Anybody use any 13C26? Sandvik steel

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godogs57

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Apr 16, 2004
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The guy (from Admiral steel I think...may be way wrong) was giving out samples of this blade steel at last year's Blade show...I got a piece about 14" or so and a spec sheet with instructions to give it a try. Well, I finally did and I was impressed in some ways and shaking my head in others.

It is a premium steel, stainless, with a super fine structure that gives "fantastic sharpness" and edge retention. Sounds great. I pretty much exclusively utilize CPM154CM now and the differences were apparent from the start.

Got my chunk of 13C26 and cut out my blade profiles and I swear I was cutting aluminum...it was that soft. Oh well....not too bad so far. Profiled and then ground and again thought "This is a cruel joke...this is aluminum!" Went on with it through heat treating and tempering wondering what I will get out of the deal. After the final temper I was surprised...I got a 61 on one blade and 60 1/2 on the other. Took it down to 600 grit and even at that hardness my Bader was eating the metal like it was, again, aluminum.....

We all know how a hardened blade feels on the grinder....you take off metal, but not much if any at all.....no so with the 13C26. My Bader would have ate that blade for lunch if I had let it!

On to the buffing wheel. I take my time on my blades making sure I get all the scratches out before moving on to the next finer grit....just like everyone else. Buffing the CPM154CM is a trip for me, as in invariably have a few scratches to buff out which is a royal pain. With the 13C26 it was zip-zap, less than two minutes per side and I was done. All was fine until I looked at one side of one blade....orange peel after buffing...damn! No where else was there any orange peel, just on that one side. The other three sides were beautiful.

I was just wondering if anybody had similar experiences with this steel....it tested 60 1/2 and 61 Rc, but seems soft as the dickens in every phase of the blade making process.

I have not made them up into finished knives yet, so I can't judge the sharpening and edge holding yet.

Just wondering....everyone have a great week.
 
Just finished grinding a few blades with it. Steel was .125 thick so I sent the blanks to Paul Bos for HT first.
Grinds pretty damn nice if you ask me. Have yet to set an edge on one but will give my findings when I do.
Robert
 
i have worked with a bunch....
it grinds really easy and finishes out nice and easy. from what i've seen the edge holding is pretty good too.

and from what i understand the main attraction to this steel is the fine grain and ability to sharpen to super fine edges, it was designed to be used for razors. and that's pretty demanding.

i was told that if you're looking for something a little more, try out the 19c27 it acts more like cpm154.

i have worked with it but only 1 blade, not sure if i even finished it. let us know how you like the 13 when you're done
 
The structure is extremely fine, the annealing is very well done, and the wear resistance is low compared to other stainless steels, it is a little higher than 52100 and O1, more in the A2 range, while most stainless steels we use have very high wear resistance. I've never seen the orange peel look in 13C26.
 
Thanks for the comments....interesting that the wear resistance is low.....will have to check it out after I finished these knives up.
 
I have some I picked up at blade last year also. Seems to grind really well. getting ready to send them out for HT. Guess I'll know more when they come back and i get some knives finished.
 
Larrin said:
The structure is extremely fine, the annealing is very well done, and the wear resistance is low compared to other stainless steels, it is a little higher than 52100 and O1, more in the A2 range, while most stainless steels we use have very high wear resistance. I've never seen the orange peel look in 13C26.
Click to expand...

Ummm, ???

Wear resistance is low, but is higher than 52100 and O1? Sounds kind of contradictory to me.
 
Take a look at the chemistry. All it has is 13 Cr and .70 C. It can't be very wear resistant.For a good blade steel look at 19C27 with 13.5 Cr and .95 C.
 
Godogs57

What heat treatment process did you use. I've seen varying suggestions. One of the things that concerns me about this steel is the soak time at temperature. It is very short with cautions about grain growth if is goes too long. Since most ovens take quite a while to "sneak up" those last few degrees, I worry about oversoaking.

Mete

I understand the limited alloying and why that would lead to suspicion - but if it hardens to RHC 60-61, shouldn't that suggest some wear resitance alone? I understand carbide formation enters into it as well, but the Cr isn't that far off 154CM which has good wear resistance.

:confused: Let me take a guess.... not enough carbon left to form Chromium carbides?

Thanks

Rob!
 
Danbo said:
Ummm, ???

Wear resistance is low, but is higher than 52100 and O1? Sounds kind of contradictory to me.
Click to expand...

It's lower than CPM154, 440C, and D2, but higher than 52100 and O1 is what I think Larrin meant.

13C26 is darn good stuff in a waifer-thin kitchen knife. So is 19C27.
 
Hardness is not all that good an indicator of wear resistance. 154CM has 2 % Mo which make s a substantial difference .The carbides of Mo, V, and W are the most wear resistant. If you tested 13C26, 154CM and S30V you'd see obvious differences ! Hardness measures the strength of the matrix more than wear resistance.
BTW it's no surprise that so many tool steels are Cr based ,they have better grindability !
For 13C26 HT - 1925 F 15 min, temper 400F.
 
Thanks Mete

I am beginning to understand a bit. In the past, we've correlated hardness and hard carbides with edge holding ability to some degree. (I know there's lots more, like geometry and carbide distribution) How do these characterisitics correlate with edge holding ability.

Simply put, the question is - Will 13C26 hold an edge - or just take a very nice edge which may not be durable?

Rob!
 
Danbo said:
Ummm, ???

Wear resistance is low, but is higher than 52100 and O1? Sounds kind of contradictory to me.
Click to expand...
52100 and O1 aren't very wear resistant. It's a common misconception spread by those that use the steels.

Rob!, how long it holds an edge depends on the application. Some knives benefit from steels with high wear resistance, and others benefit from a fine microstructure. In general, knives used for push cutting, knives with thin edges, people that take their knives to a high polish when sharpening, and knives that require high toughness such as choppers will hold an edge longer with high edge stability steels. Steels with thick edges and those doing primarily slicing with coarser sharpening will do better with high wear resistance, unless the tradeoff for difficulty in sharpening and the decrease in toughness becomes too much.

Edit: I should clarify when I say that O1 and 52100 have low wear resistance that's in comparison to the high wear resistance stainless steels, or high wear resistance tool steels such as CPM-M4 or D2.
 
Rob! said:
:eek: Aargh!!!! He added another term! I appreciate the input but that didn't clear up the question at all. :o

Rob!
Click to expand...
Steels with high edge stability are those with a very fine carbide size and usually a low volume of those carbides.
 
Edge decrease by:
* chipping
* wear
* rolling

answers to those problems are:
* chipping = toughness
* wear = wear resistance
* rolling =...edge stability

about 12C27, as an end user, I've add quite a few, several moras (58HRC) and a few others, and the main I've run into was edge rolling...
 
Rolling is prevented by hardness. Chipping can be caused by poor edge stability or toughness, though the two aren't always separate.
 
Could we please remove "edge stability" from the knifeknut lexicon? A stable edge on 19C27 will be thicker than a stable edge on 13C26, but it will still be stable.
 
I'm sorry Mr. Brogan, but I really feel quite differently..

Edge stability seems to me a decent shortcut way to talk about the effect of a few properties working in aggregate.
In much the same way that Charpy impact numbers may not be directly translative to knife blades, but are still useful, talking about relative edge stability could be a decent and handy way of describing the effect that a few different factors may have on the edgeholding properties of a steel / heat treat combination.

When you say that "A stable edge on 19C27 will be thicker than a stable edge on 13C26, but it will still be stable." is almost exactly why I like this idea. At the same thickness (equivilant geometry) 13C26 has a greater degree of edge stability. This seems to me a not insignificant bit of information.
 
You really have to separate the different edge characteristics.Though they are somewhat interrelated. Roll over depends on the strength [hardness] of the matrix [martensite] .Wear resistance depends on the strength of the matrix and especially the carbides. Chipping depends on the toughness of the matrix and the size and distribution of the carbides.
If we look at talonite the matrix is soft and roll over resistance is low but the carbides supply great wear resistance.
We benefit from powder metals and CPM because of finer and more evenly distributed carbides .Less chipping ,greater wear resistance.
Another factor is retained austenite which can significantly add toughness.
 
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