Cold Steel Carbon V heat treatment problem

[monxla]

Hi Everybody,

As I known/heard at the Cold Steel have a heat treatment problem with the Carbon V blades some years ago. Is this really true? When was this problem with the Carbon V blades? Where can I read any detailed information from this problem?

thanks.

 

[mete]

There was a photo of a broken CS blade posted on the forum .It was used for batoning and broke where tang meets blade. I assumed it was improperly heat treated. I have no info that it involved any more than one blade.

 

[monxla]

Where do you seen that photo?
As I heard the "first generation" Carbon V blades was good.
I don't known when they started to made the blades with bad heat treatment.
Do you known when?

thx.

 

[sdt11670]

There was a photo of a broken CS blade posted on the forum .It was used for batoning and broke where tang meets blade. I assumed it was improperly heat treated. I have no info that it involved any more than one blade.

It wasn't a heat treat problem... Nothing cuts or holds an edge like carbon v but it will break while batonning because though it will cut better than stainless it not much tougher. Go with medium carbon if toughness is more important than edge holding.

 

[Cobalt]

It wasn't a heat treat problem... Nothing cuts or holds an edge like carbon v but it will break while batonning because though it will cut better than stainless it not much tougher. Go with medium carbon if toughness is more important than edge holding.

A lot of things cut and hold an edge longer than carbon V. cpm3V, INFI 52100, A2, just to name a few. And they are all tougher.

Cold Steel never said they had a heat treat problem, however, I have seen several CS knives break at the blade tang juncture with an all too familiar S shaped fracture. This does not signify to high or low an Rc, it signifies a very poor heat treat with improper soak times and or more likely improper placement within a batch oven, where only a few are in the ideal location.

 

[hardheart]

I guess it's a good thing Camillus went under if their HT wasn't up to snuff. the folder blades were probably much better off, though. Hopefully Becker doesn't have problems with KAbar, there were several reports of kabars breaking, but they're stick tang.

 

[shecky]

This does not signify to high or low an Rc, it signifies a very poor heat treat with improper soak times and or more likely improper placement within a batch oven, where only a few are in the ideal location.

Or just plain bad technique. Without knowing the particulars, it's impossible to declare why things failed. So far, all we know is that there were some reports on an internet forum.

 

[Khalnath]

I saw that picture, the blade was stuck angled tip-up in the wood. If it was just left where it broke when batonning, that would indicate improper technique.

 

[udtjim]

If man can make it, Man can break it. It would be a safe bet that improper use breaks more tools than everything else combined.

 

[Confederate]

These are problems that should be reported in knife magazines, but somehow never seem to make it. Like gun rags, the real stuff comes from consumers.

Having said that, Cold Steel Carbon 5 knives are generally well regarded as being strong, dependable knives. They don't have reputations for being weak kneed or light weights. They're often found in camp sites all over the world and they have a fairly solid reputation. As far as I know, none of the failed knives was subsequently examined by someone who could establish the cause of failure. Beretta 9mm autos consistently failed in the same place, yet Navy examiners were never able to predict when the failures would happen and on which individual pistols. Yet because of repeated stress tests, they knew it was a design flaw and not a metallurgical one.

That the failures were the same type and in the same place indicates, to me, that this is just a weak point in the knife, and is subject to breakage if overstressed.

 

[sdt11670]

A lot of things cut and hold an edge longer than carbon V. cpm3V, INFI 52100, A2, just to name a few. .

Show me your tests. It has already been proven that infi doesn't hold an edge as well. Sure it may be tougher though.... You can't look at rc and assume that means edge holding because it doesn't spydie blades with 63 rc wont hold an edge as long as 59 rc cv. how do i know? because i tested them.

 

[udtjim]

I have heard that the tang on the Trail master is kind of small. I don';t know that for a fact though.

 

[OwenM]

Never heard of bad Carbon V. I don't know if it was something different before it was 0170-6 by Camillus.

It wasn't a heat treat problem... Nothing cuts or holds an edge like carbon v but it will break while batonning because though it will cut better than stainless it not much tougher.

That knife was probably defective, "Carbon V" doesn't hold an edge particularly well, it is much tougher than any stainless at similar hardness, batoning isn't very hard on a knife, and the steel has nothing to do with how a knife cuts.
If you don't know even the first thing about the subject(which you obviously don't), how about you avoid answering questions about it. People who come here with legitimate questions don't deserve BS from someone who just makes stuff up out of the blue.

 

[yoz's friend]

you know i like cold steel products and i read this stuff and i start to think(is this true?). so i end up getting out one of my knives and beating it up,im this case i took out my recon scout and started choping all sorts of boards and wood and then i turned it around and started to hammer or baton or whatever the back of an old tough 2x12 plank. and you know what happened? what happened is a lot of people here are starting to lose credability.i love a good knife review but ATLEAST keep it honest! i like cold steel product but i never considered myself a cold steel fanatic(i own other knives).buy i gotta come to bat for them when the bs gets this deep.I have a peacekeeper 1 that i paid about $30. and i cant belive how good the knife performs for a dagger. i thought china blades where supposed to be crap?

 

[Guyon]

A slightly different take on the Carbon V heat treat by someone who knows. Carbon V is a great steel IMO.

If you use a Camillus Becker, you're also using Carbon V--just with a different name.

Carbon V definately came first. It was the brainchild of the Metal God, Dan Maragni, & was, in my opinion, what put Cold Steel on the map all those years ago.

When Cold Steel came to Camillus to make their carbon steel knives, they did not want to pay for the vast amount of steel that had to be purchased in order to have a custom steel made to their specifications.
Consequently Cold Steel agreed that Camillus could also use the steel (& pay them a royalty, I believe) but could not call it Carbon V.

I came up with the name 0170-6C, based on an almost close (but NOT) steel produced by Sharron Steel called 0170-6.

All this is historical trivia.

The real issue for those who understand is Heat Treatment!

The reason that the Camillus Beckers perform so well is that Dan Maragni set up a system of heat treatment at Camillus for the Cold Steel knives, & oversaw almost every batch of knives produced. What we learnt about heat treating Cold Steel seeped over to the Becker knives.
All that is now lost forever!

In my humble opinion, the values of the Camillus Beckers may not rise significantly in the collector market, but for those interested in a high performance user, get them while you can. Without Maragni's methods, I don't care what a future maker of Beckers uses, they will just be well designed carbon steel knives covered in powder coat!

I dearly hope I am wrong & the new maker will consider trying to improve their methods. Time will tell..............

Source: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4301656&postcount=17

 

[rebeltf]

Never heard of bad Carbon V. I don't know if it was something different before it was 0170-6 by Camillus.

That knife was probably defective, "Carbon V" doesn't hold an edge particularly well, it is much tougher than any stainless at similar hardness, batoning isn't very hard on a knife, and the steel has nothing to do with how a knife cuts.
If you don't know even the first thing about the subject(which you obviously don't), how about you avoid answering questions about it. People who come here with legitimate questions don't deserve BS from someone who just makes stuff up out of the blue.

Your last quote should be a sticky , the misinformation on here gets hip deep at times.

 

[Confederate]

Great post, Guyon. I wonder if any of the AUS8 Recon Tanto owners will have any problems. Cold Steel must have had to make a lot of quick, last minute decisions from the sound of it.

 

[Cobalt]

Or just plain bad technique. Without knowing the particulars, it's impossible to declare why things failed. So far, all we know is that there were some reports on an internet forum.

Bad technique? please. That is a crock of crap. When batoning, you do not often have much a choice if it is tip up or down. A quality blade should not break if batoned through wood using another piece of wood or a mallet. I have batoned through hundreds of logs with my good knives and never broken one and I never paid attention to how I was doing it.

Show me your tests. It has already been proven that infi doesn't hold an edge as well. .

what planet have you been on, not this one that's for sure

Please provide specific data to this. I want to see it.....




as for fracture...well, this is totally unacceptable..

So, after reading about batoning here, I decided to try it while having an evening campground trip with the family tonight. I was making my first attempt on a birch log, using another piece of birch for a baton, when the knife broke at the blade-handle junction. I don't have a digital camera, but I'll try to get pics of it at some point.

I don't know whether to fault the knife or my own lack of skill on this one. I had held onto the handle until the blade was solidly into the log, then was just hitting the back of the blade to drive it all the way into the log, at which point I was going to grab the handle again and start batoning the projecting end of the blade. The blade was not yet all the way into the log when the handle just snapped off. (I was lightly holding onto it at the time just to balance the log.)

The break is nice and clean, no chips or shards missing.

Oh and lets not forget:

First off I'm a Cold Steel fan... at least I have been. Good knives, designs, and fair prices and I've probably sold a few with my advocacy. I've been teaching winter survival skills to a young mens group in our church where I'm a youth leader. Currently we're doing firemaking skills with flint and steel; the real kind like when it's snowy outside, windy, and about 10 degrees out. I find few people can make a fire in such conditions and it takes some teaching and practice to build the skill and get confidence in doing it. And that's what we're doing.

Along with practice, as I've told the boys, you need a good survival knife. One that can hack wood and split logs under hard use. It's an essential piece of gear in the back country: not too heavy to be left behind but sturdy enough to do the job. That's where the CS Recon Scout comes in.

Most of the boys, at my recommendation, have purchased their own survival knife to be used in these exercises. My recommendations including Becker BK7s & 9s, CS Recon Scout, Kabar Next Gen, and SOG SEAL 2000; all good knives for their money. Or so I thought. A few bought the Recon Scout including another leader. It was this other leader's Recon Scout you see broken in half below.

The conditions on this winter campout were about 5 degrees and clear on this morning when we started to split some more wood. The other leader was just started to hammer the RS through the pictured log when I remarked what a good blade it was and how he was probably going to hand it down to his kids later on. Nice timing. No sooner had the words left my mouth when the blade literally shattered! We were in shock. The knife wasn't even taking a big split of that log either. The leader is currently getting it replaced under warranty as it was only a month old.

This is a very serious failure in my opinion. Splitting wood was mandatory to find the dry stuff in the snow. This was a no-kidding backpacking winter trip where a fire wasn't just nice to have it was almost mandatory. From preventing frost bite to drying clothes to cooking the fire was a necessity. If we'd been in another couple miles up the mountain and had no other backup blades (we had several) the loss of this Recon Scout could have been very serious indeed.

I don't know what CS makes the Carbon 5 steel out of but my confidence in their blades has taken a serious hit. Maybe they should put a warning on their C5 blades not to use them below 15 degrees. Failure of this sort is inexcusable no matter the cold or what not. A survival knife should take any condition you find yourself in... if it can't you should pitch it.

 

[psy-ops]

Great post, Guyon. I wonder if any of the AUS8 Recon Tanto owners will have any problems. Cold Steel must have had to make a lot of quick, last minute decisions from the sound of it.

As far as I know, no one has tested AUS 8 hard. I would love Noss to do a test with it. I have 2 AUS8 blades and I am curious to see how tough.

Cobalt, one thing I would consider is in winter survival not going too deep into the log you are batoning. This is not an excuse for breakage just a preventative measure for an emergency.

 

[Cobalt]

As far as I know, no one has tested AUS 8 hard. I would love Noss to do a test with it. I have 2 AUS8 blades and I am curious to see how tough.

Cobalt, one thing I would consider is in winter survival not going too deep into the log you are batoning. This is not an excuse for breakage just a preventative measure for an emergency.

it wasn't me but thanks for the thought. I would not/do not go that large anyway. Better to make shavings and use branches when needed. The point is that both knives broke in the exact same place doing smething that should not have broken them. I have done the exact same thing so often with my blades and never had any issue