CPM MagnaCut – The Next Breakthrough in Knife Steel

Rob_Angerer said:
Good to hear. I switched to diamond stones, almost exclusively, when I experienced my first sharpening attempt on S90V. Never looked back.

Knives are tools, and tools have can have broad or narrow purposes. If you know you have a blade that's HRc=65, treat it as such... a slicer supreme... not a knife to chop and twist.
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The beauty of magnacut is that at 65 hrc, it matches the toughness of vanax and s35vn at 60-61 hrc. Regardless, I agree that at that Rockwell you probably want to make a slicing tool and not one built to split logs open!
 
I am watching CRK, although CRK’s order volumes are very high, so it might take orders from big CPM steel customers, like Spyderco and Benchmade, to make the steel more readily available.

I doubt the switching costs for Crucible are very high, as Magnacut contains all the same ingredients as the other CPM steels, and I don‘t believe that any of the processing equipment needs to be changed.
 
nattynarwhal said:
The beauty of magnacut is that at 65 hrc, it matches the toughness of vanax and s35vn at 60-61 hrc. Regardless, I agree that at that Rockwell you probably want to make a slicing tool and not one built to split logs open!
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The mechanical properties of Magnacut are essentially the same as 4V / Vanadis 4 Extra, which I believe is currently the preferred steel for competition choppers.
 
Karl H said:
The mechanical properties of Magnacut are essentially the same as 4V / Vanadis 4 Extra, which I believe is currently the preferred steel for competition choppers.
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In regards to competition choppers, and use of 4V vs. Magnacut, see Big Chris Berry's Instagram posts for his insights.
Summary Spoiler alert: he thinks Magnacut is just as tough and edge stable as 4V at a given hardness. So 4V's main advantage now is just cost vs. Magnacut.
 
In regards to competition choppers, and use of 4V vs. Magnacut, see Big Chris Berry's Instagram posts for his insights.
Rob_Angerer said:
Summary Spoiler alert: he thinks Magnacut is just as tough and edge stable as 4V at a given hardness. So 4V's main advantage now is just cost vs. Magnacut.
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Didn’t Larrins testing also show that it’s somewhat limited to 65.5 hrc? Custom knife makers like Shawn (BBB) have taken 4V to 67-68 hrc which is incredible in terms of strength and edge stability.

Maybe it’ll take a few years for heat treats to develop that fully take advantage of magnacut, the way custom heat treats now are maximizing the potential of 4V
 
nattynarwhal said:
Didn’t Larrins testing also show that it’s somewhat limited to 65.5 hrc? Custom knife makers like Shawn (BBB) have taken 4V to 67-68 hrc which is incredible in terms of strength and edge stability.
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No doubt 4V has a high attainable hardness, but I doubt anyone is running competition choppers anywhere near that hard... my educated guess: Rc63-64 is a useable range. Would be too easy to have a brittle fracture at HRc67-68... big chunk of edge, or worse. Toughness has to be greatly reduced at 67-68. But indeed, 4V will get harder than Magnacut, strictly speaking. Just looked at Larrin's book, for 4V and Vanadis 4E, and his toughness measurements stop at Rc64 and Rc65 respectively. That implies a practical limit.

Question for those that know: in cutting competition, if the judges notice that your blade chips out, does that cost you points, or disqualify you??

Shawn (BBB) is great about pushing material limits to find out what they are... I dig that about his curiosity and abilities.
 
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I really hope to see high carbide (MagnaCut-HC) and low carbide (MagnaCut-LC) volume fraction versions in the future. It will be good to have stainless 1V-3V-10 and 15V o_O
 
Rob_Angerer said:
We just need Crucible to ramp up Magnacut production, Niagara to keep up with rolling it out, and the big production houses (Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw/ZT) will adopt it for premium knives as the Magnacut prices come down. Watch Chris Reeve Knives as a bellwether...
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These are crazy times for the steel industry. Crucible is delivering PM steel in half the time of any other mill and they are busier than ever. They have their challenges with such high a high volume of orders and COVID impacting everything in their production and supply chain. They are doing an amazing job and will be able to meet the demand.

We have shipped about 15 tons of MagnaCut since it was introduced and we have 80 tons of open orders with Crucible. (How many knives will that make??) SB Specialty Metals, Alpha Knife Supply and Pops have all bought some and may still have some in stock. Several well known and respected knife companies have MagnaCut in their shop or on order. You'll see who when they are ready to make their respective announcements.

The employee owners of Niagara Specialty Metals are the simply best. Feel free to stop by for a tour and see for yourself if you're ever in the Buffalo area. (email me at bob@nsm-ny.com to take me up on the offer.) You'll see what an impact being part of an employee owned company can make.
 
nsm said:
These are crazy times for the steel industry. Crucible is delivering PM steel in half the time of any other mill and they are busier than ever. They have their challenges with such high a high volume of orders and COVID impacting everything in their production and supply chain. They are doing an amazing job and will be able to meet the demand.

We have shipped about 15 tons of MagnaCut since it was introduced and we have 80 tons of open orders with Crucible. (How many knives will that make??) SB Specialty Metals, Alpha Knife Supply and Pops have all bought some and may still have some in stock. Several well known and respected knife companies have MagnaCut in their shop or on order. You'll see who when they are ready to make their respective announcements.

The employee owners of Niagara Specialty Metals are the simply best. Feel free to stop by for a tour and see for yourself if you're ever in the Buffalo area. (email me at bob@nsm-ny.com to take me up on the offer.) You'll see what an impact being part of an employee owned company can make.
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Thanks for the update!
 
nsm said:
Crucible is delivering PM steel in half the time of any other mill and they are busier than ever. They are doing an amazing job and will be able to meet the demand.

We have shipped about 15 tons of MagnaCut since it was introduced and we have 80 tons of open orders with Crucible. (How many knives will that make??) SB Specialty Metals, Alpha Knife Supply and Pops have all bought some and may still have some in stock. Several well known and respected knife companies have MagnaCut in their shop or on order. You'll see who when they are ready to make their respective announcements.

The employee owners of Niagara Specialty Metals are the simply best. Feel free to stop by for a tour and see for yourself if you're ever in the Buffalo area. (email me at bob@nsm-ny.com to take me up on the offer.) You'll see what an impact being part of an employee owned company can make.
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Great post. Thanks for the inside view! 80 tons of open orders is great news. I think my prediction that 1 calendar year of time will make a world of difference in getting Magnacut into numerous production knives... well, that could be a reasonable prediction, and those are tough, especially about the future.
 
MagnaCut destruction test by knife maker Aaron Johnson. What he does to that knife is a bit silly 😊

 
Currawong said:
MagnaCut destruction test by knife maker Aaron Johnson. What he does to that knife is a bit silly 😊

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Silly ???? I should have stopped watching after the first 5 minute, but in order to write this post of mine, I punished myself for watching until the end!
This is BS !! That blade have ax geometry and If this is what can do this steel I don't like it !That knife maker try to cheat or have no clue what he is doing ! Most likely, the heat treatment is not as it should be ,I don't believe steel is so weak with that edge geometry ! Even when he grind again that bevels he didn t get even close to edge ..........Just look at that Chisel geometry at the fracture site????? That you call knife ? It is piece of flat steel with edge on it !!
 
DeadboxHero said:

I'm running low on nails.
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I really have great respect for you and your enthusiasm. But I don't know why you get so upset with a note on the number of strokes to cut that nail ? It took too long and of course I noticed that and counted the strokes . I didn't want to comment then, but now I will................... Your knife from Magnacut steel has a pretty shallow saber grind and seems very thick spine , 5mm or more? You grind that blade just to cut that nail , that thick geometry is useful for what else ? Many other steel will pass that test in that geometry .You have lot of meat behind edge there ... And the other knife have a full flat grind so there's less steel behind edge .
If someone say this knife is 0.5mm behind edge don t tell whole story .HOW thick is above that 0.5mm ? Bevels grinding height and steel thickness on spine can make that 0.5mm behind edge stronger or weaker.....................
I believe that this is good steel , without a doubt. No need for tests like this where everything is adjusted for the test to succeed and to impresses.............. who?
 
Natlek said:
Silly ???? I should have stopped watching after the first 5 minute, but in order to write this post of mine, I punished myself for watching until the end!
This is BS !! That blade have ax geometry and If this is what can do this steel I don't like it !That knife maker try to cheat or have no clue what he is doing ! Most likely, the heat treatment is not as it should be ,I don't believe steel is so weak with that edge geometry ! Even when he grind again that bevels he didn t get even close to edge ..........Just look at that Chisel geometry at the fracture site????? That you call knife ? It is piece of flat steel with edge on it !!
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I'm surprised that the blade cut as well as it did on the wood and antler seeing how he uses a dry belt to grind the edges. I wouldn't watch that guy or believe anything that he says.
 
Here's the video again. Not sure what happened to the first one.

Its'a good testing video. Not sure what the other two comments are on about. He made a knife not as a knife but just as a test vehicle to see how magnacut handles abuse. He ground it in two geometries (very thick and very thin) for comparison on the same tests.

 
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