AUS8/8Cr13MoV/13C26

hardheart, just a little harmless off topic side bar with Cliff and I, no harm done. I'll try to be more sensitive (not my strong suit) in the future, ecspecially with the "aggresive" types.
So much for me making a "good show of it" hardheart. ;)
 
We've been quite impressed with Keshaw over the past few years.

They've got an excellent team on board: Jack has always been an inspiration, Ken is one of the best "creators" in the industry, Jeff Goddard is knowledgable, passionate and professional, Thomas is certainly demonstrating his vast experience and desire to do well and Craig Green has raised their mfg bar.

We think Kersaw is worthwhile competition in todays industry, helping to spark new ideas and raise the bar.

sal
 
Thomas if you want to impress Cliff and get him to quit slapping you and Kershaw just send him a free knife and agree with everything he says, or at least stroke his ego. You and Kershaw are doing some really great things with what your produceing and your willingness to improve your products and make them better is rare. Keep up the good work. I'm no internet expert just a long time knife user and enjoyer. I think we'd all like to see Kershaw doing something simualar to Sprint runs like Spyderco. Most of us knife nuts enjoy trying new and differently heat treated steels not commonly found.
 
I think some of us forget that people like Thomas W and Sal Glesser don't have to be here! They are not required to answer our question or respond to our complaints on this Forum. Kershaw and Spyderco each have customer service departments and warranty departments. It would be so easy for Thomas to tell us to "contact customer service, I can't help you", or just say nothing at all. I believe Thomas is on vacation and he still checks his email and this forum. He probably didn't expect to have to justify his company's decisions to someone like Cliff, whom I'm sure Thomas respects very much.

Why don't we stop arguing with the people that bring us these sweet knives and just say "Thank You" once in a while? If you don't like Kershaw, go buy something else, it leaves more Kershaws for me. I don't like Benchmade, but I don't seek out the BM forums and rip em. I prefer to praise the knives I love!

So thank you Thomas. Now log off and go drink a beer:)

Jeremy
 
hardheart said:
Everyone knows Cliff is the 'aggressive' type.
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The origional post was simply :

Cliff Stamp said:
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.
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This is critical, but not what I would call aggressive - but is the responce from the company really expected to be this :

Thomas W said:
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 .
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and

Thomas W said:
And a follow up right hand as well Cliff. My, my, my, who new you were the aggressive type, even to those in the same league.

Cliff I have no beef with you, we just see things from a different perspective. I won't go into what it takes to run a successful knife company in this day of age Cliff. Believe me, it's not easy. I know that is not your objective or specialty, but it is mine.
All that working within tricky financial parameters, R&D, manufacturing, predicting markets, new products, material issues, legal battles, maintaining a staff, payroll, insurance, royalties, marketing, getting placement, selling, warranty...... gosh did I miss anything? Oh yea, keeping everybody satisfied. You make it sound like we are cutting corners Cliff, and that bothers me...a bunch. Sorry we don't live up to higher expectations Cliff. Kai Corp is unique it how it conducts business Cliff, sorry I won't go into the details. As I mentioned before we all measure success differently.

Cliff, we work hard, do our own thing, are certainly not "me too", and are successful. Kershaw has an innovative stable, led by one Ken Onion. Most folks get a warm fuzzy feeling when Ken is mentioned. He is respected within the industry, and we take advice from him. I feel it is great advice. We have long standing relationships with many makers, manufacturers, and vendors. We even staff a talented maker in our R&D dept. We are now doing a knife with RJ Martin, again who has the respect of his peers.
We use steel you approve of, and some you don't. Same goes for our patterns. There are times we even make price point knives. We utilize a variety of locks, as well as steels, we push technology, but none of that seems to impress you Cliff, but I have come to feel that’s ok. Cliff under the restrictions that are placed on us manufacturers, we will never make the perfect knife in your eyes everytime, it just won't ever happen. Don't slap us for that.

Now what I won't do Cliff is take swings at you, although I can't say the same for you. If it is the last word that is important to you, it's all you Cliff. I'm not here to argue with you. Spirited debate, no problem. If you feel it necessary to take shots at us, I'll just have to take the high road with you. FYI, I won't take a sarcastic tone with you again.
I actually am fascinated with your posts, although you argue a bit much for my personal taste. Keep up the fine work Cliff, but look to stay close to what you know best.
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The last part is so extreme it is even hard to read. Both posts are nothing but misdirectional personal attacks which completely ignore the points raised about steels and imply that the comments I made are of course just unique to my persepctive and no one else would critize the use of those steels for those knives.

Note the "We use steel you approve and... " in this thread alone I have said straightforwardly several times this is not the case. I don't in general approve/disapprove of steels, that would be like saying I approve of fillet knives but approve of paring knives. It is just an absurd statement. The suitability of a steel depends on the knife and what you are trying to do. It would be difficult for example to argue for use of M2 in a machete or L6 in a salt water fillet knife.

M Wadel said:
12c27 (erasteel also makes their own version of this, PMC27, used in damasteel) is the allrounder, i think the max hardness is 60.5 w cryo (@ 2010F and 1x2h tempering @ 345F, with 15min -140F cryo after hardening and 15min after tempering)
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Do you know if that temper hits a toughness peak? Are these steels available in heavier thickness? Wilson and some other makers are looking for them but the Sandvik steels are usually really thin and Wilson likes thicker stock and tapers.

...the really good thing with these steels is they are cheap around 10€/kg for AEB-L and thats 1/4 of RWL so its a good deal imo
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Yes, these are one of the better steels for certain properties/appliations and also one of the least expensive so the customer pays less and gets more. Thanks for the info on the steels.

-Cliff
 
keep the lefties in mind? My (right handed) wife has carried a Kershaw (Blackout or Chive) for a good five years and loves 'em. I love Ken's designs, too, but they are useless to me if I can't change out the clip and/or the thumb stud. I don't even look at them anymore. But I do watch what Spyderco and SOG are doing. I don't need a supersteel. But I do need a knife I can open and close. Just food for thought.

Frank
 
Cliff under the restrictions that are placed on us manufacturers, we will never make the perfect knife in your eyes everytime, it just won't ever happen. Don't slap us for that.

I really do think that sums it up nicely. Harp all you want, but unless you take into account all the factors Thomas listed to run a knife production company you are not seeing the whole picture.
 
Cliff Stamp said:
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
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Great info, thanks for posting.

Is the Rockwell C scale arithmetic?

Is a HRC "60" value only 5% harder than a HRC "57" harness value?

Or is it logarithmic meaning it is some greather % of hardness (not sure how the calculation works)?

I figured if anyone knows you would. Again, thanks for posting such great information.
 
SilverFox, I'll try to keep you southpaws in our thoughts more often. Thanks for the reminder.

Cliff I'm out of this thread wth you, no hard feelings, I hope. Like I said keep up the quality work.

Stjames, it looks like I should have taken your advice.
 
DGG said:
Great info, thanks for posting.

Is the Rockwell C scale arithmetic?

Is a HRC "60" value only 5% harder than a HRC "57" harness value?

Or is it logarithmic meaning it is some greather % of hardness (not sure how the calculation works)?

I figured if anyone knows you would. Again, thanks for posting such great information.
Click to expand...
As the Rc hardness gets harder, they get closer together, so the difference between 45 and 46 Rc is greater than 61 and 62.
 
Cliff Stamp said:
The origional post was simply :



This is critical, but not what I would call aggressive - but is the responce from the company really expected to be this :
Click to expand...
I know, that's why I put aggressive in quotes. A lot of people find you overly-critical, they don't seem to understand that you are always evaluating. You don't have the emotional ties that some others have to knives, it'd be easier if people could accept that. When you say, 'The steel is underhardened.' I want to hear, "We had a different target for toughness/the price of HT with oil & cryo for the intended price point of the knife is unfeasible/we hadn't thought of that/whatever valid reason" not "It's hard to make knives for the public and sometimes people complain." I know that, all of us do.
 
Thomas W said:
hardheart, just a little harmless off topic side bar with Cliff and I, no harm done. I'll try to be more sensitive (not my strong suit) in the future, ecspecially with the "aggresive" types.
So much for me making a "good show of it" hardheart. ;)
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The thing that bothered me was how fixated you seemed to become on Cliff's comments. You had several other people giving praise to Kershaw. While you did acknwoledge them, you would have best expended your effort on moving forward with that, imo. You don't have to be a salesman, but don't worry about the negative posts if you can't deal with them directly. Did you choose 13C26? Did you set the HT protocol? Did you say D2 for the Outcast? If not, then I'd say defer on the matters. When someone posts that they find Spyderco's ugly, or that there isn't one they find suits them, Sal says "Sorry, maybe you'll find one of our new designs to your liking somewhere down the road." It's brief and feels completely genuine. There's not much more he can do. If an educated consumer doesn't like your product, then you focus on other educated consumers who do. Cliff is the most blunt critic, he sees what he sees and posts about it. No reason to feel that Kershaw is alone in that. Even in this thread, Cliff says that its his opinion that improper HT and mismatched steel is industry-wide for the production side. Sure, he makes example of Kershaw knives, he's speaking with a Kershaw representative. Now, if down the line, posts start popping up saying 'I kinda wish the steel in the JYD were a couple points harder' or 'it's a great knife, but the edge blunts quickly', then there's a possible issue among the target market. Cliff is one guy. An educated, diligent guy who does a hell of a lot with knives, but just the one guy.

Honestly, if it wasn't for prior posts by Cliff and Larrin (plus his write-up on the damasteel site), I wouldn't have even asked about 13C26.
 
hardheart said:
The thing that bothered me was how fixated you seemed to become on Cliff's comments.
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Everybody ends up going a few rounds with Cliff, why don't you ask Cliff why he is fixated on Thomas' admittedly sarcastic comments? You have been on the boards long enough to know how these things always end up going, it should be no suprise.
 
Cliff Stamp is aggressive and it can be hard to get him to say something nice, and Thomas W still needs experience on these boards as a representative of Kershaw. Both need to learn better how to use diplomacy. Note that nowhere in there have I said that I've yet learned how to be diplomatic.

BTW, so far this thread has gone from discussion of 13C26 variants to heat treatment to sarcasm to analyzing Cliff Stamp's thoughts and telling off Thomas W. I like this thread.
 
Cliff Stamp said:
Do you know if that temper hits a toughness peak? Are these steels available in heavier thickness? Wilson and some other makers are looking for them but the Sandvik steels are usually really thin and Wilson likes thicker stock and tapers.
-Cliff
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dont really know if thats the optimal toughness no, i believe there are some good info in "the damasteel handbook" by erasteel. supposedly brittleness occurs when tempering over 840°F

here is some info from sandvik: http://www.smt.sandvik.com/sandvik/0140/internet/APPLICATIONS/SE03502.NSF/61daa3aae3283d03c12569ab004f4aaf/59fef9b00c2c86c1c1256b9600397772/$FILE/S-3820-ENG%2001.qxd.pdf

info from erasteel: http://damasteel.biz/pdf/93x-martensitic1.pdf
its very interesting to look at the rwl in this pdf it clearly indicates that a good cryo will get you +3-5hrc. (except when going for the secondary hardening)

RWL info http://damasteel.biz/pdf/rwl34-datasheet.pdf

dimensions: 12c27 - 2.5mm, 3.25mm, 4mm, 5mm (x380x1000mm)

RWL - 3x50mm, 3.5x38, 4x38mm, 5.2x40mm and 14x35mm (and sometimes 6x50mm)

AEB-L only comes in 3.7mm (3.7x30x243mm and 3.7x50x243mm and 3.7x243x1000mm)

Marss 500/12c27mod only comes in 3mm thickness (up to 3x230x1000mm)
 
The damasteel handbook does have lots of good info. It's not the best info for AEB-L though.
 
however now when i think of it all sandvik stripsteels should be availible up to 5mm or so, but i dont know what the minimum order would be directly from them, you probably have to buy quite a lot
 
M Wadel said:
however now when i think of it all sandvik stripsteels should be availible up to 5mm or so, but i dont know what the minimum order would be directly from them, you probably have to buy quite a lot
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Sandvik lists the sizes available for 13C26 as quite small; however, apparently if you buy a large enough amount you can get it in different sizes, just look at Kershaw. 12C27 can be purchased up to 5mm though. It's more difficult to get smaller than it is larger, so I would suppose that if you wanted larger than 5mm you could get that as well.
 
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