Chipping in Spyderco S30V

B

brownshoe

I support this site with my MIND
Joined
Sep 6, 2002
Messages
9,924
I got a TMag on Wednesday. Within one day I got two microchips in the belly of the blade. I cut an apple, some paper, callouses, thread, and a stick. Hardest thing the knife touched was the laminated top to my desk, when the sharp blade went quickly through the apple. The chips were about 0.25 to 0.5mm, visible by the naked eye. One came out easy with the 15 degree gray sharpmaker, the other was reduced, but still visible.

Within two more days, the tip chipped off. Small piece, about 0.5mm, visible by the naked eye. I did use the knife to slash through 4 sheets of newsprint. This was the hardest thing the tip touched. However, this should not and never has in the past chipped a tip. There was no abuse. I cut the same things as before, but used it in some food prep, cut paper, etc. Hardest thing the knife edge ever touched was a wooden cutting board. Took a few minutes with a diamond hone to reprofile the tip.

Other steels in new knives within the last year that have had absolutely no chipping but were much more severly used: S30V from Buck (Bose supervised heat treat), 440C from custom maker, O1 custom, ATS34 from Case, Douk-Douk, W&H VG-10. With the 440C, I dropped the blade and it hit the tip with a glancing blow on blacktop. The tip bent back about 1mm but did not chip off.

Why did it chip?

Don't know. Some will say hardness, others edge geometry, some say both. Spyderco no longer gives the hardness of their steels in the catalog, so this cannot be evaluated. Per AGRussell, spyderco s30v in the Sage is 59-61 rockwell. If correct, this should not be a problem for this steel.

The edge angle is significantly less than the 30 degrees on the sharpmaker. After the first chips, I put about 10 strokes on the gray and white stones at 30 degrees to reduce the angle a little on the whole edge in case it was an edge problem. Hasn't chipped again on the belly, but the tip did chip off.

Of course, I bought it on closeout as a $50 knife, and it still cuts, but it was designed, built and marketed as a high end $250 state of the art knife, thus chipping is not expected. My only other experience with USAmade spyderco is a Terzuola from 2000 in CPM440V. It also had a chipping problem, but the chips were deeper and more severe. It stopped with time, but some of the chips were too deep to readily remove. I gave it away, so I don't know its current status.

There are a lot of Tmags out there now, anyone else see the same problem? Does anyone know if Spyderco heat treats these themselves and if the blades are tested for hardness?
 
Interesting. I have two Natives and neither one has chipped. Neither can get as shaving sharp as some of my other knives, including a CRKT S-2 w/ATS-34 and a Benchmade Ascent with basically the same steel. I've also not heard of any of the Bucks chipping, so I'd like to find out if anyone else has had problems with Spyderco's S30V. Could have just been a bad batch. Happens.

C115CFP_M.jpg


Spyderco T-Mag can be had for about fifty bucks.
 
Oh...you think he actually has one?:rolleyes:

brownshoe said:
The edge angle is significantly less than the 30 degrees on the sharpmaker. After the first chips, I put about 10 strokes on the gray and white stones at 30 degrees to reduce the angle a little on the whole edge in case it was an edge problem.
Click to expand...
btw, 'tard, while I have your one post unignored...that would increase the angle, not reduce it.
 
Last edited:
The kind of guy who needs something to complain about.

I've EDC'd a Manix everyday for 2 to 3 years with no chipping issues. Gets sharp easily, stays that way for a long time and hasn't chipped at all.
 
There is a current thread in the spyderco forum about S30V chipping on a native.

Owen, thanks for calling me a retard. You're a classy guy, but probably in middle school. Yes I bought one, almost bought one at the first price drop but thought it was too much money for a knife w/o a lock. Not sure what you mean about the angle, but if the 30 degree angle hits the edge, then the original angle must be less than 30. If it was greater than 30, I'd be sharpening above the edge.



As I've told you before Rat, I have many spydercos, and I give them as presents. I don't hate spyderco; just bought one of the old style kitchen knives, because I think they are better than the current ones.
 
Sounds like you abused the knife by hitting a laminate top to me. Depending on the application, it can be quite hard. I wouldn't worry much about the microchipping. It is common with S30V and acts like a serrated blade.

For future reference, you shouldn't abuse your knifes. Don't hit them on concrete, rocks, steel or laminate tops. I would suggest that you spend more than Fourty something dollars on a knife. You'll take better cafe of them and be less abusive. At least I do.
 
Last edited:
My spyderco s30v knives have had no serious issues with chipping, a few micro chips while sharpening when new but no problems after that. On the whole I am not a fan of s30v as it seems to be brittle to me regardless of the maker/heat treat. I much prefer the spyderco offerings in vg-10, and i've heard good things about zdp-189 but have not tried it yet personally.
 
The TMag uses earth magnets to keep the blade open. I'd be interested in hearing how well that operates. I think $250 was overreaching a bit for that particular knife, but fifty dollars sounds like it might be worth picking up.
 
Hmm, I've had no issues with S30V chipping* or not getting sharp. In fact...

[youtube]pMFcyo64fbY[/youtube]

*The only times I've had S30V chip is when intentionally abusing S30V blades to see when they'd damage.

I've heard numerous reports on the Natives chipping, but I've used 3 different S30V Natives myself, among at least 5 other S30V Spydecos and haven't noticed any myself. S30V has worked very well for me, with my reprofiled S30V knives even handling some chopping and batoning without issue. Also some light metal cutting.
 
I've got an S30V Native. It is a good little knife. It takes a very good edge. But it does chip! It chips on raspberry vines, whittling wood, cutting plastic, etc. Nothing that I would expect chipping on. I just sharpen them out.
 
Gator, how big of chips do you get? Visible to the naked eye and easily detectable with the fingernail test? Is it possible to get any photos of this as well?
 
I love my D4 wave but the tip chipping from hitting a laminate caountertop definately does not sound good. Would definately not consider that abuse unless you hammered it in there or something.
 
Thorrg said:
I love my D4 wave but the tip chipping from hitting a laminate caountertop definately does not sound good. Would definately not consider that abuse unless you hammered it in there or something.
Click to expand...

laminated counter tops are harder than you think.
 
It sounds to me like the S30V in this particular knife is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. I'm curious why some people automatically assume that it's the user's fault and that the behavior of this steel is okay. I haven't experienced any of these things with any S30V knife I've owned. I don't think this is acceptable and I personally would consider this a lemon.

I love Spyderco as a company and it's products. But all of the S30V issues I read have been about their knives. I think there' might be some bad heat treat batches out there from Spyderco. I don't think it's the steel itself since I've only read about chipping on Spyderco models.
 
I've owned S30V knives since they first came out with the steel, have put them to really hard use, and haven't had a problem with any of them.

You might want to use a cutting board next time. Using laminated surfaces for cutting are only surpassed by using metal, glass, or granite surfaces.
 
Kaizen1 said:
It sounds to me like the S30V in this particular knife is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. I'm curious why some people automatically assume that it's the user's fault and that the behavior of this steel is okay. I haven't experienced any of these things with any S30V knife I've owned. I don't think this is acceptable and I personally would consider this a lemon.

I love Spyderco as a company and it's products. But all of the S30V issues I read have been about their knives. I think there' might be some bad heat treat batches out there from Spyderco. I don't think it's the steel itself since I've only read about chipping on Spyderco models.
Click to expand...

I have also had S30V chip on a Kershaw as well. As long as we are kicking a dead horse, wasn't the consensus that initial factory sharpening was possibly heating the edges of the blade and making them subject to chipping? This idea would seem to have some merit with my own experience, as with a couple of hand sharpening sessions, the problem seems to go away.
 
Brownshoe, though I admit Rat's response is what first came through my mind due to your past campaigns against spyderco I'll try to be a bit more professional about it than I was in the past.

I have had at least 30 Spydercos with S30V. At least that many other manufacturers knives in that steel

I admit I didn't like it at first. Right when Spyderco first began selling the Golden native through wal mart I bought 3 of them. I already had probably 5 S30 knives by then.

Of the 3, one of them chipped ( very small, but easily eye visual without a loup or magnifier). They were easily felt running my nail over the edge, though my sandpaper like skin couldn't feel them

The only thing I had cut was a plastic bubble pack ( hard, clear plastic that won't tear. the kind that can itself slice you if you're not carefull) to get something out. It touched nothing else, as it was a horizontal cut in the air, not touching any kind of backing.

That knife sharpened out ok. Took a great edge. Then chipped out again. I gave it away as a free knife to a cousins husband ( what's family for eh?).

He still uses his knife quite contentedly to this day, and uses it harder than I did, but at much lower sharpness levels than I'd be caught with.

That remains the only knife in S30V I've had that's ever chipped. I like several other steels better, but still rate S30V as a very good, high quality steel. That and VG10 are my baseline steels which I typically won't go under in performance now when making a purchase.

My using S30 as a kind of benchmark signifies that I have respect for it's performance. As a good , all around steel for folders it's great.

I've been using my T-Mag one day so far and no sign of chipping. It came with very good grinds, quality workmanship, and no lock. It is what it is. It's a well made "what it is" too.

Regards, Joe
 
Last edited:
Yo, brownshoe! Sounds like you, Sodak and I have had pretty much the same luck/experience with S30V. Fortunately, there are plenty of really good steels available to keep me happy ... in fact I can't exactly remember the last time I bought a blade in S30V.

BTW it seems to me the mere fact that you bought this knife indicates you have no bias against the manufacturer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top