Chinese Heat Treat Process???

K

Karambit777

Joined
Feb 15, 2014
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127
A PRIME EXAMPLE == (nobody laugh) MYKLE HAWK HARRIER... AUS8... MADE IN CHINA.

My question is has anybody ever bore witness, or have a good reliable source concerning how some of the Chinese knife producing factories heat treat their knives?

I am not looking for opinions. I am looking for concrete information concerning their process. I am a firm believer in buying USA made knives, and I have many. I also have some Chinese produced knives from USA companies like Buck, and SOG. Knives like the Hawk Harrier does have a "good mid grade steel" however I am 100% uncertain of their heat treat process. I don't even know who makes the knives like the Hawk Harrier. I know it sure aint Mykle Hawk, or any reputable company that I am aware of.

I am just super curious on how some of these Chinese factories heat treat an otherwise good steel. AUS8 has excellent potential before the heat treat process, but once heat treated can either make it, or break it (literally). Any info, leads, or personal eye witness to these Chinese companies and their heat treat process will be most appreciated.

SMKW has these Hawk Harrier on sale for $10.00, so I bought a few just to beat the $!@# out of to try and answer some of my own questions. It really pisses me off that some of these knife makers claim to have good steel, and good construction yet are super mysterious with their production processes. If your going to claim to have good steel, and good hardware to build your knives, then have the balls to be more open about the production process like the REAL knife companies do. Its either a good knife, or it isn't, now which is it!!!!!!!!! It should be illegal to produce a knife with good materials just to screw up the heat treat, and then hand it off to your customers claiming that its a good blade. In the industrial world concerning Tool Steels, if a tool company produces a tool or part out of tool steel, and it breaks and gets someone hurt, They can have their A$$ handed to them in a lawsuit. companies that produce knives should be held to the same standard. Either make the knife up to par with your claims, or QUIT PRODUCING THE POS.

Should be illegal to waste resources with piss poor production standards. gripes my @$$
 
Karambit777 said:
A PRIME EXAMPLE == (nobody laugh) MYKLE HAWK HARRIER... AUS8... MADE IN CHINA.

My question is has anybody ever bore witness, or have a good reliable source concerning how some of the Chinese knife producing factories heat treat their knives?

I am not looking for opinions. I am looking for concrete information concerning their process. I am a firm believer in buying USA made knives, and I have many. I also have some Chinese produced knives from USA companies like Buck, and SOG. Knives like the Hawk Harrier does have a "good mid grade steel" however I am 100% uncertain of their heat treat process. I don't even know who makes the knives like the Hawk Harrier. I know it sure aint Mykle Hawk, or any reputable company that I am aware of.

I am just super curious on how some of these Chinese factories heat treat an otherwise good steel. AUS8 has excellent potential before the heat treat process, but once heat treated can either make it, or break it (literally). Any info, leads, or personal eye witness to these Chinese companies and their heat treat process will be most appreciated.

SMKW has these Hawk Harrier on sale for $10.00, so I bought a few just to beat the $!@# out of to try and answer some of my own questions. It really pisses me off that some of these knife makers claim to have good steel, and good construction yet are super mysterious with their production processes. If your going to claim to have good steel, and good hardware to build your knives, then have the balls to be more open about the production process like the REAL knife companies do. Its either a good knife, or it isn't, now which is it!!!!!!!!! It should be illegal to produce a knife with good materials just to screw up the heat treat, and then hand it off to your customers claiming that its a good blade. In the industrial world concerning Tool Steels, if a tool company produces a tool or part out of tool steel, and it breaks and gets someone hurt, They can have their A$$ handed to them in a lawsuit. companies that produce knives should be held to the same standard. Either make the knife up to par with your claims, or QUIT PRODUCING THE POS.

Should be illegal to waste resources with piss poor production standards. gripes my @$$
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Live and learn.?Good luck with the lawsuit.Time to step up and buy a good quality Made in USA knife.You might be happier in the long run.I heard somewhere that the knives Spydero produces in Golden has some pretty good heat treatment.You might have to spend like 10X the cost of Hawk Harrier, but I think the steel should hold an edge.I personally consider Spyderco S30V the benchmark for knives that I would consider purchasing for any dollar amount.Sometimes you get what you pay for and sometimes you don't.........
 
Your wording is a bit confusing... are you referring to USA companies like those you mentioned above, who produce some knives in China, or are you referring to some actual Chinese companies (as you say toward the end) that produce knives?

If you're talking about the former, I would imagine the Chinese factories use the heat treat standards that the manufacturing company (Buck, SOG, whatever) tell them to, assuming the company cares about and keeps up with quality control concerns, inspections, etc.
 
Karambit777 said:
My question is has anybody ever bore witness, or have a good reliable source concerning how some of the Chinese knife producing factories heat treat their knives?

I am not looking for opinions. I am looking for concrete information concerning their process...
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Are you really asking for forum members who have witnessed knife heat treating in China or know specifics on how it's done? Or are you complaining about Chinese knives? I agree with Redlynx as my Cold Steel "made in China" SK-5 is heat treated exceptionally well, but they (the Chinese) make crap also. I stopped complaining about foreign products after having bought a "made in USA" truck and travel trailer which were both more or less unusable upon delivery:)
 
How many people know what heat treatment processes go on in US factories? Plenty of people here love to recite things like "Bos heat treat" as some kind of magical incantation without any idea what it entails, and even more damning, without any way of really determining any advantage of such process.

You're right, a knife is good, or it isn't. It doesn't matter, however, what steel is used or what heat treatment is used as long as the end result is good.
 
So how did the knives perform? Was the F&F any good? Did they function smoothly and lock up tight? Did they hold an edge? And the bottom line, what did you really expect for a $10 made in China knife anyway?
 
SOLEIL said:
So how did the knives perform? Was the F&F any good? Did they function smoothly and lock up tight? Did they hold an edge? And the bottom line, what did you really expect for a $10 made in China knife anyway?
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Had a bit of a hard time following where the OP was trying to go with this. But it seems at best I was able to conclude he is upset about the poor performance of his $10 Chinese knife that was described in the ad copy as being some type of uber blade.

Although I don't really shop for $10 knives, I'm not really sure you can get a knife made anywhere of decent quality for $10 no matter what the ad copy says. Well, maybe a razor knife I guess. Those work ok for their intended purpose I suppose.
 
Joe58 said:
Although I don't really shop for $10 knives, I'm not really sure you can get a knife made anywhere of decent quality for $10 no matter what the ad copy says.
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True.
Works that way for other things, too.

Once, I bought a $10 electric shaver, and I thought "Wow, a $10 shaver! What a deal!" :)

Later, when I was bleeding in some spots while hair was left in patches everywhere else, I said "Oh, a $10 shaver." :(
 
I had an interesting article from Australia about buying steel. Their conclusion - buy only from most reputable companies, get copies of all the specs and all the certs --and hope for the best !!
A country where there is little oversite on items , where cheating is common even when an industry is greatly damaged and many people are injured or die [Melemine in milk scandle ] is not one to have much faith in .The knife may be machine made or sent to cottage industry even to another country [I read that cheaper Chinese knives are farmed out to Pakistan !]
Pay a reasonable price from an item from a reasonable country and you're less likely to be unhappy !
 
Suing Chinese manufacturers for producing a bad product? I'm sorry, this thread makes such little sense over all. It's riddled with generalization, assumption, and misinformation, ouch.
 
RevDevil said:
Suing Chinese manufacturers for producing a bad product? I'm sorry, this thread makes such little sense over all. It's riddled with generalization, assumption, and misinformation, ouch.
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And also somewhat ambiguous... almost seems we should be suing the American manufacturers who have production there.... I am more than a little confused by the thread, hopefully OP can clear it up.
 
shecky said:
How many people know what heat treatment processes go on in US factories? Plenty of people here love to recite things like "Bos heat treat" as some kind of magical incantation without any idea what it entails, and even more damning, without any way of really determining any advantage of such process.

You're right, a knife is good, or it isn't. It doesn't matter, however, what steel is used or what heat treatment is used as long as the end result is good.
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I do actually know what goes in to heat treating, because I make steel products that use proprietary heat treating. There's only three ways heat treating goes:

1) A steel factory makes steel alloy to a certain specification (or you buy off-the-shelf steel), some do limited in-house heat treating but that's usually rare, most steels you buy from a factory are only going to be work hardened from when they take your steel from a roll and cut it to the size you need. This is the cheapest way but there is very little control over steel properties.

2) Unfinished steel is bought from the factory and heat treated by a third party. This is most common and the best way to get exactly the properties you want. More expensive, but not by as much if you factor yield. On knives, they are usually heat treated as blade blanks, since most heat treating processes are case hardening and so would be ground away during finish work.

3) Unfinished steel is bought from the factory and heat treated in-house by the manufacturer. While most would like to think this is how its done by the majority of knifemakers, I'd bet you would be shocked how few actually do in-house heat treating. Its a very difficult process and exceptionally easy to screw up doing it by hand, but you can much finer control over your steel properties and even have the liberty to experiment.
 
The Chinese have the best brand ovens in the world (They buy them from the USA and Europe) including vacuum and cryo gear and what have you not.

They actually produce quality work for many industries. Think of everything steel and about a forth gets HT. In that, 0.002% is knife steel.

Oh you mean knives? I think they do those quick at the end of the shift to specs sent by the manufacturers. The blades that get heat treated are either chinese steel, American steel or european steel. The blades are made on huge automated machines that can work to extremly close tolerances.

It all depends on the manufacturer, they choices and their QA. See, an American craftsman will chamfer or break sharp edges because its just good workmanship, even if it wasn't stated in the SOW. Chinese will not. Its not because they don't care, its just they simply don't know or understand the craft.

They copy things but they don't understand the creation process in the first place and will make mistakes.

That said, 95% of the knives coming out of china are complete crap. They do this because everyone wants to earn money. And Safeways and luckys want knives on their shelves because consumers want a 15 dollar kitchen knife. Because many American large consumer companies just don't give a crap about what steel is in it and how it gets heat treated because... wait for it :)

90% of all the worlds knives are dull. 9% are almost dull. The rest is us here, knife lovers who actually care. So our little mini niche market is so small many chinese companies think they are making a quality product because they just don't know any better.

Buy American made (Or European or Japanese if you are so inclined) or at least from a reputable company and you should be good to go.

Your best bet is a good custom maker with a track record of quality and testing and... Quality control.
 
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I don't know of any company that gives out anything more than the basics about their heat treat. The hardness is all most give with how they got there being proprietary. Even where they had it treated is considered proprietary if they don't do it themselves. Some companies have done you tube videos of their process. Victronox is one example. Certain parts like the Heat treat was not showed. One razor manufacturer showed them using lead pots for their treating but even then there was no discussion of temps, times, quench etc. yet it was more than most companies give. Most will not even release the name of the company that does the heat treat.

Some companies even make up names for steel trying to keep things secret. In that way they can switch steels when needed and still call it XXX. Cold steel and Carbon V was such. It wasn't changed because it was a poor steel IMO. It was excellent steel and had a wonderful heat treat thanks to Mr. Dan. Maragni.

Joe
 
ev13wt said:
See, an American craftsman will chamfer or break sharp edges because its just good workmanship, even if it wasn't stated in the SOW. Chinese will not. Its not because they don't care, its just they simply don't know or understand the craft.
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I wish this were true. I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but have seen and bought so much garbage produced by American "craftsmen" that I know better. I had a custom handgun built by a renowned gunsmith. The barrel was tilted so much the gun couldn't be sighted in and there were clamp marks on the barrel as well, even though a proprietary finish was part of the package. It was returned and fixed, but I waited several weeks and ate return postage. It's perfect now, but I can't stand the "American craftsmanship" crap. I also worked in a factory in high school which made heavy machines for the US military. I saw more (important) corners cut than I could stomach. As a 16 year old kid I wanted to throw up when I thought of a serviceman using some of this stuff in combat. Had I known more then, I'd have reported the issues.

On average, I'd say you will probably get better stuff from the good ole' USA, but every country has slobs and everyone makes mistakes. Again, I'll say my Chinese and Taiwan CS knives are superb, as is my Rat 1. It is all about if the cat is watching the mice. How many timess have you driven passed these American craftsmen on local road crews leaning on shovels all day:) CS bought tons of Sharon Steel for their Carbon V (O170-6) and had an exacting procedure for it's processing in the USA. Once that was unavailable, they went to a superb Japanese SK-5 (Hitachi Blue?), had the work done overseas, and still maintained their practice of high QC and utilizing the best heat treat for the steel. I evaluate the company, not the country, but YMMV.
 
AUS 8 is a Japanese steel. I don't think there's any such thing as a Chinese heat treat process. Screwing up the heat treat process is not based on national origin (I have a well-respected German brand with what appears to be bad cooking). A $10.00 knife may or may not be a bargain but it's more than likely NOT. There actually are some Chinese companies making really good knives for a cheap price (SanRenMu comes to mind) and Spyderco seems to have located factories in China and elsewhere that can make high quality products yet allow the selling price to be economical. I'm not sure there was a question from the OP involved or if it's just a rant against crappy products.
 
ev13wt said:
See, an American craftsman will chamfer or break sharp edges because its just good workmanship, even if it wasn't stated in the SOW. Chinese will not. Its not because they don't care, its just they simply don't know or understand the craft.

They copy things but they don't understand the creation process in the first place and will make mistakes.
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What a load of unadulterated tripe!
 
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