AUS8/8Cr13MoV/13C26

hardheart

hardheart

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
Messages
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These are supposed to be relatively tough, easy to grind, and fine-grained stainless steels, right? I want to get a Cara Car and a Junkyard Dog. Should I expect similar performance to AUS8? I expect the Byrd to fare better, I believe those are hardened to about 61, my AMK Falcon is 57/59 and my Voyager lower still. I think that Kershaw is hardening 13C26 to 57/59 as well.
 
It's all about the heat treatment. If it's at 57 Rc, it's not going to be much better than 420HC, because it's not benefiting from the higher hardness. Raising the steel from 57 Rc to 60-61 Rc vastly improves the wear resistance, and also allows the steel to benefit from it's combination of wear resistance and toughness. If it's at 57 Rc, than it's just another high toughness, low wear, good corrosion resistance steel. At 60 Rc it has perfectly good wear resistance with greater toughness than the super stainlesses, along with being easier to sharpen and more corrosion resistant. It also has a smaller carbide size than CPM steels, so it can take a better push cutting edge.

Just like anything else, there is no "best" steel, but this one has a solid combination of properties: very easy to sharpen for the end user, tougher than any other high hardness stainless, equal or better corrosion resistant than the super stainlesses, while having a little less wear resistance to have those benefits. Many manufacturers (i.e. Kershaw) like the 13C26 because they can blank it, there probably isn't a more wear resistant steel that can be blanked, but IMO, they're wasting it if they're going to heat treat it to 57-58 Rc. It may be difficult with large commercial heat treating to get much harder, but that's a subject I just don't know much about.

BTW, I like 13C26 and AEB-L the best, they're just super clean, the composition is tightly controlled, etc. Our batches of AEB-L usually come with composition data of the heat, and they are always really good. Other makers of similar steels might be pretty good, but I know I trust Sandvik and Uddeholm.
 
13C26/AEB-L has the ability to obtain full martensite hardness. Its main benefit for a knife steel is that it combines a high hardness and corrosion resistance with almost no primary carbides so it offers pretty much the highest edge retention for extreme sharpness. When properly hardened it looks like this :

landes_aebl.jpg


In comparison this is ATS-34 :

landes_ats_34.jpg


The big white globs are chromium carbides, note that properly sharpened edges are under one micron in thickness. That is why a lot of people with a high standard for sharpness don't like ATS-34, it isn't a superior steel in that regard. The ATS-34 image should also make it obvious that mean, and especially median carbide sizes are meaningless.

Images from :

Messerklingen und Stahl
Autor: Roman Landes
2. Auflage, Wieland Verlag, Bruckmühl, Germany.
Copyright 2006

Unfortunately since Kershaw is underhardening 13C26 the performance as a cutting steel will be signifcantly degraded, how much so depends on how the lower hardness is achieved; lack of cold/oil, low/short soak, very high temper, etc. . You are very much likely to see this start to be regarded as a "tough stainless". Hopefully Spyderco will do a sprint run with this much harder in a high cutting focused knife.

The Byrd steel will match many S30V knives in regards to push cutting sharpness, tested across several media, as it is very hard. It tends to be outperformed readily slicing cardboard, but does well slicinig carpet to S30V. I assume this is a toughness issues. Note that steel is very similar to AEB-L in composition with the addition of a few carbide elements and a increased carbon amount to retain a similar C/Cr percentage. I would expect similar performance, maybe an increase in wear resistance at the expense of edge stability. A direct comparion between the two would be interesting. It certainly behaves to me like a harder version of 12C27m.

Larrin, note the stainless Mora knives which are $5-$10 use 12C27m at 58 HRC, so hardness isn't a problem with those steels.

-Cliff
 
N690-in the ballpark? May get a Monochrome or Pika to check out this steel as well.

I'm essentially looking for a better balanced steel for a sub $50 working folder that gets abused and will doubtlessly suffer edge damage. I may give AUS8 another shot with BMs higher advertised hardness. Perhaps on the Snipe, blade profile looks good.
 
FYI, currently we are hardening 13C26 in the 58-59 range (with very rare edge retention complaints), and have recently pushed a batch to 60 Rc as well. We continue to work with 13C26, and look to optimize its performance.

I'm not sure why you feel Spyderco should be the one company to take 13C26 to a "harder" level Cliff, is there a reason for your interest in Spyderco doing a project with this steel compared to any other company? Just curious.
 
They are really responsive to small sprint runs, especially on request for steels. They also have near ideal models for such a steel. Primarily of interest to guys interested in steels, Spyderco shares tests they run so it is likely we could see CATRA, Q-FOG, etc. numbers. This is exceptionally rare. What you tend to get out of most other companies is something like "We have found X-FAD to be the superior cutlery steel." with no criteria defined. Phil Wilson is also interested in the steel and he shares such information openly and is very specific saying in detail what he does and the exact results so hopefully he starts working with some as well. His knives are also ideal for that steel.

-Cliff
 
hardheart said:
N690-in the ballpark? May get a Monochrome or Pika to check out this steel as well.
Click to expand...
N690 is more like 440C plus cobalt.

Thomas W said:
FYI, currently we are hardening 13C26 in the 58-59 range (with very rare edge retention complaints), and have recently pushed a batch to 60 Rc as well. We continue to work with 13C26, and look to optimize its performance.
Click to expand...
That's good to hear.
 
12C27m is ran at 58 HRC in the $5 Mora knives so it seems a little less than ideal to run the same hardness with 13C26 with knives costing much more since 13C26 has a much higher carbon content to allow a much higher hardness. Unfortunately there is far too much of the notion that 60 HRC is some kind of ideal hardness for knives.

-Cliff
 
I think Kershaw is doing a good job, their progress has been good. Speedsafe, mim in the Offset, ET, stud lock, ZT line, random leek and zdp leek are all signs of openness and experimentation. Of course, they are going against the company that started the one hand clipped folder thing. Sal's big in the community, but Thomas is making a good show of it.

I'd have an upscale Kershaw if they offered clipped lockbacks, or a stud lock without a recurve.
 
There are some interesting blades and options are always a good thing. However the steel choices are really sub-optimal to put it lightly. You have a large machete/bowie in D2 and small slip joints and other precision cutting blades in AUS-6A and 420JS. Now why do you want a brittle and high wear and hard to grind steel in a machete and a very tough and ductile steel which is easy to grind in a small stockman and light utility cutting knife.

-Cliff
 
I did find the choice for the Outcast to be strange, it also seems inappropriate for the Ontario/Randalls as they are advertised.
I would hazard that the slippies have those steels because they are not part of Kershaw's premium offerings and get the budget treatment. They could do carbon steels cheaply as well, but then someone shopping for cheaper knives probably isn't interested in putting in extra effort to prevent corrosion.
I'd like to see Kershaw take 13C26 to 60 or more, and Thomas has mentioned they've tried it, so that's a good step. I can understand it's hard to strike a balance with a product intended for the masses. Spyderco produces a lot of different models, but then they have a laundry list of discontinued ones almost annually.
 
However the steel choices are really sub-optimal to put it lightly. You have a large machete/bowie in D2 and small slip joints and other precision cutting blades in AUS-6A and 420JS.
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Hey what's with the solid backhand Cliff?:confused:

I'm not sure what slip joints you are referring to, we don't make any.
The handful of products we do produce in 420J2 and AUS6 (other than the Vapor, which I believe you are actually sweet on), are not close to being core products or volume movers.
And Cliff, let's not forgot to mention that other inferior steel we conceive with our Kershaw and ZT knives, S30V.;) ;)

As far as your other comment on the Outcast, sorry it doesn't meet up with your desired steel. I know you have been critical of it in the past.

Hopefully someday, we dense manufacturers (some of us anyway) can pull our head out long enough to do the obvious, mate knife patterns and optimal steel, thus reproducing the Ulimate Knives (I'm talking to Ken Onion about this concept ASAP!)!! Until then we will continue to manufacture under achieving knives that somehow continue to sell (some even in volume) to unsuspecting, unknowledgeable, and unknowing buyers (some of whom even roam the halls of BF’s).

So to close, you like 13C26, just not ours, even though nobody else really uses it. Now I also know you are affectionate on 12C27, and we "made the decision" to change all our 440A over to it in the near future (I’m assuming, because I don’t really know, that this is a good thing). We will cross our fingers, and with any good fortune at all, we might even bring out the best both of these steels.
Who knows, we may even impress you someday Cliff.:thumbup:

Is it ok for me to be a little sarcastic everyone, just this once? I’m on vacation this week, so I’m just a tad off (kind of like our knives apparently) :D .
 
Recently, Kershaw has made leaps and bounds in their technology (steel, fancy opening, customer service), and has therefore come under greater scrutiny. Kershaw is carrying the ball, wearing the horns, has don the yellow jersey.
Consider it a badge of honor!

Desmond
 
Recently, Kershaw has made leaps and bounds in their technology (steel, fancy opening, customer service), and has therefore come under greater scrutiny. Kershaw is carrying the ball, wearing the horns, has don the yellow jersey.
Consider it a badge of honor!
Click to expand...
Wow Desmond, I guess it is all a matter of perspective, thanks for helping me see words in a quite different light.
 
Thomas W said:
So to close, you like 13C26, just not ours, even though nobody else really uses it. Now I also know you are affectionate on 12C27, and we "made the decision" to change all our 440A over to it in the near future (I’m assuming, because I don’t really know, that this is a good thing). We will cross our fingers, and with any good fortune at all, we might even bring out the best both of these steels.
Click to expand...
Why not just switch from 440A to 13C26? Is the 12C27 cheaper or more available in the size you want?
 
You might want to hang onto that perspective until you design the "perfect" knife...

Honestly though, if you look back at Kershaw related threads, there was little discussion about the low end steels (440A, 420HC) used in the past. If any mention was made it was generally accepted because Kershaw was low end-a maker of cheap (Walmart), gimmicky knives (AO) carried by neophytes to impress those even less knowledgeable. Kershaw was a maker of cool toys.

The Kershaw of today is being seriously mulled over by the big boys. Listen to their seemingly trivial problems-bump the Rc up a little on the small folders, use a tough tool steel or two on the large fixed, feed them a few cool test results.

Desmond
(Yes, I got suckered by the AO, and no I don't currently own any Kershaws, but I might sometime soon)
 
Why not just switch from 440A to 13C26? Is the 12C27 cheaper or more available in the size you want?
Click to expand...
Cost is a factor Larrin, but we are having complaints with 13C26 developing "spots", and corrrosion is just not acceptable to a gang of our customers. So...we are giving 12C27 a shot. Thoughts?
 
When Kershaw began it's collaboration with Ken Onion it upped the ante in the production knife market. The Booa, Random and Mini Task's, whirlwind and Blackout were all fine knives with good materials and fit/finish worth every cent. The Speed Safe mechanism is much more than a gimmick, it is a real advantage for a working tool you might need in a high stress situation. And people seem to forget the safe side of the SS, the torsion bar aids in keeping the knife closed in addition to the ball detent.

Thomas, enjoy your vacation, for God's Sake! Having a conversation with Cliff over steel hardness is a sure way to ruin anyones day. Keep up the good work, see you next week.
 
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