CV or SS Peanut

K

kidwholaughs

Joined
Jan 17, 2004
Messages
1,189
Hey guys,

I just realized that I don't have enough knives. :D So I am going to get a yellow handled peanut. This is where I have been losing sleep. CV or SS. This knive for the everyday tasks, mostly cutting food and etc. I have a warnie copperhead in cv and like the edge holding abilities of CV. But never handled the ss knives. I am kinda lazy to have to touch up a ss blade every day. Please chime in on this. Btw, how are the two blades ground "hollow" or "flat". Does the small blade see much use?

God Bless.
 
When it comes to the peanut, I would always go CV if it is available in the handle material I am considering. Unfortunatly it is a limiting choice in steel.

However, I pray this will change and CV will be available. If I were getting a yellow handle, there's no choice- it has to be CV. It's the folksy thing to do!

I don't know why, but I keep having a mental picture of Wilford Brimley saying that. "Yella handle and carbon steel, it's the folksy thing to do!"

Too many toddies at the end of a long day.:o
 
brimley.jpg


"Yella handle and carbon steel, it's the folksy thing to do!"
 
kidwholaughs said:
That was quick feed back. How do you do it when you got to cut apples and such. Jackknife.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Cut it one quarter and a time. Put the tip of the knife at the center of the apple near the core and slice down, then move 1/4 of the way around and repeat. You will now have 1/4 of the apple sliced off. Unless its a big apple.

I've always said the peanut will do 99% of what you have to do with a knife. Food service in not in that percent, and is one of the very few achillies heel the peanut does have. I find for bread and fruit, and such, a longer blade is more convienent. For those times I have a peanut and nothing longer, I make do with smaller slices.
 
kidwholaughs said:
Interesting, btw what do you guys think are the Peanut's greatest strengthes and weakness.

God Bless.
Click to expand...


Strengths? Maybe its small inconspicous appearence, bordering on "cute" as put by some women that I know. Even the church ladies thought my bone stag peanut was a pretty little knife. Extremly low profile, but able to handle most of what you need to cut on a daily basis in real world edc. Cutting ability more than what it's small size would lead you to believe. Thin blade stock able to take a very keen edge with very good blade geometry. Boxy handle shape makes up for length what it lacks in grip ability. Pretty good blade size in relation to overall handle size. Pointy sharp blade makes a very good pan fish/rabbit/squirrel knife. Availability in many different handle materials makes for a sub-collection in itself.

Weakness? The small size makes it less than optimal for food service or heavy duty wood cutting as in some survival senerios. I wouldn't want to depend on it marooned in the boonies with it as my only cutting tool. On the other hand the Iceman's flint knife didn't have a blade much bigger. With a small tool you have to use your head a bit more, think carefully what your doing. Last but not least, thay're addictive.
 
I would go for the CV. If the handle material isn't an issue, than it is a no brainer for me....CV!
 
Jackknife told you about anything you need to know.:thumbup:

If you want to use it on a everyday basis, go with CV, if you want to be folksy:p go with CV, if you want to use it for food prep, Id go with a bigger knife. But If you want to display it on a shelf, which you obviously dont:thumbup:, go with ss.

So: I vote for CV as well.

Peter
 
You know, thinking back on it, I don't ever recall seeing dad or any other family member using a stainless steel knife. Grandad, Uncle Mike, Uncle Paul, Uncle Charlie, cousins, all of them. I never saw a stainless knife growing up. Pocket or kitchen.

Weird, now that I think about it!
 
jackknife said:
You know, thinking back on it, I don't ever recall seeing dad or any other family member using a stainless steel knife.
Click to expand...

Jackknife, please forgive my ignorance. I'm two decades younger than you and have always assumed SS pocketknives were popularized in the 60s and 70s. Were stainless blades widely popular before that? And did it have the ability to keep an edge then?

I don't care for stainless myself, I much prefer 1095 or CV. The closest I come to stainless is D2, which is close to stainless, but really a tool steel.
 
I think I am leaning towards the CV. Btw, how much of a compromise is the SS in edge hold ability compared to the CV. Is it better than Vic's Inox? Thanks

God Bless
 
I think that the SS used by Case is better at edge holding than Victorinox Inox. Seems that way to me, at least, at holding an edge at a more acute angle than either of them come from the factory with. Inox doesn't seem to like the angles I sharpen most of my knives to, so I've had to adapt lately to the needs of that steel. Still very sharp, but not the fine edge I prefer. Not quite gone back to the Vic factory angle, but closer.

I think the CV has some advantage over the SS in edge holding/durability. Don't have a measure for how much, but that is how it seems to me.
 
Some of the differences in the two steels could be explained if what I have read is true: Case supposedly gets their CV steel to Rockwell C of 59, while the 420HC "Tru Sharp" stainless gets hardened to a range varying from 55-57. If someone had happened to get a stainless blade not optimally heat treated and it only came out say 53 to 54 on the hardness test versus a CV blade that came out 59, there would be a fairly large measurable difference in the edgeholding. I believe that heat treating a carbon steel is considered more easily done with better results than stainless unless the heat treating process is extremely carefully controlled, so Case could very well be turning out blades of higher hardness and more consistant heat treatment with their chrome vanadium steel. Also, the addition of the vanadium by itself is a huge difference in the two steels. Vanadium carbides are supposed to be extremely hard, and the the CV steel has not only the vanadium in it to make those carbides, it also has a small percentage of chromium present to form some chromium carbides. Harder steel with a better heat treatment and presence of two forms of very hard carbides sounds like a pretty good combination. Both of these steels dull more rapidly in my usages than Queens D2 pocketknives, BUT they sharpen up MUCH more easily. Get a D2 Queen really dull, I have to have the diamond hone to fix it. The Case's hone up quickly on oilstones or ceramic rods.

I have never really gotten to make a solid comparison for my own sake with Tru Sharp versus CV. I have several knives built with either type of steel, but not really any similiar pattern knives between the two for a fair comparison. I like all the knives, of either steel; but don't get to use them as often as I'd like.
 
RobbW said:
Jackknife, please forgive my ignorance. I'm two decades younger than you and have always assumed SS pocketknives were popularized in the 60s and 70s. Were stainless blades widely popular before that? And did it have the ability to keep an edge then?

I don't care for stainless myself, I much prefer 1095 or CV. The closest I come to stainless is D2, which is close to stainless, but really a tool steel.
Click to expand...

I guess stainless blades did become more popular in the 60's. I never saw stainless blades growing up, as most of the men had thier pocket knives for several years before that. In the 1950's most pocket knives were still being made with carbon steel, 1095 being the industry wide choice. The table knives and some kitchen knives were stainless, they were considered okay for that. Most table flatwear in the 50's became stainless. Before then, like the 1940's and back, stainless had got a real bad name for it's lack of edge holding. It was a reputation that hung on for decades, and still lingers to this day in certain areas. But even in the kitchen when I was a kid, the kitchen knives were all carbon steel. They were not treated in any different way than now, just tossed in the sink for cleaning. The blades got dark, but they did not rust if they were washed off and dried and put back n the rack. Mom had a couple favorite paring knives that the blades were almost black, exept for the bright edge where either dad touched it up on the carborundum stone in the drawer or mom did it on the smooth back step. Most of the housewives touched up the kitchen knife with a light stropping on the back stone or smooth cement steps. Cement seemed to be finished smoother in those days.

When the scout troop was formed by the church in Wheaton in 1952, all our new scout knives were made with carbon steel. Camillus made most of them, although I recall a few Imperials, and even an Ulster among the other kids. Mr. Van's Remington was a carbon blade, and it was a nice deep charcoal grey. And the knives carried by all the members of the liers circle that hung out on the front porch of the Jenkin's country store had dark stained blades. Exept for the bright well sharpened edge of course.

No, when I think back hard, I don't ever recall seeing a stainless steel pocket knife before the late 50's or early 60's.

As far as edge holding, the old carbon knives were great. A knife was not an object of worship to a hard working waterman, or grounds keeper, or other blue coller worker. It was a tool to be used hard to get a job done, and if it broke or wore out it was replaced with a new one. But since it was a cutting tool, it was demanded that it cut and hold an edge. Those old 1095 working knives were very good, so good that it took decades for good stainless to overcome the lousy reputation it gained in the early years.
 
jackknife said:
Those old 1095 working knives were very good, so good that it took decades for good stainless to overcome the lousy reputation it gained in the early years.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.

My first experience with stainless was as a Cub/Boy Scout in the early 70s. We didn't have much extra money growing up, and my parents got me an inexpensive Camp-King scout pattern. I was tremendously grateful for the knife, but it never really worked for me. The steel was some kind of mystery stainless that never performed the way a knife should. It had the hardness of a butter knife with none of the charm. I couldn't put an edge on it that would keep, and I still can't even to this day. Is there any steel worse than 420J? It must have been made of that. :D

Even back then, I was in awe of my grandpa's Old Timer that he kept in his pocket. It was razor sharp and stayed that way a long time. I knew nothing of metallurgy, temper, hardness and the like, but I intuitively understood that grandpa's steel was different than mine. Sure, my knife could open cans, bottles, and punch leather easier than grandpa's knife, but it absolutely would not hold an edge.

I have great memories associate with that scout. That knife went everywhere with me--to school, to Den and Troop meetings, to camp-outs, fishing trips and more. I should be emotionally attached to it for all of those memories, but I'm not. It just wouldn't cut like a knife should and was a source of mild frustration.

Over the years the blades have acquired a weird darkness. Not a beautiful patina like I admire in carbon steel, but more like the blackness in an old mirror when ammonia cleaner gets into the silver. There are micro-dots of orange as well. So the blades didn't have the edge holding of carbon steel, or the stain resistance of the later stainless steels--kind of the worst of both worlds. I honestly don't know whether it was the early stainless, a bad heat treat, or both.

I've stayed away from stainless ever since. I know things have dramatically improved, but for me, carbon is easy to get razor sharp, stays that way a long time, and acquires a beautiful patina with use. What's not to like about that combination? Why try to fix what ain't broke?

Oh, BTW, I picked up that blued-carbon steel Peanut from Shepherd Hills. I can't wait for it to arrive. It will be my second Peanut (first is Red Bone in CV) and I'm eager to try it out. After a childhood of not being able to afford anything better than mystery steel, it's wonderful to be able to own a modest few knives with decent steel and enjoy using them. Besides my grandpa's connection to pocketknives, I think being able to finally use good steel is what has me interested in traditional pocketknives as an adult.
 
As the son of a bladesmith who made his pocket money sharpening knives and other tools, I became the go-to guy in my scout troops to get a knife to have an edge on it.

I HATED Kamp Kings. I could get them sharp as a razor, but it was usually hard to do, requiring the use of a Mill Bastard to re-establish a bevel, since the guy usually waited to ask until the thing had an edge like a butter knife. I almost always broke a fingernail getting them to open, or cut myself on it opening it. Eventually, I refused to sharpen them anymore. Gave me such a bad taste in my mouth that for years, I refused to look at a Camp/scout pattern knife. First one I ever got was a Victorinox when I was 19, and they are orders of magnitude better than those old Kamp Kings. Lost it when I was 20 or so, got another when I graduated from Basic at 25. Got my first Camillus Scout at age 35 so I could have the "right" knife to be a scout leader. :D It gets sharp easily, and holds a decent edge.

I am looking at my pocket money right now to see if I can swing one of those Shepherd Hills Peanuts. Such a pretty little thing, I may have to break down and get a tiny knife. :D
 
sixgunner455 said:
I HATED Kamp Kings. I could get them sharp as a razor, but it was usually hard to do, requiring the use of a Mill Bastard to re-establish a bevel, since the guy usually waited to ask until the thing had an edge like a butter knife. I almost always broke a fingernail getting them to open, or cut myself on it opening it. Eventually, I refused to sharpen them anymore.
Click to expand...

sixgunner, sounds like we're two peas in a pod. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who didn't like the nail-breaking, soft metal of the Kamp King blades. They put me off the scout pattern, too. I carry a SAK Cadet, but to me that's more of a SAK than a scout (I think bone/stag when I think scout). I'll have to give the pattern another look. Thanks for the post. :thumbup:
 
Yeah, I didn't even like spear point blades on anything, it soured me so badly.

Kind of like'em now, though. Got myself a Queen Teardrop with one last summer. It is just too pretty!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top