ELMAX Steel Chips Easily?

The short answer is, I have absolute confidence in Elmax with pro-level HT taking a very crisp edge, performing extremely well and holding up to a lot of "hard use". I happily entrust both my life and my livelihood to it.

I have my Elmax blades (whether paper-thin kitchen cutlery or much sturdier "survival" knives) HT'ed by Brad Stallsmith at Peters Heat Treat. I have no idea what HT service or protocol bigger manufacturers are using.

Elmax is pretty dang tough. Not just "tough for a stainless steel", but just plain tough... frankly, I'm very pleasantly surprised by its overall resilience. In my experience, it holds its own just fine with classic carbon steels in rough use like hacking with a thin edge and digging through wood with a fine tip, while exhibiting much better resistance to abrasive wear.

My friends and I have used my Elmax knives at 58Rc with a pretty thin edge HARD - some would say abusively - with remarkably little dulling and no chipping at all. I'm talking about chopping/splitting nasty gnarly red oak full of knots, among many other demanding tasks. Mind you, all that was at ambient temps from 50F to 90F, so very cold temperatures may have some effect... I honestly don't know.

I have not yet done that sort of testing on Elmax at 60Rc, but I will. If that goes well, I'll run a batch at 62Rc and see how that holds up.

On the other hand... sometimes I think you cats are a little too persnickety about what you call "chipping"... the pics of "failures" I'm seeing in this thread are not at all catastrophic, and could be easily sharpened out.

Any small knife with a thin grind, made of any steel, could possibly "chip" that way... lots of factors come into play. I realize that our standards are high, but personally, I would not be offended by a tiny ding. I've seen $400 customs shatter under less strenuous work... that offended me. ;)
 
cchu518 said:
Isn't normal convention to put any knife through a sharpening a few times, which often resolves any chipping issues from heat issues from sharpening at the factory? I've been putting an Elmax up through its paces cardboard, green wood etc... No issues so far.
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Sometimes, but not in all cases. That was pretty much how people managed with Elmax from ZT before.

I generally find that most steels work fine from the factory, so long as the grinds and the actual edge are done well. Some manufacturers make edges that...well, you just SHOULD reprofile to make work better, but I know several makers and maunfatcurers do a good job with their knives.

Of course, if you want a screaming sharp edge and a polish, then yeah, you would have to do that yourself. That's also not the most optimal edge for all steels though. I keep a slightly toothy edge on my Shirogorov because it is in M390, and for my uses, the rougher edge eats through almost anything I can put it to, and holds that edge insanely long for me.
 
I have a limited number of experiences of steels relative to you guys but I tie Elmax and s35v as my favorite steel with 3v coming in after that. Easy to sharpen and holds an edge nice and easy!
 
James,

If you ever get a chance to test one of those knives in extreme cold, let us know what happens. I'm honestly very curious about the details of how steels are affected by things like cold, especially in something like a "survival knife".

I do go camping in the cold quite a lot (yeah I know, not the best idea) with my cousins, and we've played around with it a little, but have never really done any severe testing with steels like Elmax and 3V, though we've though about it.
 
cchu518 said:
I have a limited number of experiences of steels relative to you guys but I tie Elmax and s35v as my favorite steel with 3v coming in after that. Easy to sharpen and holds an edge nice and easy!
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I think those are very good steels all arouond! My personal favorite for stainless is M390 (I say this a lot, sorry to anyone who's noticed), with Elmax and S35VN right behind it (though this is maybe because I haven't tried S125V from what people have told me).

For non-stainless, 3V is my current favorite, but I have a knife in 4V coming to try out, and some people say that if you don't need the insnane levels of toughness in 3V and want better edge retention, 4V is the way to go. From what I've heard it's basically a middle-gound to 3V and M4, with more edge retention than 3V though slightly less than M4, and more toughness than M4, but less than 3V. Loses some of the stain-resistance that makes 3V so easy to care for though.
 
james terrio said:
Mind you, all that was at ambient temps from 50F to 90F, so very cold temperatures may have some effect... I honestly don't know.

I have not yet done that sort of testing on Elmax at 60Rc, but I will. If that goes well, I'll run a batch at 62Rc and see how that holds up.
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I'd be very interested in seeing those results. Even better, conducting the test with a control group/batch run through the same paces at room temperature. But I can imagine this sort of testing would be very expensive to do.
 
I've had just about every steel chip at some point except Elmax so far. Had S30V chip , D2 ,Aus 8, 154cm. But I'm cutting on hard material alot so blame it on that. I bet that whatever happened with your Elmax blade is a fluke OP. I really like Elmax. My favorite stainless steel that I have or have had.
 
cchu518 said:
Ok, note to self, new search for a fixed blade in 4v ��
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I'll put a thread up for a review of the knife once it comes in and update it as I use the knife too.

It's going to be a folder, so I'm a little nervous about how the corrosion resistance of the steel fairs, but I've got some EDCi and HDCi solution on the way too to help with that ;)
I've seen very little about 4V around, so I want to provide as much info as I can about the steel, becase all of the specs seem promising. We will see though.

EDIT: Also, Vanadis 4 Extra is analogous to 4V, so if you can find ZT's 0180, that will have very similar performance to 4V from all accounts.
 
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james terrio said:
On the other hand... sometimes I think you cats are a little too persnickety about what you call "chipping"... the pics of "failures" I'm seeing in this thread are not at all catastrophic, and could be easily sharpened out.
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Yep.

When my knife gets a bit dull, I sharpen it.
I don't think it's a defect in the steel, or obsess over it.

Perhaps the label of "super steel" has misled some folks into thinking it's an indestructible alloy that never needs sharpening, much like Wolverine's claws...
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that wasn't an informational booklet; it was a comic book. ;)
 
Charr said:
James,

If you ever get a chance to test one of those knives in extreme cold, let us know what happens. I'm honestly very curious about the details of how steels are affected by things like cold, especially in something like a "survival knife".

I do go camping in the cold quite a lot (yeah I know, not the best idea) with my cousins, and we've played around with it a little, but have never really done any severe testing with steels like Elmax and 3V, though we've though about it.
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I have blades in Elmax, 3V, M390, M4, Infi (among others that I won't list), Vanidis 4E (ZT 180), but no 4V yet. The Elmax are from at least two mfrs (ZT and Lionsteel), 3V from Bark River, Spyderco, and Survive and M390 from Spyderco, Benchmade, Bradford. In most winters (here in northern ND) I am out in temps down to -30F at least occasionally and routinely below -10F. I have not made a concerted effort to test blades at these temps, but I'll have to start paying more attention :) The limiter on knife use in extreme cold for me is the dang exposed tang or other metal on most fixed blades and the titanium slabs on most RILs locked folders. Frozen wood or bone is very hard and those are probably the most challenging things I've had to cut.
 
dogrunner said:
I have blades in Elmax, 3V, M390, M4, Infi (among others that I won't list), Vanidis 4E (ZT 180), but no 4V yet. The Elmax are from at least two mfrs (ZT and Lionsteel), 3V from Bark River, Spyderco, and Survive and M390 from Spyderco, Benchmade, Bradford. In most winters (here in northern ND) I am out in temps down to -30F at least occasionally and routinely below -10F. I have not made a concerted effort to test blades at these temps, but I'll have to start paying more attention :) The limiter on knife use in extreme cold for me is the dang exposed tang or other metal on most fixed blades and the titanium slabs on most RILs locked folders. Frozen wood or bone is very hard and those are probably the most challenging things I've had to cut.
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Well if you ever get some good data let me know man! Especially if you can get pictures of results from different steels and such. I don't want you to damage any of those great knives though, so don't push them too hard ;)

I know what you mean with the cold on handles and contact surfaces though. They can be pretty dangerous if you're not careful, and possibly even give you frostbite. Maybe trying a wrap around the handles would help in addition to gloves, but I don't know for sure, and that can be something you don't really want to do on nicer knives.

Like you said, I think frozen woodand bone is already a very tough test for most knife steels, especially at those temperatures, so it would be very useful data.

Note: like I said before in my edit, the Vanadis 4E is very similar to 4V, so you should get an idea of the performance out of that, though I'm not sure how hard they took that blade, and would be interested to find out. I know you can reasonably take 4V up to 66rc and still have a working knife for light to medium tasks that is much easier to sharpen than high-alloy steels with comparable edge retention. I have also seen a knife in 4V at 62-63rc that performed very well, but again, I don't know the rc on the 0180 or the heat treatment they used. Still, more good info :D

stabman said:
Yep.

When my knife gets a bit dull, I sharpen it.
I don't think it's a defect in the steel, or obsess over it.

Perhaps the label of "super steel" has misled some folks into thinking it's an indestructible alloy that never needs sharpening, much like Wolverine's claws...
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that wasn't an informational booklet; it was a comic book. ;)
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Haha, I needed that a bit. I obsess over a bit, but not really in that way. I honestly just want to know as much as possible about the steels and how they react to different treatements, edges, conditions, uses, etc. I do a lot of reading about performance of steels, but personal experiences are the most useful bits of information, and I just try to make an effort to retain all of it that I can and pass it on to other people in the hopes that they will do the same.

The reality of it is that most steels will work for most people, but everyone is going to have different expectations of the steel or the knife in general, especially among us here, and I just want to know what fits people's expectations, and potentially help them find a knife they will like more when I can. In this case though, I really wanted to know what caused the chipping (though really, pictures of the damage would have been ideal), because its a really good data point for later ;)
 
M.FREEZE said:
A full size griptilian in 154CM is my EDC. However I read that Elmax heat treated to 60rc is still tougher than 154CM heat treated to around 56-57rc.

20* is okay for EDC cutting, but may be too steep for chopping.
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I would think that 154CM at a Rockwell hardness of 56-ish would make for a pretty soft overall steel. I agree with you, the datasheets and some knifemakers indeed suggest that for Elmax to really stand out to its potential it should be at around 61 or just above. Who knows with so many variables and other things that need to be taken into consideration, it's anyone's guess.
 
Charr said:
In this case though, I really wanted to know what caused the chipping (though really, pictures of the damage would have been ideal), because its a really good data point for later ;)
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Pictures are ideal, because it allows everyone else to decide if it would be an issue for them or not.
What one person considers a chip, another person wouldn't even notice. :)
Of course, I've also seen where the picture of the "chip" turned out to be a massive chunk of the blade missing entirely! :eek:

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words.
 
stabman said:
Pictures are ideal, because it allows everyone else to decide if it would be an issue for them or not.
What one person considers a chip, another person wouldn't even notice. :)
Of course, I've also seen where the picture of the "chip" turned out to be a massive chunk of the blade missing entirely! :eek:

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words.
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Very true words :D

One of my friends called and told me he needed his knife sharpened because it was getting dull. He sent me the knife and it practically couldn't cut butter...and the "edge" was so ragged it looked like a small saw blade...

Four or so hours later it was in good shape, but I made him VERY aware of how important it was not to let it happen again...with his knife as a hostage for its own sake util he promised not to let it get that bad again. Sent it back with a Spyderco Sharpmaker just for good measure ;)
 
Charr said:
Four or so hours later it was in good shape, but I made him VERY aware of how important it was not to let it happen again...with his knife as a hostage for its own sake util he promised not to let it get that bad again. Sent it back with a Spyderco Sharpmaker just for good measure ;)
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Now that's a good friend. :)
 
Dirtykoala said:
I love my ZT 0560BW, but the blade seems to chip pretty easily.

I had to have a good amount of the blade ground down after it chipped on I don't know what soon after I got it, but I hadn't used it hard.

This last weekend I got stuck in the snow and used my ZT to hack at some branches to try to get traction and a little at some ice under my tires and the blade got pretty chipped.

Is this common for ELMAX?

I just got my Spyderco Manix 2 XL, so I'll see how my first S30V blade holds up.

:|
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No offense, sir, but threads like this are along the lines of: "I bought a loaf of bread made of wheat flour. It was burned on the bottom. What's up with wheat flour? Should I have purchased rye?"

As others have suggested, a lot more goes into knife performance than the raw material.
 
stabman said:
Now that's a good friend. :)
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Least I could do for the poor little knife ;)

I managed to get most of my close friends into knives one way or another, but they still need a little help every now and then with things like sharpening and such. On the plus side, the same friend bought himself a Wicked Edge for Christmas, and has been practicing quite a bit. All of his knives are nice and shiny now, but he literally goes out and cuts stuff with one of his cheaper knives just so it can get dull enough to sharpen back up.

I still give him trouble about messing that blade up so much though :D
 
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