Carpenter CTS alloy experience

M

Mac the knife-maker

Joined
Mar 9, 2012
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48
Is there anyone with experience using the Carpenter CTS alloys? from what i've read, they seem like they would be fine.

I just found a local source, and really love the idea of going to a store and walking out with steel.

I'm tired of paying shipping charges for steel.

thanks
 
I have only made one knife with Carpenter CTS-XHP, and I like it so much I've kept it for myself. It's a 5" drop point, "combat/survival" style blade, roughly 1/8" thick at the ricasso. I ground it thin and had Peters' HT it to 59Rc. I have beaten this thing like a red-headed stepdog, and it just grins at me.

It is by far the finest knife I've ever made or tested, in terms of taking a fine edge, staying sharp, and flat-out laughing at the idea of corrosion. For the record, I'm comparing it to Crucible's CPM-154 and CPM-3V, as well as Aldo's 1084 and Starrett O1. All of which make really great knives. :thumbup:

The only reason I'm not making more knives out of this excellent steel is, I can't seem to find any of it without mortgaging my house to buy full sheets. If you have a source for it in small-to-moderate quantities, please pm me.
 
Rumor has it that CTS-XHP is great stuff, but the QC/surface finish on the stock has allegedly ben rather sub par on some batches. One vendor supposedly had to have .250 sheet stock surface ground down to .190 before all of the slag, bird poop and decarb was gone. If you consider that a 12 x 72 sheet of .250 probably costs over $1000, that is some VERY expensive waste.
 
Joe, my friend, I call baloney-sausage on that. The mill-scale waste I experienced with XHP was no more or less than the waste I've had to deal with on CPM-154, CPM-3V or D2 variants. If you can get it, pay the extra dime for precision-ground stock; it is worth every penny.
 
early batches were indead not decanned before rolling abd needed much clean up but not nearly that much

i have used most of the grades they have offered for we knife makers. the thing you need to knoe is that the XHP at 61RC feels liek you way underhardened it when you go back to the grinder to finish it ( i re checked the hardness 2 times to make for sure as it jsut ground way too easy )
all the folks in the kitchen knif world love the XHP for its fine edge (im gettign ready to try a razor in it )
i jsut got done with some of the cts75p (kind of like BG42 but with extrea fine PM and a few little extra alloy tweeks to make it even better)

if you want to pick a grade i can likely get you more info on it
 
Call me whatever cold cut you like, sir. LOL. I am going by what I was told by a vendor that has showed himself to be very trustworthy in my dealings with him. i was also told that some of the sheets arrived bent. Carpenter told me that the .103 CTS-XHP stock would "clean up' to .093. I may be a tad naive, but by my calculation, that is almost 10% waste MINIMUM on a sheet of steel that costs $550 before shipping. That tells me that I might have to go up to .125 or .140 at $650-750 a sheet just to make sure that I have enough left over for a big kitchen knife once I get done abusing it on the KMG. Its hard enough to swallow $30 per blade raw steel cost when you are used to $5-8 without having to add more for waste and grinding. I have never bought stainless other than 416, but most of the thin stock of that, 410 and stuff like 15N20 came pretty much ready to use.
james terrio said:
Joe, my friend, I call baloney-sausage on that. The mill-scale waste I experienced with XHP was no more or less than the waste I've had to deal with on CPM-154, CPM-3V or D2 variants. If you can get it, pay the extra dime for precision-ground stock; it is worth every penny.
Click to expand...
 
Joe, my point is, ten percent waste is not extreme at all. I am a stock-removal guy, and as such, I regularly grind off 50% of my stock, just to get down to the bevels I want. Hammer-jockey's very often forge to shape, and then grind off at least 20% of the steel they started with, to get behind the de-carbed surface material they've ruined by burning the hell out of it.

You know quite well that I was not calling you a sausage :) This is not a personal attack, by any means.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but honestly that 10% figure sounds about right for any high-alloy barstock I've ever used. It ALL has scale on it; whether I grind it off or my supplier does, doesn't change that fact*. My admittedly limited experience with CTS-XHP reflects similar numbers, and similar figures regarding time/belts etc to actually make a knife from it... compared to other high-end particle-metallurgy steels like CPM-154 and CPM-3V.

XHP costs a good deal more up front, and is rare as hen's teeth, no question! That is the only reason I'm not using it right now.

* I recently spoke with a very highly-respected purveyor of top-grade cutlery steel (I'm sure you can guess who I mean), and he explained to me the amount of waste involved in running even "simple" steels, in the sizes we want. I was completely floored at the percentages involved, and that convo really made me feel lucky that we can get any of this stuff at all. The waste numbers are staggeringly large.
 
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I managed to procur a few small pieces of CTS-XHP, and was looking forward to using it already. Reading Jame's glowing review on the steel, makes me even more anxious to try it out. Just wish I had more.
 
XHP is great stuff and carpenter is now grinding off all the can before the rolling starts adn also has out sourced some of the thin rolling to another place as they get the inhouse kinks all worked out
funny thing is that they were rolling to the spec that is good for many big jobs (we knife makers have been lucky to have sheets that were rolled better then allowed for all these years)

they are working to get all this good steel rolled out and in stock at distro. and they have been making leaps and bounds in the last 3 years since they gave this knife steel thing a shot
 
To echo what Butch has said: I bought a 2'x4' sheet of the early stuff and it was quite bowed, lots of can metal, and lots of internal stress still there from rolling. They stuff would curl before your eyes on the band saw. Once you work through the difficulties it's great steel. I've gotten a couple later pieces from Alpha and most of the issues are gone. Can is all but gone, and it's nice and straight. It's a great steel for real use and it's very nice to work with, grinding and finishing wise.
 
I had forgotten about the can metal issue.:eek: It is good to hear that they have gotten the QC issues under control because everything that I have heard about the finished product (regardless of who had to "finish" it) has been very positive.
 
Yes, I can guess who that might be. He told me the general numbers comparing how big a smelt will be and how much bar stock you end up with and there was quite a difference. The difference I see with him is that we end users never really see much of that waste. I compare how much I have to grind off of even his early carbon steel bar stock when prepping it for making damascus and how much I have to grind off CruForgeV bars and there is quite a difference. Yes, I am a hammer jockey and I don't forge to 90-955 of final shape like some of the real talented guys do, but that is not an issue with steel that cost me $5 a pound. When I start buying stainless, my concern will be what will the actual USABLE thickness of the stock be? The one thing that I notice about our aforementioned steel pimp friend is that when he sells you a bar of "3/16" stock, it actually specs out at around .210, so you have plenty of wiggle room.
james terrio said:
Joe, my point is, ten percent waste is not extreme at all. I am a stock-removal guy, and as such, I regularly grind off 50% of my stock, just to get down to the bevels I want. Hammer-jockey's very often forge to shape, and then grind off at least 20% of the steel they started with, to get behind the de-carbed surface material they've ruined by burning the hell out of it.

You know quite well that I was not calling you a sausage :) This is not a personal attack, by any means.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but honestly that 10% figure sounds about right for any high-alloy barstock I've ever used. It ALL has scale on it; whether I grind it off or my supplier does, doesn't change that fact*. My admittedly limited experience with CTS-XHP reflects similar numbers, and similar figures regarding time/belts etc to actually make a knife from it... compared to other high-end particle-metallurgy steels like CPM-154 and CPM-3V.

XHP costs a good deal more up front, and is rare as hen's teeth, no question! That is the only reason I'm not using it right now.

* I recently spoke with a very highly-respected purveyor of top-grade cutlery steel (I'm sure you can guess who I mean), and he explained to me the amount of waste involved in running even "simple" steels, in the sizes we want. I was completely floored at the percentages involved, and that convo really made me feel lucky that we can get any of this stuff at all. The waste numbers are staggeringly large.
Click to expand...
 
i had requested that wiggle room as i told him a stock remover can grind down but not add too the bar and the hammer group would not care in the least bit if it was over sized
 
Yup, we're on the same page after all. Thanks to Mac and Butch for the links to suppliers.

I heard through the grapevine that Carpenter is fixing to release a new alloy in the next few months. Keep your ears peeled.

Danbo... pm inbound.
 
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