Cru Forge V...

stickfigureforge

stickfigureforge

Joined
Oct 29, 2010
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Anybody have any experience with this in a damascus mix? Pretty well committed to it for an upcoming project, but just wanted to ask. Thanks!
 
Mostly just curious if anybody has had issues with it. I'm trying to find an alternative to 1095, only because I just want something with a less finicky heat treat. Does it look good? Is it a bear to twist? Is it as easy to heat treat as I've heard? That sort of thing. Thanks!
 
I have used it just fine in 200-300 layer ladder pattern Damascus. I know Salem has used it quite a bit too. Didn't seem to weld any different then 1084. If ease of HT, why not use 1084 and 15n20, don't get any easier then that. if you don't have the capability to heat treat 1095 to its potential, you will get better performance out of 1084. IMHO, 100% of 1084 beats 80% of 1095 or cruforge, or anything for that matter. Cruforge will harden easy, but you need control to get all she has in it. Like I said. Imho.
 
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well since your questions largely depend more on your skill than the steel, I'll say as long as you do your job rest assured the steel will perform. In a pattern welded blade it does seem a bit darker than say 1084. As quenched with the technique I use, it comes out @ 66-67 rc, I normalize, auesteniz with controlled oven temps and soaks, I use parks 50 quench oil. The get it hot and jam it in oil technique does produce a Hard piece of steel, just not all the steel has to offer. Finishing this steel brings new meaning to "work", it takes at least twice as much paper in the same grit to produce desired results do to the vanadium.

Just passed my Journeyman performance test with the stuff, I really like it.



 
Cody's recommendation of 1084 is perfect!

VVVVV Thanks Cody!
 
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If used in equal amounts, a damascus mix of 1095 (.95% c) and 15n20 (.75% c) will give you .85% carbon in the blade because of carbon diffusion, which should be super easy to HT. Nothing wrong with using 1084 in the damascus instead, but 1095 should work just fine.
 
If you plan to make a kitchen knife out of Cru Forge, I might think about using an oil slightly slower than Parks 50. Also, my limited experience has been that it is not quite as easy to get CruForge to weld up compared to 1084 because of the chromium content.
 
jdm61 said:
If you plan to make a kitchen knife out of Cru Forge, I might think about using an oil slightly slower than Parks 50. Also, my limited experience has been that it is not quite as easy to get CruForge to weld up compared to 1084 because of the chromium content.
Click to expand...

I tried P 50, Brine, GLOC Quench 100 and GLOC Quench A, Parks 50 was the hands down winner for me and the way I handle the steel, your mileage may vary per your personnel techniques.
 
I use 130 deg. soybean oil for CruforgeV/15n20 damascus, to slow things down a bit since CruForge is somewhat more deep hardening due to alloy content. I have used my P50 on plain CFV without problems though, on several occasions.

I find CFV/15n20 welds up nice, although its welding temp range is a bit more narrow than other mixes. Billets sometimes can want to come apart if edge-forged when temps are too high. Sounds odd, but that's what I think it has told me. Too high temps with thick layers of CFV on the outside can cause hot-shorting, crumbling or deep cracking through the top layers. Layering and laddering are straightforward, but twisting needs to be done at a high orange, no lower, and more gradually. It'll twist tight, but the 15n20 will sometimes begin to shear first as the two steels have differing hardnesses at identical heat.

I thermal cycle the billet thoroughly after any forging operations, as the CFV will just flat ruin bits and blades if I don't.

Plain CFV cuts with a fine aggressive feel, and I feel that CFV in a damascus mix lends that aggressiveness as well to the edge. It's easier to hand finish (thank the universe) than straight CFV.

The resulting patterns should etch nice and dramatic for you with ferric chloride/water.
 
I thought to add, if you really want to dig into getting the very best performance out of CFV, mono or mixed in 'mascus, talk to Adam DesRosiers. He's very thorough about performance, and has done a lot of homework. He's gotten good results, he was telling me, with mixing CFV and L6 as they are more similar in forging operations. Also he is quite talkable to and good to learn from.
 
I have typically used P50 with "normal" thickness Cru Forge blades, but when I did a small kitchen knife with the bevel partially ground, it didn't potato chip. It exploded with a crack running 1/3 the length of the blade!!!!! I have now stepped down to the 11-13 second McMaster-Carr oil for it and the little bit of 115W8 that I have left.
 
Dan Farr told me that CFV is much easier to hand finish at 59 than at the 61+ that you get with the good old 1500/400 treatment, but I say why leave any performance on the table with a steel like that? Salem, have you or Adam tried the 1475 austenizing temp on that stuff?
Salem Straub said:
I use 130 deg. soybean oil for CruforgeV/15n20 damascus, to slow things down a bit since CruForge is somewhat more deep hardening due to alloy content. I have used my P50 on plain CFV without problems though, on several occasions.

I find CFV/15n20 welds up nice, although its welding temp range is a bit more narrow than other mixes. Billets sometimes can want to come apart if edge-forged when temps are too high. Sounds odd, but that's what I think it has told me. Too high temps with thick layers of CFV on the outside can cause hot-shorting, crumbling or deep cracking through the top layers. Layering and laddering are straightforward, but twisting needs to be done at a high orange, no lower, and more gradually. It'll twist tight, but the 15n20 will sometimes begin to shear first as the two steels have differing hardnesses at identical heat.

I thermal cycle the billet thoroughly after any forging operations, as the CFV will just flat ruin bits and blades if I don't.

Plain CFV cuts with a fine aggressive feel, and I feel that CFV in a damascus mix lends that aggressiveness as well to the edge. It's easier to hand finish (thank the universe) than straight CFV.

The resulting patterns should etch nice and dramatic for you with ferric chloride/water.
Click to expand...
 
I've not tried austenitizing it that low, I shoot more for 1500 since the CFV has a bit more carbon and I tend to think it may be a smidge above eutectoid when mixed with 15n20 in lower layer counts. That's not to say I think it's a bad idea, just not something I've done.
I temper at 425 usually, which cuts nice and sharpens easy although it holds an edge less than forever. (How's that for noncommittal...)
Joe, your description of dramatic HT related destruction is why I've stayed away from P50 with thin stuff or pieces that I have a lot of time into (damascus) involving CFV. Especially since I HT with a forge; I think my heat control is OK but it's no digital HT oven.
I recall Adam saying that he'd played around with quench temps for CFV/15n20, and never really gotten what he was looking for in terms of edge durability when chopping bone, antler, etc. I believe he moved more to pairing CFV with L6 for hi-performance woods knives.
In my book, it does cut better than a 1084/15n20 mix, especially for chef knives.
I got some good feedback from a Hawaiian customer the other day... a big mono CFV chopper I made 3 years ago recently took a big hog's head off in 3 whacks, with no edge deformation... it's great stuff I tell you.
 
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I've done 1475F with 20 minutes canola quench and I can't tell the difference with blades I've done at 1530F with 10 minutes canola quench. My current heat treat for the stuff is at 1490F for 20 minutes P50 quench. 425 tempers. A total pain to hand finish nicely.

I talked with Adam about his CFV heat treatment. And darnitt I did forget to ask about any sub zero or cryo that he might employ. But I do remember two things he said that he was very adamant about. Adam Adamant. hee hee. His two main thoughts (I've never tempered it below 61)...
1. CFV does NOT like to be below 60-59. I think maybe blue embrittlement (TME is it called???) is an issue with this steel. He mentioned a particular knife (want to say it was a knife geared towards heavy use..chopping etc) that was tempered at 58 or so and it chipped like crazy. Same knife at 61 did not chip under the same circumstances. He stressed to me that it handles all tasks very well at 61-63.

2. Normalize HOT. That means, especially for forgers, 1750F with a solid 20-30 minutes soak. The vanadium will not allow significant grain growth....so not to worry about that. Then of course the usual thermal cycling down, ending in a subcritical cycle and spheroidized anneal for machining. I don't recall exactly all of his steps, or what cycles he does after grinding, I assume a simple stress relief after grinding is all that I would use anyway.

Those are the two main things he told me on the phone. Great guy to talk to.....I would say drop him a line if you're really interested in CFV.
 
I thank you all for your help and advice! Very much! I used 1084 in my damascus for several years, and became disillusioned with the poor contrast I was getting. Switched to 1095, which is what I started with, and Love(d) it. But, I have a guy who wants the Cru Forge, so he's getting it. I'm by no means a novice, and haven't had any complaints about what I've made so far. I've never worked with this material before, and know better than to just do trial and error, especially with a time constraint. So, 1750 ish for normalizing, 1500 soak for hardening, and keep the hardness up around 62-61 after tempering? I've got some of the McMaster 11 second quench, but may get DT-g from Maxim. Not fooling with the parks. Too expensive for this poor mountain boy. How does that look?
 
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Interesting. I usually think about embrittlement happening at slightly higher temps like 500-600F whereas in this case, we are probably talking about 450-475F. . It does make me wonder what kind of hardness I am actually getting at 1500 and 400. The literature says that it should be 61, but it is sure hard to finish. i wonder if that fast quench might bump it up a point or so? The steel works quite well using that method. It gets silly sharp much like W2, so I suspect that I am not getting real big chromium carbides in addition to having pretty fine ausgrain structure.
samuraistuart said:
I've done 1475F with 20 minutes canola quench and I can't tell the difference with blades I've done at 1530F with 10 minutes canola quench. My current heat treat for the stuff is at 1490F for 20 minutes P50 quench. 425 tempers. A total pain to hand finish nicely.

I talked with Adam about his CFV heat treatment. And darnitt I did forget to ask about any sub zero or cryo that he might employ. But I do remember two things he said that he was very adamant about. Adam Adamant. hee hee. His two main thoughts (I've never tempered it below 61)...
1. CFV does NOT like to be below 60-59. I think maybe blue embrittlement (TME is it called???) is an issue with this steel. He mentioned a particular knife (want to say it was a knife geared towards heavy use..chopping etc) that was tempered at 58 or so and it chipped like crazy. Same knife at 61 did not chip under the same circumstances. He stressed to me that it handles all tasks very well at 61-63.

2. Normalize HOT. That means, especially for forgers, 1750F with a solid 20-30 minutes soak. The vanadium will not allow significant grain growth....so not to worry about that. Then of course the usual thermal cycling down, ending in a subcritical cycle and spheroidized anneal for machining. I don't recall exactly all of his steps, or what cycles he does after grinding, I assume a simple stress relief after grinding is all that I would use anyway.

Those are the two main things he told me on the phone. Great guy to talk to.....I would say drop him a line if you're really interested in CFV.
Click to expand...
 
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Unfortunately, we have no ready supply of O2, which is supposed to be the blackest of black tool steels when etched. It has like 2% manganese. A lot of the European smiths use it along with 75Ni8, which is almost identical to 15N20 with a bit over 2% nickel. Another tick that some of those guys use is to do a final "etch" in rather strong cold instant coffee. a few years back, there was some discussion about using black baking lacquer to get down in the grooves, but that would requite a Very aggressive etch IMO and it will still chips I would think.
stickfigureforge said:
I thank you all for your help and advice! Very much! I used 1084 in my damascus for several years, and became disillusioned with the poor contrast I was getting. Switched to 1095, which is what I started with, and Love(d) it. But, I have a guy who wants the Cru Forge, so he's getting it. I'm by no means a novice, and haven't had any complaints about what I've made so far. I've never worked with this material before, and know better than to just do trial and error, especially with a time constraint. So, 1750 ish for normalizing, 1500 soak for hardening, and keep the hardness up around 62-61 after tempering? I've got some of the McMaster 11 second quench, but may get DT-g from Maxim. Not fooling with the parks. Too expensive for this poor mountain boy. How does that look?
Click to expand...
 
I have whacked at a couple of hogs with a W2 chopper and a big hunter that I made a number of years ago. Not my best work, mind you, but we didn't have to touch the edge on either and skinned two hogs with all kinds of sand stuck in their hair. I sold a chopper to a USMC colonel who had done a couple of tours in Iraq, the last one as an advisor to the Iraqi army. He was replacing a 5160 chop that he lied but it had chipped out a bit chopping up a goat for a BBQ he was throwing for his Iraqi troops. He said that he whacked at an old tree in his yard with my knife and it just ate it up. I would expect CruForge at 61 to do even better. I still have about 200 pounds of the stuff, so I really need to get to using it. My infatuation with big bowies, hamons and damascus over the last couple of year have caused be to use mostly Don Hanson W2, which i bout about 400 pounds of and the 1084/15N20 combo. I have had REALLY good results on kitchen knives with several W2 blades and the one 115W8 suji I made. I am also interested in eventually trying out some of the 80CrV2/L2.
Salem Straub said:
I've not tried austenitizing it that low, I shoot more for 1500 since the CFV has a bit more carbon and I tend to think it may be a smidge above eutectoid when mixed with 15n20 in lower layer counts. That's not to say I think it's a bad idea, just not something I've done.
I temper at 425 usually, which cuts nice and sharpens easy although it holds an edge less than forever. (How's that for noncommittal...)
Joe, your description of dramatic HT related destruction is why I've stayed away from P50 with thin stuff or pieces that I have a lot of time into (damascus) involving CFV. Especially since I HT with a forge; I think my heat control is OK but it's no digital HT oven.
I recall Adam saying that he'd played around with quench temps for CFV/15n20, and never really gotten what he was looking for in terms of edge durability when chopping bone, antler, etc. I believe he moved more to pairing CFV with L6 for hi-performance woods knives.
In my book, it does cut better than a 1084/15n20 mix, especially for chef knives.
I got some good feedback from a Hawaiian customer the other day... a big mono CFV chopper I made 3 years ago recently took a big hog's head off in 3 whacks, with no edge deformation... it's great stuff I tell you.
Click to expand...
 
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