Chrome - Vanadium Steels

[johno]

While playing armchair knife designer I noticed that vanadium seems to be good stuff to have in knife steels as it helps a lot in edge holding and heat treating, and that a small amount of chromium seems to help in heat treating. Thinking that a lower alloy - higher carbon steel would not only be more affordable but tougher too I tried to find some steels with at least 0.8% carbon, less than a few percent of chromium and vanadium, and little else. D2 has 'too much' chromium and carbon for this exercise, BG-42 with much less chromium would be a candidate, as would W2 with more chromium and vanadium. An interesting one that turned up was M50, which is a high speed steel with low tungsten and low red hardness but is much tougher than the other offerings in the series. Anyone ever try out M50 ? Have any other steels to suggest ? If cost were not a consideration CPM 3V looks almost ideal, and makes a nice standard for comparison of properties.

 

[magnum .44]

the steel you choose is based on the knife size and primary use. i use d-2 in knives 12" and under, that will be used for slicing, and a little chopping, above 12" i use ats-34. becuase it takes a fine edge, a nice finish, and is flexible. i plan on using 440v, m-2, and m-42 on small knives, under 8" that will be used for slicing only, plus keep the rockwell hardness approx 58-59. i don't know what you consider to much chromium, but i'd say 14% max, but i still use 440c in some knives. i like to have a lot of vanadium and tungsten, cobalt if possible. carbon above .9%. i like lot os molybdenum, around 4% but since it isn't common to have so much moly. in knives i'll still use a steel that has a small percent of it. i also like my blade steels to be double vaccum melted, with very few impurities, such as sulfur and phosphorus over .03%. i find withn knives you can bend the rules you set for your self, especially with thick bladed knives, they can take more abuse.


[This message has been edited by magnum .44 (edited 28 November 1999).]

 

[Alberta Ed]

Isn't Carbon V a high carbon low alloy steel with a bit of vanadium and chrome, and manganese too?

 

[magnum .44]

no cpm 440v is high carbon stainless, and has 5% vanadium. it's highly alloyed.

 

[Jeff Clark]

I don't know why, but it is hard to make steel with more than about .25% vanadium. Special processing is used to create real high vanadium alloys, and most are in the stainless or semi-stainless arena. If you want some tough non-stainless alloys with vanadium you could try O1, A2, or L6. A2 sounds closer to what you want than most, but the actual vanadium content is down in the normal range.

What I've wished for is some specially refined D2 (vacuum remelt etc) with cryo tempering to get a finer grain structure. Maybe there is some aerospace steel company somewhere that does that.