Grand Unified Chart of Everything

Motega

Motega

Joined
Jun 20, 2006
Messages
456
I didn't want to resurrect any old threads, but wondering if anyone has a decent compact chart with explanations of the lettering/numbering/nomenclatures. For example, I just realized what the "O"'s "A"'s and "W"'s mean on tool steels. Not that it's terribly important to know, but I've never seen it all in one place to point a beginner to and maybe cut down on some confusion and concern that they are buying the "wrong" steel or the "best" steel.

Besides some really exotic stuff (SM-100! and emailed Boye knives hoping we could get a "dendritic cobalt" knife to pass around) I've come to realize that unless you are on a boat and need H1, or buy flea market knives by the pound there's a lot of overthinking going on.

Here's some links if you want to know what some of these designations mean:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/what-is-carbon-steel.491002/
http://www.astmsteel.com/steel-knowledge/what-is-tool-steel/

Would like to see this all in one place. I don't think you'd need a book to explain 99% of the basic nomenclature. If anyone has a good link or chart, post it for us!

I suspect that a lot of makers bank on this confusion and don't go out of their way to educate consumers. I've learned a lot these past 6 months or so with the help of you all (and a few in particular have really been patient and generous with their time!) so wanted to also express this on "Thanksgiving" holiday. Thanks!
 
Categorizing different steels could be done in a single article. Defining basic terms is at least one article. Specifying which steels are good and bad for different applications is at least one article. I'm not sure what you want could be done in a single chart. Maybe what YOU want could be put in a single chart. But making a general chart gets big fast. Here is just one article giving steel recommendations, for example: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/05/20/how-to-pick-the-best-steel-for-every-knife/
 
I'm going to hate myself in the morning, but "42".

My actual opinion on the question is that it is too complex to be answered in a single chart.
 
A major problem with the chart is that many of the more recent steel designations will be somewhat arbitrary, invented by the steel makers, rather than W=water quench, A=air quench, O=oil quench, etc. Those types of designators mean something because they are old-school and go back to the early ASTM/SAE/AISI days when things were more simple and "structural," created out of need due to the massive industrial revolution that was in progress.

SM100 is more like saying "Formula 409." Does the SM even mean anything related to the material or does it just sound neat? What does INFI stand for? Is it an acronym? Just as an example. There were people here just recently saying that Crucible's new PM steel's name wasn't sexy enough to hype. I maintain and actually believe that part of the popularity of REX-45 is that the name sounds awesome.

There are also international designations and country-specific ones concerning steel. Check out these links about steel grades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_grades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_numbering_system
 
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Mecha said:
A major problem with the chart is that many of the more recent steel designations will be somewhat arbitrary, invented by the steel makers, rather than W=water quench, A=air quench, O=oil quench, etc. Those types of designators mean something because they are old-school and go back to the early ASTM/SAE/AISI days when things were more simple and "structural," created out of need due to the massive industrial revolution that was in progress.

SM100 is more like saying "Formula 409." Does the SM even mean anything related to the material or does it just sound neat? What does INFI stand for? Is it an acronym? Just as an example. There were people here just recently saying that Crucible's new PM steel's name wasn't sexy enough to hype.

There are also international designations and country-specific ones concerning steel. Check out these links about steel grades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_grades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_numbering_system
Click to expand...


This is one of the things I like about working with titanium alloys. They are designated by their chemical composition, like steels 1070 and 1095. There are titanium "Grades," which means it's a chemical composition that has been tested and certified within mechanical tolerances that can be expected, and whatnot, but that is a very minor part of it. There are way more titanium compositions in existence than just the graded alloys. So one must know what the elements actually DO to the alloy mechanically, how they interplay with each other, how they affect heat treatment, what they do in different amounts. It's utterly fascinating.

Using the titanium way, a steel like Hitachi Blue #2 would be called:

Fe C1.2 Cr0.3 W1.25 or something to that effect, so you know what's in the steel without knowing what "Blue #2" is supposed to mean. And someone would say, "That's hitachi Blue #2!" or similar. You see this when the terms "Grade 5" and "6al4v" are used interchangeably in the titanium world. Even though technically there are more than one Grade of 6al4v. There are even 4 different Grades of "pure" titanium! The grades are just simply for manufacturing and engineering purposes.

Or I could just take Ti 5Al 2Mo 4.5V 1Cr 0.7Fe and call it "Mechatanium" and say it's proprietary, never tell anyone what it is and deny it if someone actually scanned it and called it Russian BT23.
 
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