Different types of metals

O

Orv

Joined
Nov 6, 2013
Messages
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I was wondering if anyone has a cheat sheet, or literature that will explain to us different steels, their qualities, and maybe some kind of ranking system. I found a knife with CPM-M4 and had no idea if it was good or bad

Edit: maybe also if someone could include some type of estimated retail price per inch, would also be ideal
 
Ranked based on what? Rust resistance, ease of sharpening, hardness, toughness, strength, edge retention, cost, etc?

Comparison of steels is far more complicated than X is better than Y.

Here's a excellent site to get you started

ZKnives

Compiled by one of the members here, Gator97. Excellent resource.
 
Orv said:
I was wondering if anyone has a cheat sheet, or literature that will explain to us different steels, their qualities, and maybe some kind of ranking system. I found a knife with CPM-M4 and had no idea if it was good or bad

Edit: maybe also if someone could include some type of estimated retail price per inch, would also be ideal
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You found a knife in CPM-M4!? That's pretty much the tippy top of the super steels avaliable today!

(Or did you mean you found one for sale that you liked?)
 
Simple way to classify attributes of steels.

1. Hardness (Strength)
2. Wear resistance
3. Toughness
4. Corrosion resistance
5. Price

You can only pick 3.

For CPM-M4, it is 1, 2 and 3.
 
Orv said:
I was wondering if anyone has a cheat sheet, or literature that will explain to us different steels, their qualities, and maybe some kind of ranking system. I found a knife with CPM-M4 and had no idea if it was good or bad

Edit: maybe also if someone could include some type of estimated retail price per inch, would also be ideal
Click to expand...

What knife are you looking at?

Ankerson should chime in on this...

Anything used by any reputable manufacturer/maker would be good steel. Being a steel snob will just make you miss out on some excellent offerings. It's not always about the steel, but how they treat the steel is just as if not more important.

There's not really a retail price per inch... If you look at S30V. Buck Vantage Pro has S30V for ~$50, Spyderco offers their S30V as low as $100, then you hop on something like Strider's S30V and you'll be looking at ~$400. It's not purely in the material, but how they use it.
 
AUS-8 is pretty much the best steel out there. Trust me.
 
Ag Russell steel guide will give you a good metallury breakdowns, but be careful of stating the best steel, it does not mean that old steels that have been used for 200 years were not good, they did the job, and secondly, if the heat treat is not done well, then a knife with the latest tech will not be worth it. there can be no doubt that steels can be designed now with wonder ingredients, but there is a reason some of those old ones lasted and were used for so long. so some thoughts, blade design (meaning geometry), heat treat and intended purpose are all things that need to be considered. Just my two cents.
 
Orv said:
I was wondering if anyone has a cheat sheet, or literature that will explain to us different steels, their qualities, and maybe some kind of ranking system. I found a knife with CPM-M4 and had no idea if it was good or bad

Edit: maybe also if someone could include some type of estimated retail price per inch, would also be ideal
Click to expand...

Okay go: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...based-on-Edge-Retention-cutting-5-8-quot-rope

This should help you a bit in your search.

CPM M4 is awesome, same with 3V... :thumbup:
 
Orv said:
I was wondering if anyone has a cheat sheet, or literature that will explain to us different steels, their qualities, and maybe some kind of ranking system. I found a knife with CPM-M4 and had no idea if it was good or bad

Edit: maybe also if someone could include some type of estimated retail price per inch, would also be ideal
Click to expand...


1) IMO, you can't just look at the name of the steel. Steel gets shipped to the knife maker who shapes and then does the final heat treatment of the blade. A huge amount of the blade's performance is based on the heat treatment. So, you can have a "great" steel with a "lousy" heat treat or a "mediocre" steel that performs wonderfully due to a "great" heat treat.


2) Asking the forum about steel is like asking wine snob about what to drink. They're just going to assume you want wine and will start tossing around names and terms till your head will spin. Here's my very crude starting point at a beer, ale, wine level, without getting real complicated.

Carbon Steel (Beer) - Sharpens easily, takes a fine edge and is plenty tough. Used for centuries.

Lousy Stainless (Kool-Aid) - It's junk. Looks pretty, won't hold an edge, gives stainless a bad name. Examples (imo) include 420J2, generic 440, Victorinox Inox

Decent Stainless (Ale) - If you like beer, you can drink ale too. Sharpens easily, takes a fine edge and is plenty tough. Examples (imo) include Buck's 420HC, Sandvik 12C27 (Opinel, Mora), most Aus8, decently hardened 440A (Schrade USA back in the day), most 440C

Super Steels (Wine) - As a group, harder to sharpen, hold an edge longer but can be more brittle. If you like to have you knives sharpened by somebody else and if you like to know that you're drinking the most expensive hooch in the cabinet.
 
marcinek said:
Read the comments on the chart. It was not well-respected. Basically anecdotal numbers randomly forced into a bar graph.
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Fair enough. Maybe the OP should just go and read steel manufacturer's spec sheets then. :D

At least those don't lie... ;)
 
marcinek said:
:D My point is that ranking steels, unless it is on one property (like Ankerson attempted), is impossible.
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Quite true. If only the knife gods made it a little easier for us plebians to choose the "best" steel.

I'm partial to M390, 3V, S90V, S110V, ZDP189 and M4 for my top users.

Curiously though; good ole Aus 8, 154Cm, 1095, 5160 seem to work just fine too... :confused::D
 
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