cruwear heat treat

R

raul casso

Joined
May 18, 2018
Messages
25
Hello everyone,

I am just learning about cruwear as I am considering a Spyderco paramilitary 2 featuring cruwear--a steel I have never used. I understand that the qualities that cruwear offers as a steel depend on the quality of heat treat--as do all steels used for knives.

How is Spyderco's heat treat on cruwear? I read somewhere that it is not up to par with that of custom makers such as Phil Wilson. Is that true? I don't mean to pit Spyderco against anyone in particular, but I am interested in how well or not Spyderco's heat treatment of cruwear is said to be.

Your comments will be appreciated.

Thanks,

rc
 
I think it's a mistake to compare the processes and techniques of any production company, making a large number of knives for a widely varying customer base, with a custom maker's. I like Spyderco's Cru-wear. I have one Para 3 using that steel. I've never had the steel from any other company and I don't buy customs so I have no experience with smaller scale, custom makers either. But I've had a lot of Spydercos over the years and every one of them has performed as advertised or better. I have no issue with Spyderco's HT on any of the steels that they use in their blades.

The Cru-wear Para 3 is my favorite of the four Para 3s that I have because it's Cru-wear and I like how it performs in cutting and being maintained. The steel is easy to touch up or resharpen with strops and my Wicked Edge or Sharpmaker... it's shown no sign of corrosion at all after a few weeks of constant carry and use even though it's not a SS... it seems to be pretty tough after cutting both man-made materials and various shrub and bush parts.

Works fine for me in the ways and situations where I use a knife. That's the best I can tell you from my limited Spyderco Cru-wear experience, but you might get more detailed answers by posting in the Knife Reviews & Testing subforum.
 
Equalize/preheat at 1200

20 minutes at 1950 and plate quench

Cryo

3 tempers 2 hours at 1000F

(Should put you at 61RC)
 
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raul casso said:
Hello everyone,

I am just learning about cruwear as I am considering a Spyderco paramilitary 2 featuring cruwear--a steel I have never used. I understand that the qualities that cruwear offers as a steel depend on the quality of heat treat--as do all steels used for knives.

How is Spyderco's heat treat on cruwear? I read somewhere that it is not up to par with that of custom makers such as Phil Wilson. Is that true? I don't mean to pit Spyderco against anyone in particular, but I am interested in how well or not Spyderco's heat treatment of cruwear is said to be.

Your comments will be appreciated.

Thanks,

rc
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Spydercos Cruwear performs just fine. No need to worry
 
oh, I'm not worried--and I appreciate the input. It's just the sort of "worry" that steel junkies like myself get into. I have several spydercos--a GB in M4, a Calypso in ZDP 189; a regular delica, blue in VG-10 (boring), and now, soon, this new one in cruwear--and this after debating for some time between a pakkawood in hap 40, or a green endura in zdp, or something in super blue--but those are too expensive on ebay. so, now comes cruwear--I am sure you all know the predicament I am in, so all comments help to resolve the fine points of fine steel for a new spydie.
 
I have a Phil Wilson Cruwear fixed blade and several Spyderco Cruwear knives. It's one of my all time favorite steels. As far as which is "better"? What does better mean to you? The custom is run much harder and is a great deal thinner than Spyderco's come out of the box. It makes it a great deal "slicey-er". ( not above making up words). It will cut rope better on Ankerson type testing because of the geometry and hardness. Does that make it better than the Spyderco?

I like both folders and fixed and intend on keeping them all. In short it illustrates the reason I like Cruwear so much. It can do so many different things well that it doesn't seem weak at any one attribute ( the big three are 1) toughness, 2) abrasive wear resistance and 3) corrosion resistance) and scores pretty high on all of them. Steels are all about compromise and this steel does the balancing thing better than most. To further locate it it can be tuned for toughness or wear resistance and we have an example of one ( the Phil Wilson custom) running at about rc 64 ish and the Spyderco is more about balance with final hardness at around rc 62. Perfect for high performing folders IMO. To me it's pretty can't miss unless one needs 10V wear resistance or H1 corrosion proofness in which case they would get the nod.

Joe
 
I have a Manix in Cruwear and use it as a work knife.
No complaints whatsoever.
With basic maintenance, its corrosion ‘resistance’ impressed me.
Spydie did a great job on it.
 
does spyderco do their own heat treat? I thought I read that they send it out to professionals like Peter's or somewhere else.

I wouldn't be worried about it.
 
george65 said:
does spyderco do their own heat treat? I thought I read that they send it out to professionals like Peter's or somewhere else.

I wouldn't be worried about it.
Click to expand...
I'm curious what Production companies do in house heat treatment.

Benchmade, Kershaw, Gerber.

They all send out

Even Chris Reave Knives sends out.
 
Charlie Mike said:
That's sad.
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Eh it's not like they heat treat themby hand one by one anyways

We're talking
Mass production Baby.

There is no way to meet that volume in house it seems especially with all the different steel types.

ESEE/Rowen does in house.

But that's why they only use 1095
Simple stuff especially with the rc they hit.


I believe they send the 440c out.
 
Charlie Mike said:
That's sad.
Click to expand...
i don't know how bad or good outsourcing heat treatment is. Depending on how sophisticated the steel in question is, the heat treatment may be beyond the technical set up of even a very well know and successful knife maker. As you all well know, a knife with the most advanced steel if not properly heat treated, will not yield the performance that the steel may be capable of. Heat treatment is a science.
 
I saw a video of tops knives heat-treater doing his thing. He was using a blow torch to deferentially heat treat the blades--literally, passing a blow torch to and fro along the working edge of the blade and then eye-balling the color to "get it just right." That may be okay with 1095 where the margin of error is most forgiving. But try that with your more sophisticated alloys--forget it. You can ruin the steel. Isn't ZDP 189 heat treated in japan by the factory? I read somewhere that the factory controls the heat treat because they don't want bad stuff floating around out there. I have passed up buying some knives with really excellent craftsmanship--with really great fit and finish--when I came to realize that the maker, using exotic steels, was heat treating in his little oven in his garage. The blade would then be dunked into a vat of liquid nitrogen to give it a cryo treatment. I don't know, but i had no confidence in such a home-grown set up. I don't care how pretty the knives were.
 
I only outsource if it's a steel that requires more than -108F of cryo or if it's too big for my oven.
 
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