Buck heat treat of Sandvik 13C26 - how hard?

knarfeng

knarfeng

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Now that Buck is offering several models in Sandvik 13C26, has anyone seen a hardness spec?

We all know that Buck runs the best heat treat for 420HC in the business and their spec number of 58HRC is well known and publicised.

Sandvik 13C26 is said by Sandvik to be viable at up to 62HRC (drool... whimper...gimme!)
http://www.smt.sandvik.com/hardeningguide
With a recommended hardness range of 55-62 HRC, exceptional edge performace with scary sharpness and good toughness, 13C26 is recommended for surgical applications, razor applications, whittling or as a surface coated EDC (Every Day Carry knife).
Like most of Sandviks knife steels this grade is fineblankable enabling efficient production.​


I have not found any comment by Buck as to how hard they are running their 13C26 blades.
Does anyone here know?
 
It's good to see more companies using this steel. I'm going to ask Paul Bos. I've used a similar steel, AEB-L, at 62 rc and it worked great. I doubt they would use this hardness though, because of oil quench+immediate cryo requirements.
 
It's 59 rc. Should be nice, tough beater blades that also have decent edge retention. I'm definitely going to pick one up.
 
I guess my first question is whether there may be any advantage that 13C26 would have over S30V for the user, or whether the advantage would be only in production.

As someone here once said, users are thinking about hardness, toughness and edge retention, whereas manufacturers are giving at least the same consideration to how hard will manufacturing the knives be on their machine tools and equipment.
 
wolfdog said:
I guess my first question is whether there may be any advantage that 13C26 would have over S30V for the user, or whether the advantage would be only in production.

As someone here once said, users are thinking about hardness, toughness and edge retention, whereas manufacturers are giving at least the same consideration to how hard will manufacturing the knives be on their machine tools and equipment.
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13C26 can take thinner edges than S30V at the same hardness, because it is tougher and has much lower carbide volume (Buck's S30V is also 59 rc). You can also mirror polish it a lot quicker. Sharpens quick too. I'm surprised that 13C26 isn't used for larger knives, it's a very tough stainless steel.
 
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It sounds like its a perfect option for the expensive LE's with a highly mirrored blade. It would also shutup people that can't understand using 420HC in $600 bowie for example.

Interesting option for the CS 110 too.
 
wolfdog said:
I guess my first question is whether there may be any advantage that 13C26 would have over S30V for the user, or whether the advantage would be only in production.

The vandium steels have better edge retention .

As someone here once said, users are thinking about hardness, toughness and edge retention, whereas manufacturers are giving at least the same consideration to how hard will manufacturing the knives be on their machine tools and equipment.
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Its more like how much can we offer and keep the price competive in a sour market. DM
 
cotdt said:
13C26 can take thinner edges than S30V at the same hardness, because it is tougher and has much lower carbide volume (Buck's S30V is also 59 rc). You can also mirror polish it a lot quicker. Sharpens quick too. I'm surprised that 13C26 isn't used for larger knives, it's a very tough stainless steel.
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It can take a thinner edge because of the smaller/finer carbides . Toughness is a very ambiguous term . Not many (if any) steels are tougher/stronger than the CPM steels because of their manufacturing process . I've e-mailed Jerker Andersson Head of Manufacturing at Sandvik many times on this . Yes, I agree, it will mirror polish and sharpen easier than S30V and easier to fine blank as Narf stated . "This is hedging on one of those academic discussions ." But comparing S30V to 13C26 is like comparing apples to oranges . Other steels would compare more directly . DM:)
 
cotdt said:
It's 59 rc. Should be nice, tough beater blades that also have decent edge retention. I'm definitely going to pick one up.
Click to expand...

Cotdt, Do you have a source for that number? Please post it if you do.


I agree with DM. I'm not wanting to compare 13C26 to S30V, AUS 8 would be a closer match. But I am interested in getting a low carbide fine-grained alloy at high hardness.

___AUS8__13C26
C__0.68___12.9
Cr__0.73__13.75
 
knarfeng said:
Cotdt, Do you have a source for that number? Please post it if you do.
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I asked Mr. Paul Bos, who oversees the heat treat for Buck Knives.

13C26 and AUS-8A are pretty comparable, but I don't see why you can't compare it to S30V. Any two steels can be comapred. 13C26 is basically like 52100 if you look at the carbides, but with 12% free chromium taking the place of harder/stronger martensite. Toughness should still be pretty close, though. It's too bad there are no impact testing data on 13C26. Its high toughness for a stainless steel would be good for marketing.
 
Knarf, Your comparison is dead on, 12C27 mod. could be compared to AUS-8, 6, or 425M just easier on tooling, as Mr. Andersson inform me . You can compare any steels you like, some are in another class based on ingredients, amounts or manufacturing . I'd consider 12C27 mod. an upgrade . On impact; the Charpy test data, like the CATRA test data is often held as proprietary company information . Even heat treat testing equipment is expensive and must be strictly maintained which the toughness your speaking of directly relates to . Were fortunate some here have access to these but most of us don't and have to pay for these services . DM
 
David Martin said:
But comparing S30V to 13C26 is like comparing apples to oranges . Other steels would compare more directly . DM:)
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As a customer, sometimes you do that. If Buck were to offer a given knife with the options of 420HC, S30V and 13C26, which would I get? S30V is my preferred steel among the Buck knives I currently own, so I would be looking to see where 13C26 fits in.
 
We will be running it in the 58-60 range, we are really excited about offering this steel as our internal testing has shown higher levels of both Corrosion and ductility properties, combining these benefits with higher rockwells gives us a great blade steel for our products. And you know that Paul Bos will get ever ounce of performance out of the materials with his world famous heat treating. In working with the engineers from Sanvick they tested our 420 HC back in their labs and they stated they have never seen such high perormance out of this level of steel and that our heat treating is getting 110% out of this material.
 
duck57 said:
In working with the engineers from Sanvick they tested our 420 HC back in their labs and they stated they have never seen such high perormance out of this level of steel and that our heat treating is getting 110% out of this material.
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I prefer S30V to 420HC, so I want to have my favorite knives with S30V blades.

Ironically, I take better care of my favorite knives though they may be users, so I end up using 420HC on tougher tasks where I'm not so concerned with the knife. I've had no problems really with Buck's 420HC, at least for my uses.
 
duck57 said:
We will be running it in the 58-60 range, we are really excited about offering this steel as our internal testing has shown higher levels of both Corrosion and ductility properties, combining these benefits with higher rockwells gives us a great blade steel for our products. And you know that Paul Bos will get ever ounce of performance out of the materials with his world famous heat treating. In working with the engineers from Sanvick they tested our 420 HC back in their labs and they stated they have never seen such high perormance out of this level of steel and that our heat treating is getting 110% out of this material.
Click to expand...

Thanks duck. You too, cotdt.

I fired up my courage and asked Jeff Hubbard last night in an email what the hardness spec was for the Vantage AVID model (the one with the 13C26 blade).

He was kind enough to respond to me with:
"We currently run those at a 59-60 Rc I hope this helps."
Click to expand...

Music to my ears. I gotta get me one of those!
With half again the Carbon of 420HC and run at a high hardness, that's gotta be da bomb...

It might be pure vorpal
:D:D:thumbup::thumbup:
 
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