How do you guys know when alloys "come out"?

MyLegsAreOk

MyLegsAreOk

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I recently made a s90v vs s110v thread and one poster said 90 was the oldest, then 30, then 60, then 110, then 35. So how do people know when alloys are released to the market? Google their pages from crucible, takefu, or carpenter? I'm trying to figure out if 20cv and 3v is an alloy from this decade or not but when I try the tricks from here https://www.labnol.org/internet/search/find-publishing-date-of-web-pages/8410/ I don't get anything.
 
I think most people here get their information through the grapevine; when a new steel starts becoming prominently used, YouTube steel tests, etc. If you're really interested in the actual, specific years that steels were invented and/or produced, I think you should just contact the steel production companies themselves. They probably have emails or contact forms on their sites.

Knife material suppliers may also be able to help. But the thing is that not all steels that have been/are being used in knives were developed specifically for knives, and so the steel may have existed and been produced for several years without being relevant to the knife industry. Hope this was useful.
 
Knife Steel Chart which is a phone app. created by a member here gives a brief background history of most of the steels listed on the app. it lists the release date of the steel.
 
Learning that information can be surprisingly difficult, depending on how old the steel is. The best date information is when there is a patent, or in the case of S30V of S35VN there are magazine articles announcing the release. Sometimes a range of dates is the best you can do. A couple examples where I had to do a lot of digging to find approximate dates were D2, AEB-L, and 154CM. You can find those articles on my website if you are interested. I've done several other steels as well.

S60V (then called 440V) is at least as old as 1986 because it is mentioned in this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4765836A/en
The patent application for M390 was submitted in 1988. 20CV and 204P are copies of M390. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0348380B1/en?oq=EP0348380B1
Elmax is at least as old as 1994: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0043164894902321
The S90V patent was submitted in 1995. It was called 420V then: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5679908A/en
The patent application for 3V was submitted in 1997: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5830287A/en
S30V was released in 2001: http://www.seamountknifeworks.com/articles/S30V.pdf
The S110V patent application was submitted in 2006: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7615123B2/en?oq=7,615,123
S35VN was starting to be used around 2009. I'm sure someone can come up with a more specific date: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/uddeholm-vanadis®-4-steel.648599/#post-6871135

Edit: I found better info on S60V and updated above
Edit 2: I found better info on Elmax, still need better
 
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Ajack60 said:
Knife Steel Chart which is a phone app. created by a member here gives a brief background history of most of the steels listed on the app. it lists the release date of the steel.
Click to expand...
Then can you give me the date for 20cv and 3v?
Larrin said:
Learning that information can be surprisingly difficult, depending on how old the steel is. The best date information is when there is a patent, or in the case of S30V of S35VN there are magazine articles announcing the release. Sometimes a range of dates is the best you can do. A couple examples where I had to do a lot of digging to find approximate dates were D2, AEB-L, and 154CM. You can find those articles on my website if you are interested. I've done several other steels as well.

S60V (then called 440V) is at least as old as 1986 because it is mentioned in this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4765836A/en
The patent application for M390 was submitted in 1988. 20CV and 204P are copies of M390. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0348380B1/en?oq=EP0348380B1
Elmax is at least as old as 1994: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0043164894902321
The S90V patent was submitted in 1995. It was called 420V then: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5679908A/en
The patent application for 3V was submitted in 1997: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5830287A/en
S30V was released in 2001: http://www.seamountknifeworks.com/articles/S30V.pdf
The S110V patent application was submitted in 2006: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7615123B2/en?oq=7,615,123
S35VN was starting to be used around 2009. I'm sure someone can come up with a more specific date: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/uddeholm-vanadis®-4-steel.648599/#post-6871135

Edit: I found better info on S60V and updated above
Edit 2: I found better info on Elmax, still need better
Click to expand...

lol whoops, there's my answer. How did you find these? I googled for a while, just came out with the companies' technical pages, which I traded to date using google tricks I linked in my op.

Thanks for the info none the less. Kinda handy. Oh 20cv is made by latrobe, which crucial or carpenter bough iirc. Maybe they had better processes for their same steel so call it 20cv or maybe that's where knife guys get it from. It's funny that we waited decades to get some alloys but we get it the very same year anymore.
 
MyLegsAreOk said:
lol whoops, there's my answer. How did you find these? I googled for a while, just came out with the companies' technical pages, which I traded to date using google tricks I linked in my op.
Click to expand...
I'm a professional. :)
 
MyLegsAreOk said:
I recently made a s90v vs s110v thread and one poster said 90 was the oldest, then 30, then 60, then 110, then 35. So how do people know when alloys are released to the market? Google their pages from crucible, takefu, or carpenter? I'm trying to figure out if 20cv and 3v is an alloy from this decade or not but when I try the tricks from here https://www.labnol.org/internet/search/find-publishing-date-of-web-pages/8410/ I don't get anything.
Click to expand...

Alot of these steels have been out for a while. Just they hadn’t been used in knife blades right away. Alot of the new supersteels that just “came out” have been on the market for a long time, just no one used them in knives yet.

Many of these steels were invented for things like the plastics industry or for industrial machine blades and have a long history of that before Spyderco or whoever decides to do sprint run in them.
 
Ajack60 said:
Knife Steel Chart which is a phone app. created by a member here gives a brief background history of most of the steels listed on the app. it lists the release date of the steel.
Click to expand...
I just downloaded the app. Thanks for the good info!
 
I saw a Latrobe data sheet on Duratech 20CV which had copyright and trademark dates in 2007. Saw a blurb where SOG used it for a knife or two in 2009.

Crucible got a patent on a modified 3v on November 10, 2009.
 
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When I googled latrobe is said they are a carpenter plant anyway. CTS. What's up with that? I know it blows the conversation in a whole new direction but all these data sheets are latrobe when it can be rightfully said they are Carpenter. They bought them in 2012 for 588 million. Million? that's super small.
 
MyLegsAreOk said:
When I googled latrobe is said they are a carpenter plant anyway. CTS. What's up with that? I know it blows the conversation in a whole new direction but all these data sheets are latrobe when it can be rightfully said they are Carpenter. They bought them in 2012 for 588 million. Million? that's super small.
Click to expand...

It's so hard to follow what's going on these days with mergers, buy-outs and the like with industries like steel, aluminum, industrial gasses and whatnot. Same with food brand names and even car brands/companies.
 
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