Crucible 154CM - any problems?

southriv

southriv

Joined
Feb 28, 2002
Messages
751
I'm into my first 154CM - from Crucible. I've ground 4 blades so far. I was pleased that it arrived descaled and It works nicely. What I haven't liked is the various sized pits on the surface and sometimes well inside the bar. One interior void I was just able to get rid of. I hate the thought of having to trash a blade I've almost completed -especially at the additional cost for this steel.

I was pretty surprised to see this. I have heard so many good things about Crucible . This is a big change from the other steels I have used (440C , A2 & O1) . Has any one else had this experience with crucible steel ? I'm going to call Bruce tomorrow. He's been very helpful, so hopefully I'll get an explanation.

Bob
 
I recently received some s30v with what appears to be scale on it. I did grind a bit off the surface of a piece and it too has the pits. I haven't yet begun to make a blade with it but hopefully the pits/voids are only on the surface. I too would like to hear more about these pits. Is this normal for s30v?
 
My understanding is that some modest surface pitting is normal on steels that are not surface ground. On steels I have had to de-escale, I remove these when I remove the scale and then surface the metal. My concern started when I saw larger and deeper surface voids and then again inside the bar.

Bob
 
Originally posted by RickNJ
I recently received some s30v with what appears to be scale on it. I did grind a bit off the surface of a piece and it too has the pits. I haven't yet begun to make a blade with it but hopefully the pits/voids are only on the surface. I too would like to hear more about these pits. Is this normal for s30v?
Click to expand...

It is my understanding, that S30V needs to have .007" removed per side to get below the microvoids. And is shipped slightly oversized for just this reason. :confused:
 
I allow .010 on each side for surface grinding. Most of the Crucible steels come well oversized. Doing it this way I have never experienced pits or voids when I do the hollow grinding.
The worse experience I've had with bad surfaces was with BG42 and Talonite.
You might want to check with Bruce about having it surface or blanchard ground at his end. I had him do a number of 6 x 24 S90V pieces a year or so ago and was pleased with the finish.
 
Bob loveless describes having his stock surface ground in his book whick was written 30years ago , he also mentioned that removing the surface solved a lot of heat treat problems.
 
this is due to the powderd metal process. on s30v i see this a lot. i use my beveled rob frink 9" disk to take it down past the pits. i am going to get it surface ground on my next order.
 
Let me clear this up for everyone.

All of the knife steels supplied by Crucible are in the hot rolled condition. They look good since as a standard we have them shot blasted to clean off the scale. What is left is about 0.010" of de-carbed material on each side. It may be a little less but 0.010" should cover everything. That decarbed layer will have pits and such in it and should always be removed. This is why the material is always oversized.
 
Ed, I agree with your comments on the surface pitting.

".......It may be a little less but 0.010" should cover everything."

However, I ended up with a good sized pit pretty far down on a fully ground bevel -that is what really got my attention..

Bob
 
I agree with Ed
I buy my 154CM from Admiral Steel in the rough, it is over-sized
for this reason.
Blanchard ground will cost you a bit, but if you don't have a
surface grinder it could save you some time versus money.
if you buy it as 1/8" this is what you should have after grinding
if you get pits below this then you should contact the vender.
once in a great while I'll get a deeper pit but not often.
if you've seen my M#105 the one with the holes in the blade.
this is why I put the holes in that one, the blade had one very deep pit.
but it happens very seldom with me..
 
Ed, its really nice to see a company representative respond to a question about one of their products in a community forum like Shop Talk. Crucible is a first rate operation! By the way, I use to come into the Syracuse plant with Alwash about 20 years ago to do all sorts of nasty clean-up jobs. Nothing like seeing those big white hot bars being drawn out under the rollers. I've been trying to remember for years how many tons of force the Davis' Press produced.
 
I talked to Bruce at Crucible to get an idea of how and when an interior pit may occur. I won't go into the details , but suffice to say that as I expected, I got a reasonable answer.

With Bruce' s availability and Ed's keeping and eye on these forums, I would say the knifemakers are in pretty good hands.

Bob
 
Bob, I have to agree with you. Those guys are the best thing that has happened to/for us in years.
 
I just orderd my first order from them yesterday.I ordered 5/32
PG D2,I don't have surface gridner and I hate the bark on hot rolled
stuff so I got the PG it is a little more but they are still cheaper than the knife supply catalogs.Bruce seemed like a stand up guy!
 
Ed,
Perhaps if you have a moment you might offer us an insider's explanation of why we would find pits on the interior of the steel, and what effect this has on it's integrity. Is it carbon porosity, some physical effect, or what?

There have been many complaints about the various SS's of late, and it would be interesting to know why so much of the steel is showing this crap up of late. This dirty steel was the reason ATS34 became so popular. Little sucks more than getting all the way to final polish and finding areas up to a centimeter full of little pecker-tracks that are definitely not from overbuffing. Actual pinholes you can catch with the point of a needle!

Would appreciate knowing what causes this, Ed! Thanks!
 
The randon pit and the occasional little trail of them are due to oxide inclusions. All steels have inclusions of various types and it is one of the main quality issues to keep up on. The random inclusion is something that cannot be avoided. It's a part of air melt steels and only a change in nature can eliminate them permanently. If you get something that keeps the knife from finishing properly, please let us know. We will make it right and from a steel makers standpoint we could possibly quarantine material to keep a potential problem from spreading. Many times we don't know we have a problem if we are not told. Usually a quality issue like inclusions is limited to a small area of an ingot and we can isolate it and get it out of the system. The random ones happen.
If you ever have questions or concerns, please let us know.
 
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