CPM Cru wear vs Japanese Blue paper steel no.2

P

peleton blade

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Oct 4, 2016
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Anyone know the difference between CPM Cru wear steel and blue paper no.2 steel?
Please elaborate in details in terms of edge holding, impact toughness, ease of sharpening.
Which one is better for making a bushcraft knife?
 
Cru-wear would actually be decent for a bushcraft knife. It acts similarly to a powdered D2, with better edge retention, about equal toughness, and slightly worse corrosion resistance. Blue steel, however, likely wouldn't be especially good because it acts more like a razor steel (from what I've heard), and doesn't have remarkable toughness or edge stability.
 
Can't you just temper the blue #2 steel back to make it tougher at the expense of maximum hardness? If I'm not mistaken it's basically just very clean high carbon steel with a dash of tungsten and chromium to spice it up.
 
Mecha said:
Can't you just temper the blue #2 steel back to make it tougher at the expense of maximum hardness? If I'm not mistaken it's basically just very clean high carbon steel with a dash of tungsten and chromium to spice it up.
Click to expand...
Yea you can pick the ingredients off of supreme pizza to make pepperoni pizza but why not just get pepperoni pizza?

The high hardness is the best part about blue #2.
 
The Blue steels are good cutlery steels. They have good edge stability and give pretty good performance for knives run very sharp, hence the razor comment. They aren't all that weak but they aren't super tough either. 1% and above carbon can do that but it really gives a knife maker the ingredients to do high performing knives designed for high sharpness. Maybe a little less tough than O1, 1095, W2 ( depending on the batch of both O1 and W2)etc. if ran at high hardness ( rc 60 and above) but with more wear resistance due to enough tungsten to make carbides.

CPM Cruwear is sold as a D2 upgrade and it will be usually tougher and more wear resistant than D2 ( and Super Blue, the most wear resistant of the White and Blue steels). The powder steel process gives the steel better grain than D2 which is what gives it both better toughness and wear resistance than D2. It does keep it's toughness pretty well at rc 60 up to rc 63. Due to the grain structure I find it does better in edge stability than ingot D2 but not necessarily powder D2 ( CPM D2 , XHP I consider a different steel than D2 though it is pretty close in heritage).

I like the two steels and have them both. They can both be heat treated to cover a wide range of applications but I consider CPM Cruwear to be the more versatile of the two.

Joe
 
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Yep, Blue #2 would be my choice for a bushcraft knife between those 2, at least for a scandi grind bushcrafter like most people picture when you say "bushcraft." Ideally, I'd choose neither, but if that's the choice you have, I'd go Blue #2.
 
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