Head to Head Steel Comparison

It is published, though not in english as a book form of his PhD thesis. He has discussed the nature of it in various posts here on Bladeforums where he posts occasionally.

-Cliff
 
Cliff, Yes compared to 154CM CPM 154 is a dream to heat treat. I have one fillet knife blade ready to put a handle on with CPM 154 and can then try it out in the field. Yes have used RWL 34, like it as well. The two are very similair. I made one blade with ZDP 189 core and ATS 34 sandwich. I haven't used it much but first impressions are some edge chipping with hard whittling on redwood. My first attempt so may have it too hard at RC 66. I would like to work with it more but very hard to get the material. This one pc I got from my son who lives in Japan and brought to me on a vist to the US. Still working on sources for AEB-L and 12C27 but right now have more than enough to keep me busy with the steels I am currently working with.. So little time--- PHIL
 
Interesting on the ZDP-189, nice to see an independent verification that the hardness can be achieved anyway as this is often padded. Lots of nice steels to work from, Carpenter also has some nice powdered steels as well. I think you could easily be kept busy doing nothing but making prototypes if you so choose.

-Cliff
 
Still no word from the heat treater. As soon as I send the check, I do have some M2 saw blades on the way, so we'll find out how tough they are. I was wondering if the comparison should be divided into O1 (austempered) vs. S7 and A2 vs 154CM, and the groups kept separate like this.
 
Personally I would want a common benchmark unless the tests are uniform/consistent enough so that you can compare readily. While it would of course be very interesting to see bainite/O1 vs martensite/S7, it would also be of interest to see how much knife like ability you lose going from A2 to S7 to get extra tool utility due to the greater impact toughness.

-Cliff
 
Ok, got word back from the heat-treater. He/they can do an austemper of O1 at 500 degrees F, and estimate this will result in a hardness of ~56. I was hoping for higher, based on research from Verhoeven, but its a start. Also, they admit to never having done this, so maybe it will be higher. I would be satisfied at 56-57, but 58 would be better if possible. Maybe they could do it at 475-450 or so, but I'm not sure what the exact Ms temperature is for O1, and it probably varies from batch to batch anyway, though hopefully not by 50 degrees. Rc 56 is respectable, and is on par w/ some of the softer knives on the market. I believe Randall runs their O1 at a similar hardness. Any thoughts on this as a starting point?
 
With the hardness generally significantly below 60 HRC chipping generally isn't a problem and the failure mode tends to be deformation, this is speaking of regular use, chopping woods and such. In extremes such as cutting through metals, bending, and metal on metal impacts there still may be benefit, especially the extreme statistics often associated with bainite vs martensite. Even a gain of 1-2 points would make it directly comparable with most large martensite blades and thus while you would expect to see a difference, see Goddards work, you would not expect it to be outclassed. In short, yes, I would be very interested in it as a benchmark. You might want to read some of the posts on Swordforums on bainite/martensite duplex mixtures and upquenching as that has possibilites as well.

-Cliff
 
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