Are you over Super Steels?

[Big Chris]

Why make 3V thick as crap? Shouldn't a steel like that be taken thinner while a weaker, more brittle steel like S110V be made thicker? That's just common sense and youre doing it while others are doing the exact opposite.

3V is probably my all time favorite steel. If I had to choose only one steel to work with it would be 3V. I have told a lot of people and customers this and it still holds true today. I have yet to find one single steel that performs so well in any application as 3V. Heat treated across the board any blade size or style to 60-61 Rc; the only thing I, as a maker, would want to vary would be the edge thickness before sharpening. I can alter that previous statement to say "optimum performance for the knife would be to adjust the edge thickness for intended tasks". I have all the confidence in 3V that every knife could be ground to .020" and it would perform for any task asked without failure. Performance would be very good for a chopper but very poor for a parer. Remember that .020" is roughly what most production folders are delivered as. Leave that chopper at .020" it will survive. Make that parer a zero edge. Make the hunter .008", it can take hitting bone. Make a chef knife .004", it will last a lifetime. Make your camp knife .015", go split some wood. Why does 3V and 4V work this way? It is in their chemistry. They were designed to be tough, hold and edge, and be malleable. As a maker I can vary aspects of the heat treat to give benefits to edge holding or toughness, but it is almost the perfect steel from the beginning.

What I want to know is where you get the idea that S110V is brittle. Have you used an S110V knife, or even a 10V?
I do not go out and cut nails or chop concrete blocks, but I have cut the sidewall out of tires before and I have cut PVC pipe. I have whittled, chopped, and split wood with S110V and 10V and they are not brittle. Are you just repeating lines you read from someone else? For example, 10V at 60 is tougher than D2 at 60. I know that I am losing some of that toughness taking the hardness to 64, but not to the extremes of calling it brittle. If these steels are as brittle as I constantly read I should be left with a pile of steel crumbs after an outing, or my chef knife should look like a crosscut saw after dinner prep. Neither of these is happening to my knives. Perhaps I am not using them hard enough. I grind them thin and I use them to cut, which is what a knife is intended to do and they cut very efficiently.

3V and 4V are very TOUGH steels. S110V and 10V are very hard steels that hold their edges for a long time, but that in no way makes them brittle.

I do understand that these steels are not for everyone, and really not needed for performing cutting chores. That $3 folder from the bargain bin at the flea market will get the job done, but I for one love my menagerie of steels that I am able to pick from.

 

[waterstoneblades]

Oh, absolutely, no question. Some of these guys think 3V class steels are only for thick prybar type knives. Since you do the opposite, I'm wondering if you'd tell us why. Like I said before, I think what you're doing is spot on. The only reason I posted tests of cutting concrete, nails, and cans is because the makers want others to know their knives can do it, just like nathan carothers (nathan the machinist), because of special steels or heat treat regimens. Personally I think steels like 4V, 3V, etc are where it's at because, exactly like what youre doing, they can be taken thin enough to be exceptional cutters without needing to worry about chips and dings taking large parts of the edge out. Other people think differently. Let them. You know better because you've seen better and that's why you take these steels and grind them thin as all get out. I see it and know why and agree. It's not the popular thing right now. That'll change when certain hyped fads are over. I believe your knives, among several others, will be what changes things.

Why make 3V thick as crap? Shouldn't a steel like that be taken thinner while a weaker, more brittle steel like S110V be made thicker? That's just common sense and youre doing it while others are doing the exact opposite.

High carbide steel ground thin have there place as well. I have a S110V hunting blade @63 rc and .005" edge shoulders. To field dress a wet dirty elk in the rain, that would be the one. A Z-wear/PD1/cru-wear blade would be able to take more abuse at the same geometry at the cost of corrosion resistance and edge holding. Again, it comes down to what the knife is to be used for and your priorities.

 

[JR88FAN]

For Pete's sake, as Morrow already explained... let's discuss the topic, not each other or other enthusiasts.

This thread is not going to end well if this continues.

I think we are discussing the topic.

When a thread gets to 200+ posts it tends to evolve, and if we are discussing 'Super Steels' I think it's important to point out that there is a real lack of real world testing on many of these steels, and way too much "Metallurgical" blab, that while interesting to some, really helps very few people form any kind of real tangible opinion....

If that is not relevant in this thread, then my apologies....

 

[CapitalizedLiving]

Thank you Big Chris, I appreciate your comments. As a non-user of super steels I can appreciate makers like you and Phil Wilson who use them purposely.

Here is a similarly intelligent post from Hunter Martin on steels and geometries. Sorry all, but I have to steal from other threads to compensate...

"I think stainless super steels like M390, ELMAX, S35Vn CTS XHP etc... definetly have a place in bush craft. In my personal experience these steels are not significantly harder to sharpen than traditional steels like 1095. As long as you have thin edge geometry, even CPM 10V is pretty easy to sharpen with a good stone. If you have a thick edge and a big bevel then a super steel can be more difficult to sharpen but a thick edge defeats the very purpose of using these steels.

Something else to keep in mind. If all you are doing is push cutting wood, it doesn't matter whether you are using a high wear steel like M390 or a standard carbon steel like 52100. In my experience, when push cutting wood, the primary mechanism for loss of sharpness is chipping or rolling and not wear. Carbide content isn't very important in this type of work compared to strength, toughness, and edge geometry.

With this said, stainlessness is always a great attribute and higher carbide content will make your knife cut more aggressively and hold an edge longer if you do work like skinning and game processing, or abrasive material slicing. I like a knife that can cover alot of bases so I tend to go with high alloy steels. Stuff like 1095 or 12c27 makes a solid bushcrafting blade, but they are not going to excel at game processing or slicing like M390 will."

 

[JR88FAN]

3V is probably my all time favorite steel. If I had to choose only one steel to work with it would be 3V. I have told a lot of people and customers this and it still holds true today. I have yet to find one single steel that performs so well in any application as 3V. Heat treated across the board any blade size or style to 60-61 Rc; the only thing I, as a maker, would want to vary would be the edge thickness before sharpening. I can alter that previous statement to say "optimum performance for the knife would be to adjust the edge thickness for intended tasks". I have all the confidence in 3V that every knife could be ground to .020" and it would perform for any task asked without failure. Performance would be very good for a chopper but very poor for a parer. Remember that .020" is roughly what most production folders are delivered as. Leave that chopper at .020" it will survive. Make that parer a zero edge. Make the hunter .008", it can take hitting bone. Make a chef knife .004", it will last a lifetime. Make your camp knife .015", go split some wood. Why does 3V and 4V work this way? It is in their chemistry. They were designed to be tough, hold and edge, and be malleable. As a maker I can vary aspects of the heat treat to give benefits to edge holding or toughness, but it is almost the perfect steel from the beginning.

What I want to know is where you get the idea that S110V is brittle. Have you used an S110V knife, or even a 10V?
I do not go out and cut nails or chop concrete blocks, but I have cut the sidewall out of tires before and I have cut PVC pipe. I have whittled, chopped, and split wood with S110V and 10V and they are not brittle. Are you just repeating lines you read from someone else? For example, 10V at 60 is tougher than D2 at 60. I know that I am losing some of that toughness taking the hardness to 64, but not to the extremes of calling it brittle. If these steels are as brittle as I constantly read I should be left with a pile of steel crumbs after an outing, or my chef knife should look like a crosscut saw after dinner prep. Neither of these is happening to my knives. Perhaps I am not using them hard enough. I grind them thin and I use them to cut, which is what a knife is intended to do and they cut very efficiently.

3V and 4V are very TOUGH steels. S110V and 10V are very hard steels that hold their edges for a long time, but that in no way makes them brittle.

I do understand that these steels are not for everyone, and really not needed for performing cutting chores. That $3 folder from the bargain bin at the flea market will get the job done, but I for one love my menagerie of steels that I am able to pick from.

Thanks for this Chris....

This is something that I have wondered about for a long time, and that post really puts it into perspective...
Also answers questions that I had.

As a huge and long time fan of 3V (Why can't every knife be 3V) I am about to start using 20CV, and this is really really helpful in terms of how things really work.

 

[Ankerson]

What I want to know is where you get the idea that S110V is brittle. Have you used an S110V knife, or even a 10V?
I do not go out and cut nails or chop concrete blocks, but I have cut the sidewall out of tires before and I have cut PVC pipe. I have whittled, chopped, and split wood with S110V and 10V and they are not brittle. Are you just repeating lines you read from someone else? For example, 10V at 60 is tougher than D2 at 60. I know that I am losing some of that toughness taking the hardness to 64, but not to the extremes of calling it brittle. If these steels are as brittle as I constantly read I should be left with a pile of steel crumbs after an outing, or my chef knife should look like a crosscut saw after dinner prep. Neither of these is happening to my knives. Perhaps I am not using them hard enough. I grind them thin and I use them to cut, which is what a knife is intended to do and they cut very efficiently.

3V and 4V are very TOUGH steels. S110V and 10V are very hard steels that hold their edges for a long time, but that in no way makes them brittle.

I do understand that these steels are not for everyone, and really not needed for performing cutting chores. That $3 folder from the bargain bin at the flea market will get the job done, but I for one love my menagerie of steels that I am able to pick from.

Hey Chris,

I was cutting some marshmallows and Jello today and my HCV knife just exploded in my hand...

I couldn't believe it, had metal flying all over the place.

J/K LOL


Listen to some people and that's basically what they want people to believe due to various reasons...

Getting serious no those steels aren't brittle at all and they as you found out can take some serious work without falling apart.

As you said they aren't 3V or 4V, but they really aren't that far behind either for practical purposes.

Haven't had the need to chop cedar blocks with a knife, I have cold chisels for that sort of work and side cutters for cutting nails if need be.

 

[Skywalker31]

Any nice 3v folders you guys can recommend? No not the Tuff, something more conventional.

Strider has made SNGs in 3V, PD1 and Z-WEAR. (PD1 and Z-WEAR are similar but not identical to 3V - http://zknives.com/knives/steels/steelgraph.php?nm=cpm 3v,Z-Wear,PD1&ni=,2542,3234&hrn=1&gm=0)

I know Olamic has made some Wayfarers in 3V.

 

[Ankerson]

Not to derail this thread anymore than it sort off has been, but what's with Cliffstamp?

If someone can explain it to me, that would be great, as that forum and it's leader are on the cutting edge of knife steel snobbery....

They know so much about tool steels from a 'scientific' view, that it seems to me that they've lost any ability to use that knowlede for practical purposes...

Questions are answered with more questions, and it never ends. You would think at some point, all that data could be put to some practical use, instead of just adding more irrelevant data to the pile.

Sometimes people get so smart that they become stupid.

Jim, I know you're a part of that group, but the difference to me is that in your work, which I refer to a lot, you do a repeated test with steel.
It's a simple test. It shows edge retention in a real world application, and that is useful and easy to understand for everyone.

Maybe instead of all this discussion about Steel X does Y at Z, but only if conditions 1,2, and 3 are blah...some more 'real world testing' like Jim does would help us understand the basic characteristics of these steels.

Before someone goes crazy, I realize that there will always be a million variables, but, it's more important to do tests like Jim's, then sit around and argue about those 'million variables' like Cliffstamp.

I would love to see Jim take a nail, drive it into a 2X4, and as he cuts away at the wood, hit that nail with the edge....yup, I can list all the variables that would effect this tests "purity" however, it would give us a really useful reference for how a steel reacts to something that happens often in the real world....

Thanks.

I just don't do destructive type testing anymore, just don't see the point in it unless a knife maker sends me a test knife and wants me to push it to see how much it can really take before failing. Thankfully most of the makers actually do that for themselves so I don't have to. Some of the knives I test are VERY EXPENSIVE so I have no intention of breaking them.

I am all about performance. :thumbup:

Now if a knife sucks the maker will get a call from me and we will talk about it, that's just how it works.

We will talk about how it can be improved to do better next time or at least I will get them going in the right direction.

With all of the testing I have done over the years I have a good idea of what things should be able to do and not do so I tend to push things right to the edge, as hard as I need to without going too far.

 

[Nathan the Machinist]

Oh, absolutely, no question. Some of these guys think 3V class steels are only for thick prybar type knives. Since you do the opposite, I'm wondering if you'd tell us why. Like I said before, I think what you're doing is spot on. The only reason I posted tests of cutting concrete, nails, and cans is because the makers want others to know their knives can do it, just like nathan carothers (nathan the machinist), because of special steels or heat treat regimens. Personally I think steels like 4V, 3V, etc are where it's at because, exactly like what youre doing, they can be taken thin enough to be exceptional cutters without needing to worry about chips and dings taking large parts of the edge out. Other people think differently. Let them. You know better because you've seen better and that's why you take these steels and grind them thin as all get out. I see it and know why and agree. It's not the popular thing right now. That'll change when certain hyped fads are over. I believe your knives, among several others, will be what changes things.

Why make 3V thick as crap? Shouldn't a steel like that be taken thinner while a weaker, more brittle steel like S110V be made thicker? That's just common sense and youre doing it while others are doing the exact opposite.

I'd like to go on record:

The ability to cut through a nail or concrete is generally not a hallmark of a good knife. A good pickaxe perhaps...

I heat treat 3V differently than the industry standard. The relatively uniform thickness and absence of the need to minimize dimensional changes like you would in a stamping die give us free reign to do things that industry normally wouldn't. And the needs of a fine edge are different than those of a stamping die. So I tweaked it for edge stability based upon tweaks developed years ago for D2.

I'm not demonstrating that my heat treat is better because it can cut through a cinder block without breaking. Any piece of 3V (and other tough steels) will do that, it's not rocket science. The purpose of those videos is to show my 3V can cut through a cinder block despite my heat treat tweaks. I'm not trying to make 3V tougher, I'm trying to improve it's edge retention and edge stability because it's a lath martensite and it tends to be a little smushy. The purpose of the videos is to demonstrate that despite the modifications, the 3V is still durable. I figure if I'm going to do something a little wonky I need to show that it still works.

I generally run rough use 3V .015-.020 and 18-20 DPS and thinner 3V .015 or less and 15 DPS.

edit:
Good 3V can cut a 16D nail while at HRC 60, taken down to .015 and sharpened 20 DPS with practically no edge damage at all. It's the "no edge damage" part that is significant and worth pursuing.

 

[Stays Sharp]

Strider has made SNGs in 3V, PD1 and Z-WEAR. (PD1 and Z-WEAR are similar but not identical to 3V - http://zknives.com/knives/steels/steelgraph.php?nm=cpm 3v,Z-Wear,PD1&ni=,2542,3234&hrn=1&gm=0)

I know Olamic has made some Wayfarers in 3V.

Daniel Winkler makes one, haven't seen any real performance reviews.

Thanks. Sounds like for now my easiest route to sample 3V in a folder is the disco'd Spyderco Tuff after all then.

 

[waterstoneblades]

I'd like to go on record:

The ability to cut through a nail or concrete is generally not a hallmark of a good knife. A good pickaxe perhaps...

I heat treat 3V differently than the industry standard. The relatively uniform thickness and absence of the need to minimize dimensional changes like you would in a stamping die give us free reign to do things that industry normally wouldn't. And the needs of a fine edge are different than those of a stamping die. So I tweaked it for edge stability based upon tweaks developed years ago for D2.

I'm not demonstrating that my heat treat is better because it can cut through a cinder block without breaking. Any piece of 3V (and other tough steels) will do that, it's not rocket science. The purpose of those videos is to show my 3V can cut through a cinder block despite my heat treat tweaks. I'm not trying to make 3V tougher, I'm trying to improve it's edge retention and edge stability because it's a lath martensite and it tends to be a little smushy. The purpose of the videos is to demonstrate that despite the modifications, the 3V is still durable. I figure if I'm going to do something a little wonky I need to show that it still works.

I generally run rough use 3V .015-.020 and 18-20 DPS and thinner 3V .015 or less and 15 DPS.

edit:
Good 3V can cut a 16D nail while at HRC 60, taken down to .015 and sharpened 20 DPS with practically no edge damage at all. It's the "no edge damage" part that is significant and worth pursuing.

Looks like I messed things up on that quote to bodog. bodog' s write up has my name on it.

 

[bodog]

The ability to cut through a nail or concrete is generally not a hallmark of a good knife...

I'm not demonstrating that my heat treat is better because it can cut through a cinder block without breaking. Any piece of 3V (and other tough steels) can...
edit:
Good 3V can cut a 16D nail while at HRC 60, taken down to .015 and sharpened 20 DPS with practically no edge damage at all. It's the "no edge damage" part that is significant and worth pursuing.

Agreed

 

[bodog]

3V is probably my all time favorite steel. If I had to choose only one steel to work with it would be 3V. I have told a lot of people and customers this and it still holds true today. I have yet to find one single steel that performs so well in any application as 3V. Heat treated across the board any blade size or style to 60-61 Rc; the only thing I, as a maker, would want to vary would be the edge thickness before sharpening. I can alter that previous statement to say "optimum performance for the knife would be to adjust the edge thickness for intended tasks". I have all the confidence in 3V that every knife could be ground to .020" and it would perform for any task asked without failure. Performance would be very good for a chopper but very poor for a parer. Remember that .020" is roughly what most production folders are delivered as. Leave that chopper at .020" it will survive. Make that parer a zero edge. Make the hunter .008", it can take hitting bone. Make a chef knife .004", it will last a lifetime. Make your camp knife .015", go split some wood. Why does 3V and 4V work this way? It is in their chemistry. They were designed to be tough, hold and edge, and be malleable. As a maker I can vary aspects of the heat treat to give benefits to edge holding or toughness, but it is almost the perfect steel from the beginning.

What I want to know is where you get the idea that S110V is brittle. Have you used an S110V knife, or even a 10V?
I do not go out and cut nails or chop concrete blocks, but I have cut the sidewall out of tires before and I have cut PVC pipe. I have whittled, chopped, and split wood with S110V and 10V and they are not brittle. Are you just repeating lines you read from someone else? For example, 10V at 60 is tougher than D2 at 60. I know that I am losing some of that toughness taking the hardness to 64, but not to the extremes of calling it brittle. If these steels are as brittle as I constantly read I should be left with a pile of steel crumbs after an outing, or my chef knife should look like a crosscut saw after dinner prep. Neither of these is happening to my knives. Perhaps I am not using them hard enough. I grind them thin and I use them to cut, which is what a knife is intended to do and they cut very efficiently.

3V and 4V are very TOUGH steels. S110V and 10V are very hard steels that hold their edges for a long time, but that in no way makes them brittle.

I do understand that these steels are not for everyone, and really not needed for performing cutting chores. That $3 folder from the bargain bin at the flea market will get the job done, but I for one love my menagerie of steels that I am able to pick from.

I've used S110V, only one knife. It chipped like crazy even after getting past the manufacturer's edge. Since its performance matched other steels I've used in the same class made by the same steel producer it's not unreasonable or illogical to assign similar values to that class. If you're taking more care to ensure those classes of steels are heat treated better, then you're the reason people should look at independent knife makers. Bravo, sir, if you can make S110V have great edge retention rather than just having high wear resistance.

I have not used 10V. It could be great. I've not used any steels in that class so I don't make any comments about it.

 

[bodog]

Thanks.

I just don't do destructive type testing anymore, just don't see the point in it unless a knife maker sends me a test knife and wants me to push it to see how much it can really take before failing. Thankfully most of the makers actually do that for themselves so I don't have to. Some of the knives I test are VERY EXPENSIVE so I have no intention of breaking them.

I am all about performance. :thumbup:

Now if a knife sucks the maker will get a call from me and we will talk about it, that's just how it works.

We will talk about how it can be improved to do better next time or at least I will get them going in the right direction.

With all of the testing I have done over the years I have a good idea of what things should be able to do and not do so I tend to push things right to the edge, as hard as I need to without going too far.

As you can see, I don't do destructive tests either. None of the knives I've tested have been destroyed. The edges have been tested in media that's different than cardboard or rope and I've tested to see how much the edge chips or rolls when hitting against things people might encounter in real life with the knife I'm testing. I wouldn't smack a Phil Wilson knife into a chunk of asphalt, I don't know anyone who'd use a Phil Wilson blade like that. A Daniel Winkler knife, otoh, would get tested it that way. I don't believe that to be unreasonable. Let's say only navy seals bought DW knives. Wouldnt it be reasonable to assume that a seal could be trying to get his knife out of the sheath while on the move and accidentally drop it tip first onto the road he's running on? Or let's say a cop is carrying that knife and comes across a kid locked in a car and needs to either jimmy the door open or break the glass or whatever. DW claims his knives or for stuff like that so yeah, they should be tested like that.

A hunter isn't going to drop his knife onto some road and a fisherman isnt going to need to pry apart some window sill so those tests would be completely out of place for Phil Wilson's knives. Maybe some light hits against an animal bone, but I'd think more scraping and more cutting into soft abrasive media like how you test most of your knives would be appropriate.

 

[bodog]

Take a knife that was built for a certain purpose and push it past what'd be normal in the line of use the knife was built for. If it can handle the unreasonable and kind of silly stuff it can easily handle the abnormal stuff encountered. No hunter is going to make 5,000 cuts into hog's hides in a season. If it can make 5,000 cuts into cardboard then you have a great skinning knife. See what I'm getting at? If I have a rough, all purpose knife then pushing it into abnormal rough use while showing the knife doesn't break, bend, or otherwise fail, while the edge is still usable after all the abnormal testing, then you have a great all purpose user knife. That's what I showed in my testing while you showed your knives make great skinners. Both are valid for the types of knives primarily tested. The tests I've shown are valid for the knives I need while your tests are not and vice versa. My tests would be invalid for the knives you need. I do find it kind of funny that you think the knives and steels that serve you well would serve everyone else and their needs just ad well and when they show they don't you try to find some way to discredit what they're saying.

 

[Big Chris]

I've used S110V, only one knife. It chipped like crazy even after getting past the manufacturer's edge. Since its performance matched other steels I've used in the same class made by the same steel producer it's not unreasonable or illogical to assign similar values to that class. If you're taking more care to ensure those classes of steels are heat treated better, then you're the reason people should look at independent knife makers. Bravo, sir, if you can make S110V have great edge retention rather than just having high wear resistance.

I have not used 10V. It could be great. I've not used any steels in that class so I don't make any comments about it.

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for. You have a poor experience with a steel in one knife from one manufacturer and claim that all knives from that steel are worthless.
What other steel have you used in the same class as S110V? It is pretty much in a class all its own in both composition and performance.
10V is very close to S110V but you also state that you have not used it nor any others in the A11 class of steels.

I have used S110V in knives that I have made and in 2 different production folders. The production folders with a low RC heat treat were not very pleasing performers. I did experience a lot of micro chipping during use that I felt that should not have been an issue for that steel. This was also past the manufacturers edge as well as before and after I reground the knives from factory geometry to super slicer geometry.

The production knife came no where close to the performance of the edges I made at 63 Rc. It really is not fair to group custom knives and heat treats into the same group as production knives. I do my heat treats in small batches with strict temperature control and monitoring as well as very methodical in my processes. I am very peculiar about what I deem as great performance and use a new steel quite a lot before I will sell a knife in that steel. S110V is one that I have done that type of testing in my intended cutting scenarios, and my S110V would far out perform the 2 production knives I used in S110V.

Making a blanket statement that "XXXX steel is crap for knives" is not very scientific or honest if you only have experience with it in one knife.
A better statement would be "XXXX steel was not as at great of a performer as I had hoped in the _______ knife by _______ ".
Follow that with "this is what happened to me; ...... Has anyone else had similar results with theirs?"

It is unfounded blanket statements like you are touting about S110V that snowball in peoples minds and they start to think that S110V is a bad steel.
I have refrained from saying it, but you really are starting to sound more and more like that "other guy".

 

[bodog]

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for. You have a poor experience with a steel in one knife from one manufacturer and claim that all knives from that steel are worthless.
What other steel have you used in the same class as S110V? It is pretty much in a class all its own in both composition and performance.
10V is very close to S110V but you also state that you have not used it nor any others in the A11 class of steels.

I have used S110V in knives that I have made and in 2 different production folders. The production folders with a low RC heat treat were not very pleasing performers. I did experience a lot of micro chipping during use that I felt that should not have been an issue for that steel. This was also past the manufacturers edge as well as before and after I reground the knives from factory geometry to super slicer geometry.

The production knife came no where close to the performance of the edges I made at 63 Rc. It really is not fair to group custom knives and heat treats into the same group as production knives. I do my heat treats in small batches with strict temperature control and monitoring as well as very methodical in my processes. I am very peculiar about what I deem as great performance and use a new steel quite a lot before I will sell a knife in that steel. S110V is one that I have done that type of testing in my intended cutting scenarios, and my S110V would far out perform the 2 production knives I used in S110V.

Making a blanket statement that "XXXX steel is crap for knives" is not very scientific or honest if you only have experience with it in one knife.
A better statement would be "XXXX steel was not as at great of a performer as I had hoped in the _______ knife by _______ ".
Follow that with "this is what happened to me; ...... Has anyone else had similar results with theirs?"

It is unfounded blanket statements like you are touting about S110V that snowball in peoples minds and they start to think that S110V is a bad steel.
I have refrained from saying it, but you really are starting to sound more and more like that "other guy".

That's not an unfair statement even though you claim to have had similar experiences. Would it be fair to say at least certain manufacturers who make knives for rough uses shouldn't use S110V unless they nail the heat treatment every time? And if they're unable to nail the heat treatment then they should stick with steels that aren't so picky and leave most of these high alloy steels to independent makers like yourself?

If your experience and mine match up as far as production knives with that steel are concerned, then you can acknowledge that I'm not far off base. I'll admit every time that a small batch maker can do better than a large scale producer almost every time.

I'll also say that it's quite possible that I've gotten less than good examples of some of these classes of steels but if it happens consistently from multiple manufacturers then at least SOMETHING can be taken from it. Maybe its that some of these large scale companies are playing with steels they should not be playing with.

I will also concede that S110V may very well be better than what I've experienced when done right. My experience is not isolated as you yourself just said.

I know I won't spend money on it to try it again when I've found certain other types of steel are great for what I need a knife for, at least until someone comes out and shows that these kinds of steel are for more than just cutting cardboard. That's all the real testing I've found.

 

[sodak]

Back in the 60's and 70's, you could choose between carbon and stainless. Stainless was generally acknowledged to be harder, and harder to sharpen, while carbon steel was generally acknowledged to be tougher and more forgiving.

Fast forward to today. That old dichotomy isn't true anymore, unless you are using those steels from yesteryear. It's really impossible to generalize remarks on ANY steel without first acknowledging

1. Steel
2. Heat treat
3. Geometry

3V at 57 is a completely different animal than 3V at 61. 1095 is completely different at 55 than at 65. Figure out the intended usage, select the geometry that supports the usage best. Then choose the steel and heat treat that will optimize the geometry, and you've got it made. It will do very well for the intended task - as the makers who have been posting (and their customers) will attest to. The performance difference is HUGE, not just a little like some would lead you to believe. You'd have to be dead to not notice it.

Like it or not, "super steels" requires users to educate themselves, which is a good thing. I like having choices. If you don't like choice, the steels from the 60's and 70's are still very widely available. And they still work as well as they used to.

 

[Ankerson]

Back in the 60's and 70's, you could choose between carbon and stainless. Stainless was generally acknowledged to be harder, and harder to sharpen, while carbon steel was generally acknowledged to be tougher and more forgiving.

Fast forward to today. That old dichotomy isn't true anymore, unless you are using those steels from yesteryear. It's really impossible to generalize remarks on ANY steel without first acknowledging

1. Steel
2. Heat treat
3. Geometry

3V at 57 is a completely different animal than 3V at 61. 1095 is completely different at 55 than at 65. Figure out the intended usage, select the geometry that supports the usage best. Then choose the steel and heat treat that will optimize the geometry, and you've got it made. It will do very well for the intended task - as the makers who have been posting (and their customers) will attest to. The performance difference is HUGE, not just a little like some would lead you to believe. You'd have to be dead to not notice it.

Like it or not, "super steels" requires users to educate themselves, which is a good thing. I like having choices. If you don't like choice, the steels from the 60's and 70's are still very widely available. And they still work as well as they used to.

Like you I grew up with those steels and they are what they are and as you said they still do what they did back then today.

Fast forward to today and things are better with the advancements that we have seen and that's a good thing.

I like that I don't have to walk around with a sharpening stone in my pocket like I used to back in the day and sharpen my knife like 3 or 4 times a day at work.

Never did like box cutters or utility knives really except for things that would really damage my good knives so for those tasks I would use them as they had throw away blades anyway.

Sharpening equipment has also gotten better in quality over the years so that's also a plus with better quality stones and different materials.

 

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

Carbide tear got mentioned so I happen to look at my CruforgeV (0.75%V) blade under a microscope. Here is the 8K Shapton Glass finished on 10dps, 0.01" thick edge after whittled dried beef rib bone. I didn't nital etch this edge, so most carbides don't show up.

Please ignore the edge mirror image caused by oil refraction.

You can clearly see areas of undamaged edge and areas with microchips. Call this edge damages (per this steel, ht & geometry certain way) however you like