Are you over Super Steels?

[Surfingringo]

Jim, I've read tons of your post and have been looking for an answer where the topic is alluded to here. This has been a question that's been on my mind for awhile now and it's mostly summed up with the excerpt quoted. The question that remains is how thin do you want to go if your not going to get the behind the edge thinned, as well as how thick could you stay and still see marketable improvements over the factory edge. As I have a GB(all purpose), M4 mule(dressing), Manix 2 s110v(all purpose), Zdp stretch(bird cleaning), VG-10 endura (slicer), Chaparral cts-xph (EDC), Militray S30V.

My question comes in the form of having a Gayle Bradley M4 & Mule M4, Where I want to take the Mule thin enough to get super busy dressing game, bones and all without going too thin that i can't get into some bone .015 to conservative?.. .005 too liberal givin the task? And on the GB a good mix of thin enough to get rough with it, obviously not a chipper or prybar but see the heaviest use of the knives mentioned.

Then with my Manix 2 s110v.. a good range of thinning behind the edge or if you have a link to refer. Obviously I'm not going to spend $50 to get all these thinned. So the one's a dont i will be using the edge pro/Sharpmaker with Congress Mold Master's 400-600 grit on the working knives. And obviously higher grits on the slicers.

So I'm just trying to find some rec's on edge thinness on the mentioned knives mainly the M4 and S30V, As well as how thin dps to take the other's im not going to send off for thinning without getting too wide at the shoulders.

Sorry if this post is to hefty I have looked many places for these anwsers have seen where M4 take take a .005 and still kick ass and take rougher jobs.

Again thanks for the wisdom and knowledge being shared to people like me would want to learn and are learning the right way and not from the people who see things in black and white I've learned there's no such thing with knives way too many factors.

Hi Drebs, I'm sure Jim will chime in but I thought I would give my input since I do daily fish cleaning with a couple of Phil Wilson's m4 blades. I have one that is about .015 behind the edge that Jim tested and I have another that is .010. I have pushed both of the knives very hard, going as far as regularly pushing through large (aprox. 3/16") bones. These cuts require me to put my off hand on the spine and lean my body weight into the cut...I would guess between 30-50lbs of pressure. I have never seen any micro chipping nor have I seen any deformation from this work. Based on my use I would say you could go a bit thinner for the work you are describing but don't go crazy. Everything has its limit. I would be comfortable taking this steel to .06-.08" and still using it pretty hard. You certainly wouldn't want to pry joints or anything but you won't chip it with accidental bone contact.

 

[Ankerson]

Wouldn't we have to see what the actual difference in thickness/geometry is and define what kind of work we are talking about first before we say that? For the sake of making an extreme argument, what if one steel could be ground 50% thinner than another and still withstand a given work load without damage? Wouldn't that make a significant difference in edge retention? I don't have the answers, I just think these are interesting questions.

I think so.

Would all depend on the actual work and the knives needed to do that actual work.

Lots of variables there to think about though.

 

[drebs]

Hi Drebs, I'm sure Jim will chime in but I thought I would give my input since I do daily fish cleaning with a couple of Phil Wilson's m4 blades. I have one that is about .015 behind the edge that Jim tested and I have another that is .010. I have pushed both of the knives very hard, going as far as regularly pushing through large (aprox. 3/16") bones. These cuts require me to put my off hand on the spine and lean my body weight into the cut...I would guess between 30-50lbs of pressure. I have never seen any micro chipping nor have I seen any deformation from this work. Based on my use I would say you could go a bit thinner for the work you are describing but don't go crazy. Everything has its limit. I would be comfortable taking this steel to .06-.08" and still using it pretty hard. You certainly wouldn't want to pry joints or anything but you won't chip it with accidental bone contact.

Awesome Thanks!. I will work within those guidlines.. Varibles being so, I think i've read Spyderco's usually come with a .025 behind or maybe thats on some of them. Without doing thinning behind the blade's any general guidelines on profiling factory edges like not taking them below 15, 20 Dps? without getting shoulders too wide? Or again is it so variable that even guidelines are would be haphazard?

I'm not going to run any of these knives too hard besides my M4 and maybe s110v thats what 1095 is for. Thanks again

 

[bodog]

Awesome Thanks!. I will work within those guidlines.. Varibles being so, I think i've read Spyderco's usually come with a .025 behind or maybe thats on some of them. Without doing thinning behind the blade's any general guidelines on profiling factory edges like not taking them below 15, 20 Dps? without getting shoulders too wide? Or again is it so variable that even guidelines are would be haphazard?

I'm not going to run any of these knives too hard besides my M4 and maybe s110v thats what 1095 is for. Thanks again

If you have decent stones, and you mentioned congress moldmasters so I assume you do, you can lay your stones on something solid and thin your flat ground knives down yourself. It may take an afternoon, but you can do it. Then the whole knife blade will be thinner and you can keep the actual edge at something reasonable like 15 to 20 dps while increasing performance.

 

[Surfingringo]

Awesome Thanks!. I will work within those guidlines.. Varibles being so, I think i've read Spyderco's usually come with a .025 behind or maybe thats on some of them. Without doing thinning behind the blade's any general guidelines on profiling factory edges like not taking them below 15, 20 Dps? without getting shoulders too wide? Or again is it so variable that even guidelines are would be haphazard?

I'm not going to run any of these knives too hard besides my M4 and maybe s110v thats what 1095 is for. Thanks again

Jim can definitely give you a better answer than I can on this one. He has played with a lot more different edge angles than I have. I run everything at 30 inclusive. Sometimes with a microbevel and sometimes without. That seems to work fine with most every steel I have used.

As far as grind, I really like my m4 Punta Gringo from Phil that is .010 behind the edge. I feel like it gives me plenty of strength to push the knife but is still cuts like a lazer. If I were having a skinner made in m4 I would probably shoot for something in that range.

edit: With regards to the Spyderco Gayle Bradley, I never measured it but I would guess that one is ground thinner than .025 behing the edge. Somewhere around .020 I would guess.

 

[drebs]

If you have decent stones, and you mentioned congress moldmasters so I assume you do, you can lay your stones on something solid and thin your flat ground knives down yourself. It may take an afternoon, but you can do it. Then the whole knife blade will be thinner and you can keep the actual edge at something reasonable like 15 to 20 dps while increasing performance.

I will get a cheapo knife (Big 5 Sporting Goods, cant get cheaper) and experiment with that. Thanks

 

[Ankerson]

Jim can definitely give you a better answer than I can on this one. He has played with a lot more different edge angles than I have. I run everything at 30 inclusive. Sometimes with a microbevel and sometimes without. That seems to work fine with most every steel I have used.

As far as grind, I really like my m4 Punta Gringo from Phil that is .010 behind the edge. I feel like it gives me plenty of strength to push the knife but is still cuts like a lazer. If I were having a skinner made in m4 I would probably shoot for something in that range.

I generally don't go below 10 DPS and stick with 15 DPS in general.

Going below that will weaken the edge on just about any knife and steel for most uses.

 

[Sulaco]

I'm too tired to read all the posts but thought I'd add my two cents. I am much more of a user than a collector, but definitely an enthusiast when it comes to sharp things.

That being said, I've become a huge fan of S30V and CPM-3V. I've used lots of steel over the years and for me these two do really well.

I use Benchmade S30V folders and SURVIVE! 3V fixed blades.

I use my folders for all sorts of things including opening boxes, mail, food on occasion, etc. I use my fixed blades for woodcraft and cleaning game. I've never sharpened LESS than since I began using these two steels.

S30V loses it's ultra-sharpness quickly but then it settles in to some kind of magical never dull. My wife and I recently moved and I used one Benchmade folder (S30V) to open every one of our moving boxes. That was 3 months ago and easily 80+ boxes ago. I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol (it had some insane crud built up on the blade from all that cardboard, I broke them all down for recycling with it as well) but haven't sharpened it yet. It still cuts well enough to carry.

3V is crazy good stuff. I can clean 3 Whitetail deer before needing to sharpen. If I stay off bones I don't even need to strop it. I did this last year.

I have lots of knives that just sit in boxes now because I have no reason to carry them. Sure there's some neat stuff out there in various steels, but when I found what works for me, it's hard to do anything different.

So to answer your question, if these are super steels, I'm all in.

 

[Surfingringo]

FWIW, I just added a fine piece of (custom) Gayle Bradley m4 to the collection. It is also around .010-.012 behind the edge. I'm carrying and using that one daily and have already done some rope cutting so I will have another point of reference soon.

 

[sodak]

Here's what I think would be interesting. Grind something like s110v as thin as you could to handle a give task without edge failure. Then grind something like 52100 as thin as you can to handle the same task. If 52100 could accomplish a given cutting task with a thinner geometry then it would be interesting to see how the two knives would compare in edge retention. It might look at first glance to be an apples to oranges comparison but it's really not. You'd just be comparing the most efficient grind of two different steels for a given task.

Of coure, figuring out just how thin you could go respectively with the two steels for the same work would be the hard part.

I replied to this in post #316. Already done.

 

[Surfingringo]

I replied to this in post #316. Already done.

Yup, I read that...great info! My idea is to use two knives in different steels and find the "minimum" geometry for each required to achieve a certain task. Once you get there then you make a separate test to compare edge retention (on rope for example) and see how much advantage is gained by the knife that you were able to thin out more.

 

[singularity35]

Yup, I read that...great info! My idea is to use two knives in different steels and find the "minimum" geometry for each required to achieve a certain task. Once you get there then you make a separate test to compare edge retention (on rope for example) and see how much advantage is gained by the knife that you were able to thin out more.

I've proposed before that testing steels in knives with the steel's optimum geometry is an apples to apples comparison.

 

[sodak]

Yup, I read that...great info! My idea is to use two knives in different steels and find the "minimum" geometry for each required to achieve a certain task. Once you get there then you make a separate test to compare edge retention (on rope for example) and see how much advantage is gained by the knife that you were able to thin out more.

Interesting. You're probably (just thinking out loud) going to have to come up with a repeatable test to know when you've gone too far and reached the limit. Something to measure when the edge rolls or something like that.

 

[sodak]

I've proposed before that testing steels in knives with the steel's optimum geometry is an apples to apples comparison.

This is why knives are one of my all time favorite subjects. This is surprisingly hard to do, requiring a very deep knowledge of the metallurgy and heat treat. Not impossible, but very difficult.

 

[Surfingringo]

I've proposed before that testing steels in knives with the steel's optimum geometry is an apples to apples comparison.

Seems like it would be some interesting and useful data. Definitely not the easiest thing to test though. I guess you could start with two steels in the same exact knife (a couple of mules for example) and perform a test while continually increasing some factor like pressure, type of media, hardness of media...I'm not sure. But you could continue to increase the difficulty until you saw failure (however that is defined for the test) in one of the steels. At that point you could take the one that did not fail and slowly thin and intermittently test it until it fails on the same level of test. At that point you would have a couple of apples.

This is one of those kinds of tests where I am super interested in the results but I want someone else to do all the actual work!!

 

[singularity35]

This is why knives are one of my all time favorite subjects. This is surprisingly hard to do, requiring a very deep knowledge of the metallurgy and heat treat. Not impossible, but very difficult.

I'm sure it's hard but I was thinking along the lines of if 52100 can take 10 dps and S110V can take 15 dps, then test edge retention at those angles and test for whatever else kind of cutting we want to know about. Nothing really "scientific" but just more data points that we can consider and argue about.

When Cliff Stamp started saying that high carbide volume steels' edges failed at thinner angles and high edge stability steels outperformed them a those thin angles, I suggested a test where the HCV's be compared to HES' at whatever angle they are stable at. I never saw that happen. I think it would be interesting to see.

 

[me2]

Actually you are wrong.

I personally have stated that thin and hard is generally better when it comes to edge retention and my testing backs that up. The thinner the geometry is the higher the HRC hardness needs to be.

Cliff on the other hand more than a few times and argued with me and others more times that I can remember that HRC hardness doesn't matter. .

Missed that. When/where/link?

 

[me2]

^^^^I calling you out on the edge retention of 52100!!

How much cardboard did you cut? (The rest of the material isn't going to dull 52100, and it's not going to chip it)

52100 does not excel at edge retention through cardboard, which when dirty enough is sand paper......

I am not saying that is has bad edge retention, but it's not going to hold up to cutting A LOT of cardboard.
Certainly not to where it will slice printer paper....

Shouldn't be too hard for 52100 properly hardened. I've cut 3100' of used cardboard with a $7 knife and it would still slice paper no problem.

 

[Ankerson]

Missed that. When/where/link?

Since the beginning.

Go back to Cliff Forum with your buddies, you might actually have some traction over there.

 

[Ankerson]

I'm sure it's hard but I was thinking along the lines of if 52100 can take 10 dps and S110V can take 15 dps, then test edge retention at those angles and test for whatever else kind of cutting we want to know about. Nothing really "scientific" but just more data points that we can consider and argue about.

When Cliff Stamp started saying that high carbide volume steels' edges failed at thinner angles and high edge stability steels outperformed them a those thin angles, I suggested a test where the HCV's be compared to HES' at whatever angle they are stable at. I never saw that happen. I think it would be interesting to see.

And you never will, not an honest test anyway that isn't cooked.