cpm s125v

S

scrappy

Joined
Jul 7, 2007
Messages
852
I saw an expensive blade for sale in cpm s125v. I never heard of it before. I don't see knives for it or cpm s10v. is there a reason they are not used much?
I have knives in cpm
110
s30v
s35vn
154
d2
s60
s90
 
Crucible CPM S125 composition.
It has super high Carbon 3.25 and super high Vanadium content 12%. For the makers it's real difficult, and on top of that it was discontinued.

Other than that, it's quite difficult to sharpen, from my personal experience that is. But edge holding ability is exceptionally good. That's based on my S125V Knife from Phil Wilson.
 
I f i want to find a cpm s125 or cpm s10 knife are there any manufacturers who used to use them and I can look at for finding one? hardheart, your sig is how I heard of this steel.
 
AFAIK, Fantoni is the only manufacturer to make an S125V knife available. This second run was started at my request, the first one was done back in 08, and they sold it at a loss. This time, they only had enough steel to do 35 knives, and 5 didn't make it through final QC. Price was insane, because of the tooling needed and the extreme wear resistance of the steel, plus heat treating such an alloy. All those costs covered by only 30 pieces.

I told the owner that Niagara has a thousand pounds of it left, so he may get some more and make more knives, but I don't know how economically it can be done. He paid an unbelievable amount for the steel he did have.

I do not know if any custom makers will do a blade in it. Phil Wilson stopped using it after he broke a blade he was making for me, there was a flaw in some of the S125V he had. He says it takes about three times as many grinding belts to make an S125V blade, plus all the extra time grinding. After three broken blades near the finishing steps, it wasn't working out to his advantage. I was exchanging emails with Wild Country Knives to make an S125V blade to go in something like a griptilian frame, or to make a small custom folder, but he stopped responding to my emails.

If you want 10V, I would check with Phil Wilson, Butch Harner, or Jeremy Horton to start. And let me know if anyone will do a 15V blade, I haven't found anyone yet.
 
They did another run!:D
Does that mean the processing difficulties have been worked out? or is the finish after rolling still something they have to ignore.
 
I don't know about worked out. In the email traffic, he mentioned that they started on the blades, then had to stop because the steel was not in the proper annealed state. It took a while to get them done, and I suspect the hard chrome and black Ti coating was to help with finishing.

I sharpened one of the blades (my own in edc rotation) and it was night and day compared to S30V, S90V, M4, ZDP, etc. I can imagine the grinding headaches, especially since a super alloy stainless like this will air harden if it gets too hot. They bought new diamond grinding wheels and a new cutter to make the hole for the pivot bushing.
 
We have a 5,000 pound heat of S125-V on order from Crucible. We have a customer who uses it to make dental instruments. We will try to find a distributer to stock it, otherwise, we will make small quantities to stock for the knife community. Any input on finish thicknesses would be appreciated.

As Hardheart has pointed out, it is a bear to work with. We try to limit handeling after we anneal it because it is so hard and brittle. We also go through many belts on our grinder to get it decarb free.
Bob
 
NSM, I assume you are from Niagara right? I obtained some of the original melt of CPM S125V and made about 10 knives. I can give you some feed back on my experience. The rolled finish was very rough and there were some flaws in the plate. It was hard to see the very small cracks due to the finish. As a result the imperfections did not show until the blade was in heat treat or in the final finish. This of course resulted in a lot of wasted time and abrasives. In addition it was still very hard in the annealed state, very brittle as you mentioned, very hard on drill bits ec. I think if you offer more of this one it should be Blanchard ground and re-anealed. Ideal thickness for me would be finish to about .130 and for the folder guys . 110 or so (just a guess). The upside is that if you can make a blade out of it, it heat treats like a dream at 2150 high heat and makes a very wear resistant and corrosion resistant blade. Even at high hardness doesn't seem to be too chippy on a thin edge. I have also used CPM S110V and consider it to be as good or better than CPM S125V in all respects. This one is not very annealed either but have figured out how to work with it. IMHO you would be far ahead to make and offer more of this grade in a selection of thickness. Also better annealed and surface ground. If you can send me a PM it would be appreciated. I need to get contact and ordering info for my website update... Thanks, Phil
 
Phil

thanks for the info about the 10v knives. I am terry. I went to blade west two years ago and, not this year, hopefully I will make it to the oregon knife show in the next couple years. I will look you up.
 
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the feedback. Now that we are buying and selling the material, we know to only supply it ground. We can try to re-anneal the sheets after grinding, to see if that helps. There are a couple of grades we work with that respond well to a second anneal.

There is S110-V here but it is the property of SB Specialty Metals. You can contact Scott Devanna at 800-365-1168 for price and delivery on that grade.

Bob Shabala
 
S-125V is still alive and well. We have a few hundred pounds on the ground here and 5,000 pounds of billet on order.
 
The finish on the original CPM S125V is very bumpy. A precision ground version would be nice. I actually find it relatively easy to grind in its annealed state but have yet to finish any knives with it. It grinds w/o sparks and leaves a blue-colored powder instead of the usual black. Very cool.

Good to know that this steel is still available. It would make a world class skinning knife or kitchen knife. Very, very wear-resistant and corrosion resistant.
 
Last edited:
I thought I would update those who read this
I got a cpm 10v blade from mike snody. I have used it a little but not enough yet to speak intelligently about it. I will use it over the next month and share my thoughts.
 
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