Are there differences between "Hi-Speed" steels?

70chevelless

70chevelless

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Dec 14, 2005
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Are there differences between "Hi-Speed" steels used by some production manufacturers?

I've seen different manufacturers use what they called "Hi-Speed" steels (and they are stamped as such) such as some older Gerbers, G.Sakai, and Benchmade's M2 steel. Are these all basically the same or are there differences between them?

Any insights or discussions about this?

Thanks!
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"High speed steel" is a bit nebulous .If you are talking about the M series of tool steels there are a bunch of them, and they should be specified as M2, M4 etc otherwise you're never sure what you get.
 
Gerber used chrome plated M2, G.Sakai uses SRS 15 ( IIRC). Vassili compares it to a souped up D2. Benchmade used M2 fairly soft at RC 60-62. Rockstead uses a Japanese HSS called "YXR7".

There are a whole bunch of different types of "high speed steels". "M"olybendum series, "T"ungsten, etc. High speed steels are simply steels designed to be used at higher working temps. This is called "red" hardness". How they give a steel that red hardness, how much wear resistance they need, how high temps it needs to withstand, and always cost determines which type steel is used. Some of these elements can really increase costs, and make heat treating and tempering cycles more involved and costly. The "M" series is probably the most common in knives.

If you're interested in different types of steels and their compositions this website has some easy info on different steels. http://www.sousacorp.com/ts-comp.htm Joe
 
Fortunately, I'm too old and slow to need high speed steel ;) Some of them do make nice knives, though.
 
I don't really need them either I suppose. It's not like my knife glows red from taking down boxes at a high rate of speed. I like the steels in this category though. Some of them can make pretty decent knife steels such as M2, M4 etc. Those Rocksteads are Evilly sharp too.

Mostly I'm just a regular Spyderco nut that collects irrelevant and inane bits of info to poke Sal with when asking for new sprint runs. Mete's the metallurgist.

Ball bearing steels aren't cutlery steels either per say but some of those make decent blades too. I.E. 52100, BG42 etc. Joe
 
Mete, mayhaps you can answer this one. I have a home made knife from the chicago area from the 50's that is stamped "griffin high speed steel" on the blade. It's saw steel but I know it's not M2, or L6.( I've had 5 M2 knives so far, and 3 L6) It's tempered to flex yet is very wear resistant. It doesn't rust like, or look anything like L6. It takes a wicked edge that you can feel the carbides almost as much as D2 when finished at 1200 grit on diamonds. It looks almost chromed( but isn't). Any guesses?

I tried B. Levine and he just said "It's an old saw blade". Thanks, Joe.
 
Even if you can't take down boxes fast enough to get the blade to glow, it's still nice to know that if you had to, your knife can take it!

I guess you can hardly blame them - I would call my knife "high speed" too, if I could get away with it.
 
Broos said:
Even if you can't take down boxes fast enough to get the blade to glow, it's still nice to know that if you had to, your knife can take it!

I guess you can hardly blame them - I would call my knife "high speed" too, if I could get away with it.
Click to expand...

The only "High Speed Steel" I know about is my old POS throwing knife.


*groan*
 
If you do have a knife of high speed steel, the issue of burning it or overheating it while sharpening on a sander or grinder is pretty much gone as long as it was tempered in the 1000 deg F range.
 
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