Fingers crossed on Cold steel custom pendleton -san mai ?

A

acmetim

Joined
Nov 29, 2012
Messages
42
in years past i have had very good luck with cold steel. i have had a voyager large clip point folder in my pocket for over 14 years. i bought about 7 of em right before the last design change so i can carry the same blade the rest of my life... i loved the pendleton hunter when it came out and used mine to death. then i got the pendleton folder when it came out. ditto. used em for years. used em for all deer cleaning chores and general purpose chores from splitting wood to batoning wood for fires. never a complaint. so i decided to up the antie and shell out for the high end custom san mai one. it has now processed 4 deer for me, nothing else task wise. honestly ive probably babied it a bit because of cost. but when working up a deer you gotta get the job done. i did the job, cleaned it off and resheathed it until the next time. last week i was inspecting the edge and saw several spots where the edge had rolled over, a few little scallops where it had gone wavy(bent). I can only assume it was from prying apart joints as everything else was meat cutting. i contacted customer service and they asked me to send it back which i did today. over the weekend i decided to do a test. i took a deer thigh bone that i saved for the dog, thawed it out and had at it.... just using my wrist for power i chopped at the bone with several knives. all fared well except the san mai. i got a few new chips and rolled over spots. is san mai like that? good for cutting, but weak as a all around tool? this is my first san mai and i really dont know. i inspected it under some heavy magnification and it appears that the edge is actually separating a little- like some layers are coming apart...
anyways, waiting and hoping to hear something good from them. and san mai advice in the meantime would be nice.
tim

tried to get pictures, but micro photography eluded me. i got a few shots, but not great.
 
What is this CS san may about anyway? I always had a feeling that the steel they put in the core would be a good choice for outer layers in "proper" laminated blade. I know that it is probably not quite true because of all that HT parameters....
 
San mai is just a sales term for laminated steel. It should be composed of only be three layers of which you can see by eye. I'm not sure where you are looking at under magnification, and it is possible for the three layers to delaminate, but san mai is not composed of hundreds of layers like damascus or wootz steels.

What you are reporting just sounds like improperly heat treated steel, especially if you get both chipping & rolling on the same edge. That can happen with any steel.
 
PB300264.jpg
 
I do not think there is such a need for macro lens: you could see the edge damage quite clearly.
I think you could consider increasing the angle: combination of thin edge with low sharpening angle could cause the problem you describe. That is even with the best steel.
 
got it back today. new edge grinded on it.... maybe a little less thin of an angle... not sure- no explanation. edge is definitely left rougher. looks like an 800 grit edge. i will strop the heck out of it and try it. i called customer service and asked what they found and they said the steel tested good and to keep using it and see what happens. got a few more deer tags to fill. next one i will bone out one side with this knife and the other in the same manner with another of their knives that has worked well for me for years...experiment and control
 
closer inspection revealed: IMG]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i91/acmetim/coldedge.jpg[/IMG]
uneven edge grind,
actual edge:
coldedge2.jpg
 
am i being too picky for a 300 plus dollar knife? i sent pics to cold steel and am waiting to hear back.....
 
In reply to acmetim.

I think it is worth to try sharpen it a few times and maybe put a convex edge on and make the surface as smooth as You can.

I have not used Cold Steel San Mai knives, but many laminated Fällkniven models.
Giving a new knife a few sharpening and honing sessions, usually bring out the best of the steel.
A factory edge are seldom longlasting anyway.

Your pic's shows a very rough finish on the edge, so I think You have some time ahead of You with the sharpening stone.

Regards
Mikael
 
There were several reports a couple years ago on CS's own forum of their VG-1 (which is the core in SMIII) being chip prone. I've not seen any reports of rolling, though. I wonder if it's possible that during the final polishing and/or sharpening phase the edge was overheated in some spots and undamaged in others? That might explain chipping in the harder areas and rolling in the "burnt" areas. :confused:
 
Bone is very hard, so it's not particularly surprising to see a few dents or roll-overs on a fine edge that has been used hard. Just sharpen it.:D
 
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o.k. so no response from c.s. so i put it on the waterstones and evened up the edge angles and sharpened it to hair shaving sharp and fine edge.( no grinder cuts visible) i pressed the new edge against the handle of a cold steel voyager and it rolled over. c.s. said they couldnt find anything wrong with the steel. so i guess i have what i have.... i took a voyager out sunday with as narrow an edge as i could get on it without removing metal from the beginning of the hollow grind. (very acute angle) i batoned a downed cherry limb about 1.5 inches at the thick end. both ends of the stick had 6 or seven branches coming off that were batoned and whittled down.( knots, and all) the cheap voyager edge held up better than the san mai, and it was a thinner edge than the san mai. i guess i will be sharpening it every time i use it as anything other than a meat slicer. disappointing.
 
acmetim said:
the cheap voyager edge held up better than the san mai, and it was a thinner edge than the san mai. i guess i will be sharpening it every time i use it as anything other than a meat slicer. disappointing.
Click to expand...

I can see that this is disappointing!
It could be that the edge has been overheated as was pointed out in an earlier reply.
There's just one thing to do and that is to continue to sharpen the knife, but with a not too thin edge.
Hopefully it will start to hold the edge as it should.

Regards
Mikael
 
If your edge went wavy, I'd say you got a bad HT job. Had a Spartan with that same issue, and the edge bent on contact with a sapling.

There's really no reason that a $300 pendleton should survive stuff worse than the $15 one does.
 
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