Are you over Super Steels?

Ankerson said:
I think you are correct, haven't seen any of it either personally. :confused:
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It's hard to fight popularity even with experience. While I haven't experienced what I'd call carbide tear out I've experienced that high carbide steels fracture at the same edge angles that lower carbide, higher hardness, and higher toughness steels can handle. And you can scoff and say something about concrete blocks but that really should only make it questionable what you cut. Or at least that you're willing to sacrifice cutting performance on random media because you're hell bent on supporting high carbide steels for some reason. You can't seriously believe that at the same 15 degree angle S110V can really resist fracture and deformation as well as 4V. Sure you can say that S110V can cut cardboard longer but what about other stuff? You can't really say that S110V can support a low, like less than 16 dps, edge angle as well as 3V. Or is that really what you're going to say?
 
I personally have not experienced it first hand, but again, I also don't sharpen my edges (in high carbide steels especially) to fine 15° angles either, as to help avoid it... So far so good.

I have heard about it though, read about it plenty, and from a technical view it certainly makes sense; think of a small rock embedded in concrete, if its barely in the concrete, it will be that much easier to remove leaving behind a divot. If it's embedded deeper, with more concrete to hold it, it will be that much harder to remove. The fact that the carbides (vanadium, niobium) are in fact that much harder then the surrounding steel, in large quantities especially I can envision them being torn out through hard or prolonged use as the surrounding steel wears away faster, so I don't discredit it as a possibility especially in finer angled edges...
 
bodog said:
It's hard to fight popularity even with experience. While I haven't experienced what I'd call carbide tear out I've experienced that high carbide steels fracture at the same edge angles that lower carbide, higher hardness, and higher toughness steels can handle. And you can scoff and say something about concrete blocks but that really should only make it questionable what you cut. Or at least that you're willing to sacrifice cutting performance on random media because you're hell bent on supporting high carbide steels for some reason. You can't seriously believe that at the same 15 degree angle S110V can really resist fracture and deformation as well as 4V. Sure you can say that S110V can cut cardboard longer but what about other stuff? You can't really say that S110V can support a low, like less than 16 dps, edge angle as well as 3V. Or is that really what you're going to say?
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I don't sacrifice anything. ;)

The knives that I use the most are VERY thin behind the edge and I don't have issues cutting what I need to cut.
 
Carbide tear out is going to be more of a problem for the coarse carbide steels like D2 and 440C than it is for the super steels with their much smaller, more every distributed carbides.

The coarse carbide steels have a proven track record as excellent knife steels. But those carbides can reach 50 microns. In powder steels, the carbide size is going to be more like 2-5 microns -- and those carbides will be much more evenly distributed. Those small carbides improve wear resistance and protect the steel matrix.

The powder steels can handle much higher carbide loads than ingot steels without losing toughness.

There would have to be a very good reason for me to take a traditional steel like D2 over a super steel like M4, which will be tougher, probably stronger and have better wear resistance. Likewise, there would have to be a very good reason for me to choose a traditional steel like 440C over a super steel like Elmax, which will be tougher, stronger and have better wear resistance.

On the other hand, with really exceptional heat treats, some of the traditional steels like 52100 can perform remarkably well, as Bodog's experiments with Bluntcut's heat treat have shown.
 
S110V, 3V, and 4V are all considered high carbide, high alloy, high wear super steels.
3V was designed to replace D2 in blanking operations where D2 was not holding up and to replace M4 in situations where more toughness was needed.
4V was designed to be the compromise between M4 and 3V.
No, 110V will not hold up to the same use and abuse that 3V or 4V will.

Right now I have 2 knives in 110V that I currently use. One is a chef knife that is heat treated to 63 Rc is .004" behind the edge sharpened to 24 degrees inclusive. I use this knife regularly on a hard plastic cutting board and have not sharpened or stropped since made about 8 months ago. I truly believe that it will still slice phone book paper cleanly and that it has no carbides "torn out".
The other knife is 5.5" Bowie that I made to EDC and did for quite some time late last year and early this year. It is .013" behind the edge sharpened to just under 30 degrees inclusive. I have used this knife to chop, dig, stab, scrape, skin, debone, and a many other EDC type chores. Still there is no "carbide tear out", there have also not been any chipping that had to be cleaned up.

I have used 10V knives with zero edges, S30V knives with zero edges, and 3V knives with zero edges. Honestly the 10V held the zero edge better than any of the other steels in my uses which involved food prep, cardboard, and wood carving. These were not heavy Survival knives, these were fine tuned cutting machines.
 
Twindog said:
Carbide tear out is going to be more of a problem for the coarse carbide steels like D2 and 440C than it is for the super steels with their much smaller, more every distributed carbides.

The coarse carbide steels have a proven track record as excellent knife steels. But those carbides can reach 50 microns. In powder steels, the carbide size is going to be more like 2-5 microns -- and those carbides will be much more evenly distributed. Those small carbides improve wear resistance and protect the steel matrix.

The powder steels can handle much higher carbide loads than ingot steels without losing toughness.

There would have to be a very good reason for me to take a traditional steel like D2 over a super steel like M4, which will be tougher, probably stronger and have better wear resistance. Likewise, there would have to be a very good reason for me to choose a traditional steel like 440C over a super steel like Elmax, which will be tougher, stronger and have better wear resistance.

On the other hand, with really exceptional heat treats, some of the traditional steels like 52100 can perform remarkably well, as Bodog's experiments with Bluntcut's heat treat have shown.
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Great post. I was thinking the very thing about the cast ingot D2 but forgot to include it in my post.
 
Big Chris said:
S110V, 3V, and 4V are all considered high carbide, high alloy, high wear super steels.
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Can't argue with the truth. What I can argue with is that S110V is more fragile at reasonably high hardness than the other two. The other two were designed with toughness and wear resistance in mind, right? I guess I should start being more specific. Instead of saying high carbide stainless steels I should simply refer to them as steels with less toughness. But now it's all shades of grey. How would you class 3V vs S110V? High alloy non-stainless vs high alloy stainless? Simply S90V class vs 3V class vs M4 class. But then what about 4V which bridges the gap between 3V and M4? I'm really curious.
 
Big Chris said:
Have any of you guys ever actually experienced carbide tear out?
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Nope.

Big Chris said:
I hear about it all the time but I can't think of a single time where a chip occurred and I blamed it on carbide tear out. Most times when that happened I thought "oh, I should have not tried to chop that nail, fence wire, knot, bone, or concrete block."
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Exactly. I'm 99% percent sure that when it does "happen" people are simply experiencing normal micro-chipping, and blaming it on "carbide tearout" because they're used to weaker steels that would have simply flattened out or rolled over much sooner under the same circumstances. Whether a person would rather sharpen out a tiny chip once a week or push/grind a soft, worn edge back into alignment every day is of course up to them, but let's call it what it is.

Big Chris said:
I use knives regularly that are under .010" for wood work or camp chores and have never experienced "carbide tear out". I am starting to think this is a newly made up phrase used by "haters" of high carbide steels to "hate" on high carbide high wear steels. I use these steels daily and have hundreds of knives out in use in these steels and am getting no such feedback from customers.
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Same here. Tearout is of course possible, but in terms of what knife users experience I think it's vastly overblown. It's one of those cases of a buzzword/catchphrase taking hold in people's minds, without them really thinking it through and understanding what's actually happening.

Also with the sharpening thing... these steels weren't just developed on a whim, or to be "the flavor of the month". The whole point of using fine-grained steels with very small, very hard, very evenly-distributed carbides is not only to sharpen less often, but to "get away" with thinner and/or more acute edges with the same toughness, so the dang thing cuts better in the first place. That also just happens to make sharpening a lot easier, as well as needing to be done less often. There's just less steel that needs to be removed to get back down to a near-zero, sharp edge.

Even given the same stone, I'd much rather touch up a nice thin edge on "super steel" at 62Rc than grind away at a thick one made of 10xx at 56-58Rc. The much-touted toughness of 10xx steels under rough use like chopping and tearing through cardboard just doesn't hold up to the same toughness, plus hardness, you can get out of balanced modern stuff like 3V and Elmax - with even thinner edges. (not breaking is nice... not breaking and staying sharp longer is even better ;) )

Again, if I had to for some reason, I could get along just fine with 1084 for the rest of my days. I quite happily make knives for others made of O1, 52100, etc. But given the choice for the knives I use, I'm going for more durable modern alloys every time. :)
 
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bodog said:
Can't argue with the truth. What I can argue with is that S110V is more fragile at reasonably high hardness than the other two. The other two were designed with toughness and wear resistance in mind, right? I guess I should start being more specific. Instead of saying high carbide stainless steels I should simply refer to them as steels with less toughness. But now it's all shades of grey. How would you class 3V vs S110V? High alloy non-stainless vs high alloy stainless? Simply S90V class vs 3V class vs M4 class. But then what about 4V which bridges the gap between 3V and M4? I'm really curious.
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What you are comparing here though is 2 steels designed for toughness with a steel that was designed for edge holding. Class them however you want.

I still have never experienced any of the issues that are being accused of high wear high end steels.

I make cutting knives with thin edges and high hardness from S110V, 10V, and S90V. I make hard use field knives from 3V and 4V.
I am not saying they can't cross paths, but I will vary the geometry and heat treat for the intended usage of the knife.
There are too many steels to pick just one; just like you would not use a chef knife to build a survival shelter you will not want to use an heavy survival knife to mince garlic.
 
As I was saying on my only post here...... Gonna act like an expert with first hand knowledge but his posts oozes Cliff Stamp. When asked for details he jukes around it. Not saying anyone is wrong or right but you can't take it seriously when someone posts copy and pasted talking points and act like a learned expert with earth shaking revelations.

Not here to argue and go back and forth either. Just warning folks that there is no point in engaging the guy. I'm sure it's obvious to many of you already, but some may not be as fortunate.
 
Stays Sharp said:
As I was saying on my only post here...... Gonna act like an expert with first hand knowledge but his posts oozes Cliff Stamp. When asked for details he jukes around it. Not saying anyone is wrong or right but you can't take it seriously when someone posts copy and pasted talking points and act like a learned expert with earth shaking revelations.

Not here to argue and go back and forth either. Just warning folks that there is no point in engaging the guy. I'm sure it's obvious to many of you already, but some may not be as fortunate.
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Don't know how much more up front I can be than testing the knives and steels and posting photographic evidence of the tests. As far as what Cliff Stamp says, I don't care about any of it unless he posts some real evidence of what he's talking about. And he does that quite a bit. And what he says matches my real world experience. I may not have the most experience with every steel out there, but make no mistake, I do have a lot of experience with different classes of steels. Only recently have I decided that pictures and tests were worth a thousand words. Feel free to explore. You may end up changing your mind, but I doubt it because you already equate me to Cliff, even though he probably knows more about steels and knife related knowledge than you could obtain in the next decade, you think his knowledge is less than yours. No offense intended, but your argument is weak, yet popular. I guess the question is: who's REALLY the parrot?
 
I have tested many high wear PM stainless and non stainless steels. I have never experienced carbide tear out. Each steel grade has a different stress limit and will chip or roll when it is pushed.
 
Feel free to post actual tests of these other steels, good, bad, or indifferent. If you test these other steels in some real world bullshit and they come out great, then prove it. Otherwise, it's just a dude at a shiny workbench spouting some BS and a bunch of other dudes believing him because they don't test their knives either.
 
To answer the question, NO, and never will be. Keeping in mind that geometry and heat treat make a HUGE difference in the final product, new and improved steels will always fascinate me. I'm a dyed in the wool "tryer." As the bank robber in the opening scene of Dirty Harry said, "I gots to know!" I don't do a lot of camping, but am a hunter and enjoy cooking as well, so I tend to navigate toward the slicers. Edge holding is a big thing with me, as we frequently skin and butcher a half dozen deer at a time, and usually in very cold weather. I don't need to be wasting time sharpening knives when its already dark and temperatures in the teens. S90V @ 60-61 is where it's at for me, but if something comes along that is just as wear resistant but tougher in the bargain, then I'm on board. I hope for a new stainless that mirrors or exceeds the all-around performance of M4 or 4V. I expect that in some few years from now, we'll have a stainless steel that is as wear resistant as CPM-S110V and still has over 40 joules of toughness. BRING IT ON!
 
waterstoneblades said:
I have tested many high wear PM stainless and non stainless steels. I have never experienced carbide tear out. Each steel grade has a different stress limit and will chip or roll when it is pushed.
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I have too, and I've not experienced what would be considered carbide tearout. But please, seriously, tell us why you make super thin knives in Z-wear (3V class) instead of S110V. By the way, I think you're hitting the nail on the head with your knives, how they're ground, how they're heat treated, and with which steels they're made from. Its only a matter if time until I own one if your knives if you'd sell one to me. All of that's obviously a personal preference as others may want something different.

You could choose S90V. You could choose S110V. Hell, you could choose anything, yet you choose 3V class and 1080 class steels to make some really thin slicers. Why?
 
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And by the way, disagreements aside, I'm sure this thread in enlightening to people who don't understand some of the nuances regarding steel. So thank you to all who post real information and those who post snide remarks without anything to back it up. It leads to people learning. Whether anyone agrees or not, who cares. People are learning and that's a good thing.
 
Think for yourself, otherwise spare us from someone else's rhetoric. Simple as that.

I prefer other steels over S30v also but I dont copy and paste canned quotables from someone else.
 
Stays Sharp said:
Think for yourself, otherwise spare us from someone else's rhetoric. Simple as that.

I prefer other steels over S30v also but I dont copy and paste canned quotables from someone else.
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I don't believe I've quoted anything other than my own experiences, photos included. You made mention of someone specific and I happen to agree with some of the stuff he talks about. Please tell me how I'm parroting and you aren't.
 
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