Homemade blade vs store bought blade questions

Z

zimm

Joined
Nov 17, 2005
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I'm not a knife maker, but after watching a couple of seasons of Forged in Fire and visiting a local welding shop where has making blades, I have some questions.

Most of the knives I carry are Benchmade, leatherman, or Kershaw. I'm told that 154CM is a premium stainless to spend the money on for blades.

Now these home made blades- they look like they're made from high carbon steel. So is that completely different from stainless? Is it harder/tougher, yet will easily rust? Or do you use the same kind of stainless?

Are my store bought blades "forged" and heat treated, or is that only something you get when bladesmithing your own?

I guess I'm trying to find out if a hammer forged blade is way better than what you can buy in the store. Or is it just the fact that you can make you're own design that makes bladesmithing worthwhile?
 
Forging does not in and of itself make a better or worse blade than one that is ground from flat stock. I don't forge currently, but my understanding is that stainless is difficult to forge, but not impossible. As for Stainless vs Carbon? To make stainless (and it's really stain/ rust resistant, not proof) you need to add Chromium to the Iron/ carbon steel. Carbon is the most important element for making steel hard. Adding elements means some other things need to be removed. Chromium, added at least 12% makes steel stainless, but can also decrease toughness. Other elements- Manganese (adds hardness), Vanadium (increases wear resistance), nickel (adds toughness) and others can be added in varying amounts to increase certain properties (wear resistance, toughness, hardness). Of course with everything added, there is generally some other characteristic that suffers. This is why there is not one almighty steel that is best at everything. you want a blade that holds and edge for a long time? perhaps you will have to sacrifice toughness. Want a good edge holding, and easy to sharpen? you may have to take more care to prevent rust. And of course there is cost. A blade made with S35V may cost 5 times what The same blade in 1095 may cost.It's a deep rabbit hole you can fall into when you start doing the research. But remember, variety is the spice of life. Benchmade is a fine knife, and if you're happy with it, great. I carry kershaw, Buck, Case, an old Shrade and ones I have made as well. Oh, and grinding out a blade can be extremely worthwhile as well as forging one. It takes skill, patience, money and practice, but in the end, holding a thing of beauty that you made with your hands is pretty awesome.
 
There was a time when 154CM was a true top of the list stainless steel for knives however with newer technology with Powdered Metals there is a CPM154CM again a good steel. In terms of High Tech stainless both of the 154's have given ground to stainless steels like ELMAX, CPMS 30V, CPMS 35VN which are what the big name makers like Benchmade and others are using.

It's likely that your store bought blades are machine ground from precision flat stock cut by waterjet from sheet stock. The likely hood that they were forged is remote due to speed required for bulk manufacturing. What you see on TV in that show are Bladesmiths that work one blade at a time in their home forge shops and it generally takes more than the allotted 3-4 hours to https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/photos-sharpbycoop-•-gallery-of-handmade-knives.612884/produce a quality blade. A "One of a Kind" custom forged blade will be better than you find in most stores but will have a Price tag of several hundreds of dollars. You can find Custom Handmade Forged knives here on the this Forum in the EXCHANGE...Take look around and Welcome.
Look in the Forum section "Gallery" for Photos of some great masterpieces of handmade knives!!!!
 
The main difference i find beyond the hand made factor is that custom knifemakers will take steel closer to its limits of performance. Heres what I mean

Wusthof steel has only .5 percent carbon. Most knife makers would barely consider that high carbon steel. Thats like hammer steel. The reason? Its better for a knife to get dull fast than to EVER risk breaking. Most consumers treat their knives like garbage. Most people are used to dull knives. Thats normal. But a knife break? Thats a HUGE deal to most people.

Even knives using higher end steel like Benchmade 154CM is in the end, not taken very hard ofr the same reason.

If you buy a 400 dollar custom knife, the expectation is that you are going to baby it at least a little. Not be rough with it. And so knife makers can make that material harder, give it a thinner grind, make the edge keener. Thats where the perfoamnce comes from. Knife makers do the same thing, but they do it for what knives are made for. TO cut.
 
Just like factory knives, hand made has a wide range of quality. Everything from unusably bad, to far above any factory made knife. It all comes down to the skill of the maker, and what you're willing to pay for.
 
I would say that virtually all store bought blades are not hammer forged by hand, because it is not scalabale or efficient time-money wise in a factory setting. Your typical knife buyer wants to spend less than $60, more around $20-$30, and so if we're talking about that price range it is rather amazing what some companies put out and make a profit on. I just don't think it's possible for a one man knife shop to match price and quality as a Case knife and make a living wage. Unless that man has a CNC machine or some expensive equipment.
 
Randy3000 said:
I would say that virtually all store bought blades are not hammer forged by hand, because it is not scalabale or efficient time-money wise in a factory setting. Your typical knife buyer wants to spend less than $60, more around $20-$30, and so if we're talking about that price range it is rather amazing what some companies put out and make a profit on. I just don't think it's possible for a one man knife shop to match price and quality as a Case knife and make a living wage. Unless that man has a CNC machine or some expensive equipment.
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When you have a set design you can have material sent to a waterjet service and you provide them the File with all the dimensions to be cut and they send you a box full of pre-cut blanks. The fitting and finishing is time consuming but you can still work in batch fashion so long as all the pins, screws, spacers, scales, are uniform so you have less fiddling to deal with. I can comfortably build 3 knives a week with the above method so long as I don't have any issues with my grinders. I generally will grind 10-15 blades in a day and at the end of the week should have 45+ blades that have been heat treated previously ready for assembly. No CNC just good shop equipment and lots of Gatorade/5 Hour Energy to keep hydrated.
 
To be honest, I really didn
Randy3000 said:
I would say that virtually all store bought blades are not hammer forged by hand, because it is not scalabale or efficient time-money wise in a factory setting. Your typical knife buyer wants to spend less than $60, more around $20-$30, and so if we're talking about that price range it is rather amazing what some companies put out and make a profit on. I just don't think it's possible for a one man knife shop to match price and quality as a Case knife and make a living wage. Unless that man has a CNC machine or some expensive equipment.
Click to expand...
these folks are not the target market for a hand made knife and never will be. If someone wanted me to make them a knife that cheap, I'd educate them on why mine cost what they do. If they see the value in it, maybe they will buy from me. If not, they will continue to buy $20-$30 dollar knives. That's fine with me. I have all the work I can handle and I don't advertise or go looking for work. I also don't do this full time, but I make a little profit, that pretty much goes to new machines so I can repeat the vicious cycle. It's a sickness really. but so is the desire of an educated consumer to have the best, Thank God.
 
The Smiths here are brilliant. No Doubt.

The easy-ist way to explain steel (to me) is picture a 1970's car bumper that is flaking chrome.
That chrome is flexible, and can easily be folded but does not rust.

Now imagine a GOOD thread tap. That tap will snap in a second. No folding or bending but left alone it will rust.

Add chrome to a tap, and you might have a workable steel that will last without rusting or easily snapping.

There are TONS of Utube posts on steel(s). Look at a hundred of them, and determine what questions you still have.
It's like PlayDough, and wood. Combine them, and you have something different from either.
 
Zombie411 said:
The Smiths here are brilliant. No Doubt.

The easy-ist way to explain steel (to me) is picture a 1970's car bumper that is flaking chrome.
That chrome is flexible, and can easily be folded but does not rust.

Now imagine a GOOD thread tap. That tap will snap in a second. No folding or bending but left alone it will rust.

Add chrome to a tap, and you might have a workable steel that will last without rusting or easily snapping.

There are TONS of Utube posts on steel(s). Look at a hundred of them, and determine what questions you still have.
It's like PlayDough, and wood. Combine them, and you have something different from either.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but that's a terrible way to describe knife steels. Adding "chrome" to steel from a tap will not give you a tougher steel. It's posts like this that serve to confuse people who are new to the craft of knifemaking.

If you don't understand the conversation, then just sit back and read. What is your background in knifemaking, metallurgy, or heat treating steels?
 
Zombie411 said:
The Smiths here are brilliant. No Doubt.

The easy-ist way to explain steel (to me) is picture a 1970's car bumper that is flaking chrome.
That chrome is flexible, and can easily be folded but does not rust.

Now imagine a GOOD thread tap. That tap will snap in a second. No folding or bending but left alone it will rust.

Add chrome to a tap, and you might have a workable steel that will last without rusting or easily snapping.

There are TONS of Utube posts on steel(s). Look at a hundred of them, and determine what questions you still have.
It's like PlayDough, and wood. Combine them, and you have something different from either.
Click to expand...

I agree that this is very wrong.
The peeled chrome is flexible only because it is very thin. Chromium is actually pretty brittle. That is why it cracks and flakes of the bumper.
The tap breaks because it is Rc65 or more, has inherent stress risers in every thread ... and is thin - which has nothing to do with why it will rust.
And mixing Play-Doh with wood will only give you Play-Doh covered wood.

It has to do with how the iron, carbon, and alloying elements are bound together and distributed.
What makes stainless steel stainless is the unbound chromium in the matrix. Up to 12% it will be bound with the carbon, all above 12% will remain as elemental chromium in the grain boundaries.

Hardness, to the main degree, is an issue of Heat Treatment, not alloying. A tap can be made from the same steel a knife blade is. It is the HT and temper that will make one snap like glass and the other hold up under rough use.

A hand made knife by from a knowledgeable maker will take all these things in consideration when choosing the steel, forging and/or grinding the blade, and doing HT. That is the primary thing that separates a factory knife from a handmade knife.
 
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S.Alexander said:
If you don't understand the conversation, then just sit back and read. What is your background in knifemaking, metallurgy, or heat treating steels?
Click to expand...

48 years of welding. Mainly stainless.

"Add chrome to a tap, and you might have a workable steel that will last without rusting or easily snapping."

I explained stainless in the most simplistic fashion.
 
154CM was developed as an improvement of 440C for use as high strength , corrosion and heat resistant steel used to make bearings and aerospace parts.

High carbon steel just means carbon content is 0.8% or higher. 154CM is a high carbon steel(1.05%) that also has enough chromium and Molybdenum to be corrision resistant. 1095 or Hitachi White have carbon at 1% or higher but do not have chromium added to reduce corrosion.
Are my store bought blades "forged" and heat treated, or is that only something you get when bladesmithing your own? most blades are heat treated, but then so are car axles and cv joints and bearings. some store bought blades are forged using large presses that can produce many blades per minute. most are stamped from rolls of blade steel sized for minimum waste.

a hammer forged or hand made blade is just different that the blade in the store. most store bought blades are designed to be easy and inexpensive to make in large quantities with size and shape to appeal to the most people. they are then made so they will last(not break) a long time. a well equipped knife factory can produce more blades in a day than the maker's here could make in a year combined.
hand made blades, whether shaped by forging or grinding, do not have to follow these rules. steel can be heat treated and ground for maximum performance instead of lowest cost. Handles can be made of materials that some times cost more than the steel used for the blade. handles can be shaped to fit 1% of the population rather than 99%.
 
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