a knife, but it'll be made out of decent steel and I won't have to go around looking for sheath alternatives since other brands offer materials like kydex or leather, so I get what I pay for.
Click to expand...
100% agreed with you, Smiling. If it’s possible to procure SK5 for the SRKs and Recon Tantos and 52100 for the drop forged series, it goes to show 4034SS really is just a cost-saving measure. Or are we ditching those steels as well? Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s not a direction I agree with.

Not bringing up the Secure-ex sheaths probably means it’s not high on the improvement priority list, if it’s even on the list.

I still want to see what’s in the 2021 lineup though. Maybe we’re in for a good surprise.
 
DangerZone98 said:
100% agreed with you, Smiling. If it’s possible to procure SK5 for the SRKs and Recon Tantos and 52100 for the drop forged series, it goes to show 4034SS really is just a cost-saving measure. Or are we ditching those steels as well? Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s not a direction I agree with.

Not bringing up the Secure-ex sheaths probably means it’s not high on the improvement priority list, if it’s even on the list.

I still want to see what’s in the 2021 lineup though. Maybe we’re in for a good surprise.
Click to expand...

probably more axes, swords and polearm in 2021
 
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