Can somebody help me understand this? Training knives in 440C?

[res1cue]

Now I am not into using/buying training knives, but I have stumbled upon this kind of thing a few times now. Why would manufacturers make training knives out of 440C?? I mean, it is no modern-day super steel, but it is a pretty respectable steel with almost 1% carbon (which means, increased tooling cost). I can't for the life of me figure out why a 440C training knife would be any more advantageous than a 420J2 or "surgical stainless" or anything like that.

 

[Mountain Lion]

At first I thought it must be for streamlining purposes (fewer sources of steel), except it's uncommon for quality manufacturers to make heavy use of 440 anymore. The only thing I can think of is that it's the same reason Gillette puts five blades on a damn razor cartridge. Sure it costs more to produce, but that means they can mark it up more and increase the amount of profit. Not to offend people who buy training knives, but I have a feeling that such people don't mind paying a little more.

 

[Shorttime]

Aluminum is lighter, and although it may be a small difference, making the blade out of 440 would make the trainer balance more like the sharp version.

440 may be less prone to breaking under stress than plastic or aluminum.

 

[res1cue]

Aluminum is lighter, and although it may be a small difference, making the blade out of 440 would make the trainer balance more like the sharp version.

440 may be less prone to breaking under stress than plastic or aluminum.

What about 440A? or 420J2? melted down paper clips?


Mountain Lion, that makes sense, but I wouldn't have expected it from spyderco or benchmade.

 

[Joshua J.]

It confuses me as much as anyone. Maybe the manufacturers are just allergic to 420, and they don't even want to see any in their shop.

A more practical guess is that the trainer is produced using the same machines that make the real thing, and since material costs are virtually irrelevant (machining costs make up most of the end price) it doesn't really matter what they use. Much of the cost of using high end steel comes from cutting it out with a LASER, if you can stamp the blade out you get significant savings, but that would involve setting up a blade stamping machine, which in Spyderco's case I'm pretty sure they don't have and even if they did the stamped blades may not fit with the rest of the hardware not to mention you're only ever going to sell a few dozen of these and it's probably debatable whether it's even worth the extra time on the CAD machine and inventory space.