Bluntcut Metalworks Cruforge V Superquenched Slicer Review.

[SBaker34]

am writing this after each test as it happens so that it is fresh, as it may take many days in order for me to feel I have a satisfactory review.



I received the offer from Luong La (bluntcut) to test a knife after I contacted him wanting to know when he will be taking orders, we discussed design and steel a bit, and after a quick google search, Cru Forge V seemed somewhat untested yet very promising. I told him I couldn't make any promises in regard to the quality of my tests, and asked him what he wanted me to test, and he told me that it was completely up to me. I didn't expect much, a rough handled cutout more or less to be sent out when he could find the time, but just over a week from our first contact he sent it out. It came in a priority mail flat rate. I opened it up, and I have to admit I was legitimately surprised, it came with a kydex sheath, which looked quite well done, and the handle was a single piece of wood which appeared to be milled out to slot the tang, it looked and felt designed for my size of hand, which most likely was a coincidence, but was very nice. and was not simply a tube of wood but was shaped and contoured, the wood itself was quite beautiful as well.
Cruforge V is somewhat similar to 52100 but with less chromium and more vanadium, It was intended to combine the forgability, keenness, and toughness of 10xx steels but have much better edge retention. With super quenching I believe the goal is to create a steel that is able to retain a high level of hardness, but have a very fine tough grain structure.

I mentioned wanting a thin slicer, primarily because I felt a thin hard knife that could handle hard use was much more useful than a half inch prybar that can split a tank. But thin this thing is, less than 2.5mm and around 2.5 oz. It looked like it would be a perfect skinning knife.

Although I had decided to profile it for consistency before testing it I did play with the edge he freehanded, it was quite sharp. Push cut pb paper with ease. Caught arm hair, and even shaved. Although not near as well as my PM2 did after heavy stropping.

Now I decided to see what it'll do.

 

[SBaker34]

The specs of the knife as per bluntcut are Cruforge V .093 inches thick .012-.015 behind the edge,2.5oz, 62+HRC, superquenched. I measured the blade at 4.5 inches near exactly. I sharpened the knife at around 14.5DPS on the wicked edge, I used my phone as an angle cube, so it may be as much as a degree off per side but it is inclusive as the most. I removed a bit more steel than I had to, I had the edge looking apexed when I realized there may have been a microbevel, to be 100% sure I had the entire edge completely reprofiled and sharpened, I reset the edge using my 600 grit diamond stone. I finished at 1000 grit, and examined the edge with a loupe under bright light to check for imperfections.

It push cut phone book paper quite cleanly and also easily and cleanly shaved, although it was a bit grabby.

First up, before any potential irreversible damage was done to the edge, I decided to test it on as much cardboard as I could find, with its thin stock and acute edge this was as much of a durability test as it was wear resistance., honestly I expected pretty small but thorough damage after I was finished. I started with my collection of cardboard, it was primary a large heavy box that an ATV rack shipped in, It had pieces of corrugated plastic mixed in as well. I know from past experience a similar amount of cardboard rendered my s30v paramilitary 2 quite usable but barely copy paper slicing sharp.

After the first cut I realized this is the best box knife I've ever used. No box cutter or pocket knife compared to the thin stock and leverage it provided, it zipped through with the slightest pressure, it didn't take very long to demolish the cardboard and make the knife almost uncomfortably warm to touch. I set the knife aside to cool, and decided I might as well slice up a panel of double walled cardboard from a TV box that had been sitting in the barn for several months.

This sucker was tough, especially as I often cut it against the grain, it took significant force sometimes, I could hear grit rattling inside of it and cutting it occasionally made dust clouds. and often I would torque the blade, it took a little longer despite being less cardboard, but soon I was done with it as well.

At this point, based on experience with the PM2, I figured I had killed the edge, I knew it would be usably sharp, but I doubted it would scrap hair or slice paper, and I expected visible blunting or damage. At the place that did most the cutting It needed a little pressure however the rest of the blade felt almost as clean as before.

It looked flawless at first glance. however there was some very minor damage at one area, it appeared to be rolling or a combination of rolling and chipping.

Still slowly sliced phonebook paper, although it would catch occasionally at the damaged area.

I didn't want to call it quits yet, so I grabbed the remaining clean cardboard a pair of boxes. one of them was full of glue.

They sliced up like nothing.

Still more or less slow sliced phone book, it started tearing when I started the cut sometimes, not sure if that's from dullness or glue.

Finally I tried the shave test, 3/4th of the blade would only scrape shave, simply running the blade down my arm or less would pull but not remove more than the occasional stray hair, however if I applied a good amount of pressure it would shave, the tip seeing the least use would still easily shave.

This knife absolutely blew my paramilitary 2 away. I cut much more cardboard, and the blade was still sharper. Please note I am not claiming cruforge, nor bluntcut's heat treat beats s30v for edge retention, I am only claiming that my specific knife with optimized geometry beat my specific paramilitary 2. Geometry, or differences in cardboard could easily be responsible.

I will now resharpen, and proceed to use it on various tasks to see if the blade sustains any damage.

 

[SBaker34]

After getting it resharpened again, I decided I would beat on it, First up the same piece of wood I carved before, unknown to me the other side was much much harder.

Here is a piece that tore out to show you how I was twisting the blade and hacking at times.

Thought I would use a nice fresh soft 2x4 instead, it was also quite hard.

Doesn't appear to have damaged the blade.

Still shaves quite nicely.

This is a picture I took under magnification then enlarged on the PC also, could possibly be microchips, or simply dust/reflection.

Next up was professional grade nylon string trimmer line. I pushcut several pieces, and then made a lateral slice.

Blade still looked undamaged, Started to get pretty darn impressed at this point, and decided although I hated to do it, I would destroy the edge with the full line of tests.

I sliced some wire, first I a piece, which caused the chipping you see near the tip, then I pushcut a few pieces, didn't appear to do much, then did an extremely nasty skinning cut with the base of the blade.

Cut some thick cable, possible microchipping, but small enough I could not see it in any picture.

Then, I decided to do it, I figured there was roughly 50% chance that I would permantly damage or destroy the knife, but I decided to hammer it into the thick orange cord, if you remember, this seriously damaged ever knife tested except the buck 110 at 36 which was already very blunt by the time I tried it, the buck at 30 inclusive didn't even score the wire.

Was pretty surprised when this happened.

This was really quite minor damage considering what happened, I want to say it did at least slightly better than any knife I had tested so far. The damage is still significant though.

Sliced up a tin can.

Decent blunting but still shaves okay. Wind kept blowing the hair off the blade.

The can, no edge so far has been remotely sharp or without significant damage after this. I even twisted the blade once after stabbing into the lid.

Ouch... did pretty well actually except chipping when twisted, and once near the handle for some reason.

I will now see if I can save the edge. However honestly I am impressed, it is a very very thin hard knife, and while it is by no means indestructible, it more or less kept ahead of many other knives that were much thicker behind the edge, while most likely being 1-2dps thinner as well. I have no experience with this steel, and little with carbon steels, but I really don't think you could ask for a better heat treat, the edge retention as well as stability was great, but it was not prone to easily chipping and taking massive damage. I will continue to use and update this thread for several months. But I am quite impressed, I am not going to make broad claims, but I can say this knife outperformed my example of s30v, and had a much thinner edge to boot. Not by much, but again the difference behind the edge was pretty significant.

I appreciate the opportunity to test a new knife especially one of high quality . However I still tried to be as non biased as possible, I doubt I was completely able to do so, but I didn't intentionally baby it at all, and was rougher on it in some cases.


Feel free to ask questions

 

[M.FREEZE]

There are no images showing up

 

[SBaker34]

There are no images showing up

Still not seeing any images?

 

[bodog]

Great review, but yeah, a lot of pictures didn't show up. A great companion review to the thicker workhorse of a knife made from 52100. Would you compare the edge retention to anything in particular?

Thanks for the review. I wouldn't mind trading the knife I have and yours for a week as some kind of exchange review. Give two different perspectives. For a knife that thin I'd call what you did hard use. It held up great.

 

[dogrunner]

Thanks for the review and testing. I am always curious to see what a steel/HT/grind can handle and how much life you can get out of a first-rate cutter on one end of the spectrum, to how good of a cutter/slicer/dicer you can get out of a more robust (steel and/or grind) blade. We never really know without testing and rarely test (costs too much!) to see what that trade-off curve looks like and how much it can be pushed around with all the steel and grind combinations that are possible. Yeah, it is still alive and cutting, despite being a skinny feller

 

[Surfingringo]

Thanks for the testing Baker, and kudos to Bluntcut for his work and for putting these knives out there so that we can all continue to learn!

eta: The first 16 images are still not showing for me.

 

[M.FREEZE]

Images are showing now. Thanks for uploading.

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

For folks who like to shave with knife , Bluntcut's 52100 is the best. :thumbup:
Haven't chance to test his Cruforge V yet.

 

[SBaker34]

Pics should be totally fixed now, let me know, just got home but wanted to fix the pics before I went to bed.

 

[Surfingringo]

Pics should be totally fixed now, let me know, just got home but wanted to fix the pics before I went to bed.

yes, they are showing now.

 

[barrabas74]

Great pics and thank you for taking the time to post everything. I must say I cringed when I saw you intentionally trying to deform/destroy the edge and possibly the knife as it had a nice edge and is a nice knife. However it is great to see what it could do and I am glad no catastrophic failures occurred.

 

[SBaker34]

Trust me I cringed too. But I was asked to test it so I would have felt worse if all I had done was some cardboard and soft wood

 

[jpm2]

I like these tests, and thank everyone who posts them.
One suggestion though, if the test involves making slits in the top of a tin can, go ahead and cut the top out like a can opener would.

 

[Ankerson]

What I like about this is that it shows realism in what to expect in a relatively thin blade.

 

[SBaker34]

What I like about this is that it shows realism in what to expect in a relatively thin blade.

Although I think choppers are fun, I was especially curious to test a thin blade because I know it would draw out the capabilities and issues of the steel much easier. Big busse sized chopper at 25dps would hack right through most this stuff even if it was made out of 440c probably.

 

[Ankerson]

Although I think choppers are fun, I was especially curious to test a thin blade because I know it would draw out the capabilities and issues of the steel much easier. Big busse sized chopper at 25dps would hack right through most this stuff even if it was made out of 440c probably.

Well yeah a Swamp Rat would have done it easy, but they are much thicker and a different type of knife.

 

[SBaker34]

I like these tests, and thank everyone who posts them.
One suggestion though, if the test involves making slits in the top of a tin can, go ahead and cut the top out like a can opener would.

Forgot to reply, although I see your point, and have considered it, I feel its too dependent on the design of the knife itself, and I would like to keep thinks somewhat similar between different knives. For example I had a buck 110 that was missing its tip, meaning I had to actually ram flat steel through the lid, not gonna be carefully opening a can with that. Likewise wide blades could be more difficult to use than pointy ones. Maybe one of these day I should take a video, but I'm basically attempting to slice up the can in the more damaging way possible, because I figure a knife that is carefully used as a can opener will take way less damage than that same knife rammed through the lid and used to saw down the sides.

 

[jpm2]

Forgot to reply, although I see your point, and have considered it, I feel its too dependent on the design of the knife itself, and I would like to keep thinks somewhat similar between different knives. For example I had a buck 110 that was missing its tip, meaning I had to actually ram flat steel through the lid, not gonna be carefully opening a can with that. Likewise wide blades could be more difficult to use than pointy ones. Maybe one of these day I should take a video, but I'm basically attempting to slice up the can in the more damaging way possible, because I figure a knife that is carefully used as a can opener will take way less damage than that same knife rammed through the lid and used to saw down the sides.

I just figured making a circular cut (like cutting the top out) would put more stress on the edge than just straight piercing/draw cuts.
But, I see you did twist the blade making an hour glass shape in the top - good enough I reckon.

I'm still waiting for someone to cut/scratch/gouge glass.