DEK3

REK Knives said:
Nathan, you mind sharing some pics of what cosmetic issues your having? Are they ghost spots like this?

View attachment 2186040

View attachment 2186043
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No it doesn't look like that. There's little spots no bigger than a sesame seed. Most come right off with a little bit of grinding, but these knives are already very thin so there's no room to remove much metal without affecting the geometry. But if you don't grind them all the way out, some of them leave a little micro pit behind that shows.

Some knives don't have it at all. Others have it very minimally, but there's enough that have significant spotting that we're probably going to lose over half the batch and we made fewer than 100 total, there were never going to be very many. We always get some losses, but I thought for sure I'd made enough to cover the pre-order, I've never had scrap this bad.

It has only affected the DEK3. No hint of a problem on the DEK1 and they were heat treated side by side at the same time. I think this is because it is a different melt of Magna cut than the two melts that I did my development work on which includes the melt we made the DEK1 from.

I'm certain we will be unable to salvage a bunch of these. But they won't be a total loss. Ben can use them to practice sharpening before they go into the creek.

😐

If they are still good functional knives I might surface grind my maker's Mark off of them and find something to do with them.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
No it doesn't look like that. There's little spots no bigger than a sesame seed. Most come right off with a little bit of grinding, but these knives are already very thin so there's no room to remove much metal without affecting the geometry. But if you don't grind them all the way out, some of them leave a little micro pit behind that shows.

Some knives don't have it at all. Others have it very minimally, but there's enough that have significant spotting that we're probably going to lose over half the batch and we made fewer than 100 total, there were never going to be very many. We always get some losses, but I thought for sure I'd made enough to cover the pre-order, I've never had scrap this bad.

It has only affected the DEK3. No hint of a problem on the DEK1 and they were heat treated side by side at the same time. I think this is because it is a different melt of Magna cut than the two melts that I did my development work on which includes the melt we made the DEK1 from.

I'm certain we will be unable to salvage a bunch of these. But they won't be a total loss. Ben can use them to practice sharpening before they go into the creek.

😐

If they are still good functional knives I might surface grind my maker's Mark off of them and find something to do with them.
Click to expand...
Ahhh OK, I've only been through 2-3 sheets of magnacut so far but I agree with you, sounds like inclusions or something went wrong in the melt. Totally sucks when you get all this work (time & money) invested in something then have a major problem like this.

Are you going to send some samples to NSM or somewhere for analysis to see if they can determine the core issue?
 
REK Knives said:
Ahhh OK, I've only been through 2-3 sheets of magnacut so far but I agree with you, sounds like inclusions or something went wrong in the melt. Totally sucks when you get all this work (time & money) invested in something then have a major problem like this.

Are you going to send some samples to NSM or somewhere for analysis to see if they can determine the core issue?
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Yeah, we shipped them some samples yesterday.

I have used steel from four different heats now. I did heat treat testing here on two of those. It is bad luck that the heat that had the problem is one that I made product from without doing a test heat treat first or I'd have found this before putting work into it.

Fortunately it was a small run. It represents two weeks of our output. We will be fine. I don't know what we would do if it was a big run.

I normally get the entire billet and all of my steel is made from the same melt at the same time. This has kept me out of trouble in the past, but with Magna cut you just get what you can get, there hasn't been enough of it for me to be particularly choosy and I'm only buying a few hundred pounds at a time so I have been getting a mix.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
No it doesn't look like that. There's little spots no bigger than a sesame seed. Most come right off with a little bit of grinding, but these knives are already very thin so there's no room to remove much metal without affecting the geometry. But if you don't grind them all the way out, some of them leave a little micro pit behind that shows.

Some knives don't have it at all. Others have it very minimally, but there's enough that have significant spotting that we're probably going to lose over half the batch and we made fewer than 100 total, there were never going to be very many. We always get some losses, but I thought for sure I'd made enough to cover the pre-order, I've never had scrap this bad.

It has only affected the DEK3. No hint of a problem on the DEK1 and they were heat treated side by side at the same time. I think this is because it is a different melt of Magna cut than the two melts that I did my development work on which includes the melt we made the DEK1 from.

I'm certain we will be unable to salvage a bunch of these. But they won't be a total loss. Ben can use them to practice sharpening before they go into the creek.

😐

If they are still good functional knives I might surface grind my maker's Mark off of them and find something to do with them.
Click to expand...

That blows. :/
 
20230516_103107.jpg

I took the ugliest one and ground some of the hollow out of it and ground the edge back to get to the correct thickness for a test cut sample and sharpened it at 18 DPS and cut two 16 penny nails. Despite bad pitting on this one (it's the worst) it definitely performs very well.

We had a breakthrough at Peter's and they have been able to duplicate my results. I have a love-hate relationship with this steel right now, but I believe we're going to have the best in the industry.


(Don't try cutting a nail with a regular DEK3, that thin hollow won't)
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
View attachment 2187676

I took the ugliest one and ground some of the hollow out of it and ground the edge back to get to the correct thickness for a test cut sample and sharpened it at 18 DPS and cut two 16 penny nails. Despite bad pitting on this one (it's the worst) it definitely performs very well.

We had a breakthrough at Peter's and they have been able to duplicate my results. I have a love-hate relationship with this steel right now, but I believe we're going to have the best in the industry.


(Don't try cutting a nail with a regular DEK3, that thin hollow won't)
Click to expand...
I'd buy that knife even if it didn't have any warranty at all
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
View attachment 2187676

I took the ugliest one and ground some of the hollow out of it and ground the edge back to get to the correct thickness for a test cut sample and sharpened it at 18 DPS and cut two 16 penny nails. Despite bad pitting on this one (it's the worst) it definitely performs very well.

We had a breakthrough at Peter's and they have been able to duplicate my results. I have a love-hate relationship with this steel right now, but I believe we're going to have the best in the industry.


(Don't try cutting a nail with a regular DEK3, that thin hollow won't)
Click to expand...

Ship it....... :D

Mine, would mostly be just cutting pumpkins and cat turds

*I affectionately refer to my favorite USERS/beaters.... the knife you will stick into Anything, as a "bait knife".
Something that might be a little ugly, but it's Used often, and Lots of memories are made with it.

If you released a batch of Bait Knives, I'm sure they would be equally Loved......
 
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Nathan the Machinist said:
View attachment 2187676

I took the ugliest one and ground some of the hollow out of it and ground the edge back to get to the correct thickness for a test cut sample and sharpened it at 18 DPS and cut two 16 penny nails. Despite bad pitting on this one (it's the worst) it definitely performs very well.

We had a breakthrough at Peter's and they have been able to duplicate my results. I have a love-hate relationship with this steel right now, but I believe we're going to have the best in the industry.


(Don't try cutting a nail with a regular DEK3, that thin hollow won't)
Click to expand...
FWIW (possibly zero), I had a custom Bowie (yes, I know) made from Elmax some years ago that had this exact same issue, Peters did the HT. Same knife, maker made a new blank (both were fully hand ground) and the second one was just fine.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
No it doesn't look like that. There's little spots no bigger than a sesame seed. Most come right off with a little bit of grinding, but these knives are already very thin so there's no room to remove much metal without affecting the geometry. But if you don't grind them all the way out, some of them leave a little micro pit behind that shows.

Some knives don't have it at all. Others have it very minimally, but there's enough that have significant spotting that we're probably going to lose over half the batch and we made fewer than 100 total, there were never going to be very many. We always get some losses, but I thought for sure I'd made enough to cover the pre-order, I've never had scrap this bad.

It has only affected the DEK3. No hint of a problem on the DEK1 and they were heat treated side by side at the same time. I think this is because it is a different melt of Magna cut than the two melts that I did my development work on which includes the melt we made the DEK1 from.

I'm certain we will be unable to salvage a bunch of these. But they won't be a total loss. Ben can use them to practice sharpening before they go into the creek.

😐

If they are still good functional knives I might surface grind my maker's Mark off of them and find something to do with them.
Click to expand...
Throwing knife set stocking stuffers?
 
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