Heat Treating

[suttond]

I have pre-ordered a "Harry Carry". The steel is 154. I have been told that Busse has a better heat treating than anybody else and that this 154 steel will be better than anbody elses. I understand why one steel is better than another, but could somebody explain why Busses heat treatment is superior to everyone elses.

 

[Troy H]

Hi Sutton,

Those who told you that Busse's heat treat is the best were absolutely right.

Busse has figured out a way to give knives a high RC for good edge holding ability and retain the steels ability to take lateral stress and high force impacts. A great example of this was with Swamp Rats D2 steel.

D2 is a steel that has a reputation of excellent edge holding ability, but very poor toughness when it comes to impact and lateral stress. Try some moderate prying with a D2 blade and it will likely suffer damage. There is a thread on Rat Chat that describes some destructive testing that was done on the Swamps D2 knives. Sadly most of the pics are gone, but there is still some good reading there.

http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=001946#000000

Ooh. The pics are here.
http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=006108#000000

As an aside, if you get the chance to grab some of the Swamps D2, do it. It's amazing stuff. I'm anxious to see what they've done with the 154. Hope this helps.

 

[USSR]

Also, the Busse family of knife companies knows that there is no single best heat treatment, that the treatment of the knife should be tailored to it's intended use. This is why we see Busse/SRKW/SYKW knives thru tempered and differentially tempered depending on the model. I'm confident that they chose the heat treatment that makes the most sense for the Hairy Carry and it's intended use.