Are you over Super Steels?

[primeform]

Two terms that didnt come up in this entire thread strangely. Heat treating and rockwell hardness. I love supersteels, and what good knifemakers can do with them. Just bought a Rockstead this week and couldnt be much more happy with it.

 

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

There are quite a few HT & RC got mentioned and pictured but feverishly lacked 'cow bell'

Two terms that didnt come up in this entire thread strangely. Heat treating and rockwell hardness. I love supersteels, and what good knifemakers can do with them. Just bought a Rockstead this week and couldnt be much more happy with it.

 

[bodog]

Two terms that didnt come up in this entire thread strangely. Heat treating and rockwell hardness. I love supersteels, and what good knifemakers can do with them. Just bought a Rockstead this week and couldnt be much more happy with it.

Strength as affected by hardness was talked about. Toughness as affected by heat treatment and carbide volume was also talked about. Classes of steels and what they're good for as affected by heat treatment and geometry was also talked about. Sure, there was some arrogance displayed when a couple of guys called others liars or called their experience into question, but steel, what makes certain steels better in certain applications, and peoples experiences with these steels were discussed. It's been a good thread.

 

[hatchettjack]

They are all super!

 

[singularity35]

They are all super!

[video=youtube;A8I9pYCl9AQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8I9pYCl9AQ[/video]

 

[Sunyata]

Geometry is important. I got bored earlier. I cut up a big (3'x1'x1' ish ) box some bananas came in, a nilla wafers box (from costco so a big box of hard cardboard), a brita pitcher box and the box some steel shelving came in (3'x1.5'x.75')

The banana box was pretty thick the shelving box was very thick in places and had tons of glue. I figure I'd test my new 0562CF out. I didnt finish the shelving box because it is hot as hell outside and I wanted a Vodka tonic. When I decided to stop I put the blade down and it was hot to the touch.

Found the instructions did a few push cuts on different parts of the blade. Not the smoothest but still nice


Had the knife not been fun to cut with I had brought back up. A knive I've cut up countless amazon boxes with since last sharpening

Look at those nice high grinds. Make cutting up boxes nice.

 

[Twindog]

That Gayle Bradley should cut up boxes a lot better than your 0562 -- much thinner blade, hollow ground, much thinner edge shoulders, more acute edge, unless you reprofiled. But the ZT is more fun.

 

[JR88FAN]

Two terms that didnt come up in this entire thread strangely. Heat treating and rockwell hardness. I love supersteels, and what good knifemakers can do with them. Just bought a Rockstead this week and couldnt be much more happy with it.

Wow. You need start at page 1 and read from there.....

All that was discussed for pages in this thread.

Critical elements to any steel discussion, along with geometry.

.......Maybe that's the definition of 'super steel'

Optimal HT + Optimal RC + Optimal Geometry = Super Steel.

 

[d00mtr33]

I would not say im over them but I am looking at the other steels out there. I used to be all about raw wear resistance, the higher the better but last year or so(since I got into customs) I value geometry and heat treat over steel used. It started with Andre Thorburns knives, he uses n690 which is a middle of the roed steel, nothing special by today standards but all of his grinds are very lean, in the 0.010 to 0.015 and most on the leaner side. The cutting performance over my spydercos, zts, benchmadez was a huge difference(one reason why I love microtech is mist of their knives are ground thinner than average) and I saw that even wgen it dulled it still cut better than the sharper thicker knives. From research I see that lower carbide steels tend to have higher edge stability than high carbide ones and ive been getting into those more. I still love my m390 and its brothers (204p, 20cv and elmac is that weird cousin everyone has), cts xhp, cpm m4, 3v and its family,xyr7 on my rockstead is very impressive but thats more than just the steel, a properly heat treated s35vn 60 hrc +(61-62 preferred ala microtech and fantoni) and im getting a custom in 10v which should be fun to play with. Recently im loving nitrogen steels like vanax 75 and nitrobe 77 (my favorite edc knife right now is the carson Griffin in n77) since they get very sharp, very corrosion resistant, easy to sharpen (more n77 than vanax) and xan be taken to lower angles without suffering from it. I would really like to try some aebl or some of the sandvick steels with a high hardness (61-62) and thin behind the edge to see how they perform (I think ill like them). Plus heat treat, geometry, edge angles, edge finish all play a huge role and can/do make more of a difference than just the steel type used.