How much do you have to know about your steels?

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knifezoid

Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
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How much research do you guys do into the steels of your knives or
the ones you want to purchase? As for me I go on this forum and
read around. If you guys say it's good, that's enough for me. I don't
need to know the chemical make up, how much carbon, test results,
etc... Just a general consensus from the forum of "this steel is great!"
does it for me.

But others really want to know their stuff (ie the make up of the steels,
the pros and cons, and all the specifics).

So where do you guys stand?
 
rockwell hardness is always nice to know
other than that i like to know if the steel has been tested and proven just like Alex ;)
 
I look more at the company and their reputation than what blade materials they use. Being a huge CRK fan, I really dont care if they use ATS34, BG42, S30V, etc. I know if Chris likes it for a blade steel, thats good enough for me. Customer service is right up there for me as well. Knowing if I should ever have a problem, I know the company will make it right. Companies like Strider for example, I experienced the most horrible customer service you could ask for ( pretty much None ) and that is why they will never ever get a penny from me again, I dont care what they make. I consider these companies Premium knife companies and when paying a Premium price for a knife, you should also get Premium service. I have also recieve excellent service over the years from BUCK, Case, Victorinox, Gerber, Kershaw, etc. So you dont have to pay big money for great service. I do not need to know the make-up of blade steels. Like you, I look around the forums to see its performance, then I make my decision. A knife might have the greatest steel made by Zues himself, but if the knife does not suit my needs, its worthless to me. Steels also evolve, I remembe when i was a kid, 440C was the gold standard, then ATS34 was premium ( probably the fist big name premium steel ). Then BG42. Now S30V is the norm it seems with much talk about the next one ??? Buy which knife suits your needs the best and which company will stand behind it.

Just my 2 cents from personal experience and buying knives over the last 25 years......Enjoy !
 
when i was looking for a knife, i wanted to know what steel was good and what was bad. when i found a consensus, i wanted to understand why. thats when i started learning about the phrasing used to describe knife quality [namely toughness, hrc, corrosion resistance, edge retention, etc] and from there i wanted to know what made a knife tough, hard, and have good edge retention

so i found charts, and when they didn't make sense i read some more. so i mean i guess i needed to find the chemical content, but more than needing that i really just wanted to understand what i was planning on buying. i looked at alot of customer reviews, read the forums, asked specifically in the forums and made a decision from that basis of general information i had gathered.

i mean, yea its nice to have someone's opinion on something, but i've always been a why kinda guy. i don't claim to be a metallurgist or anything, but now i understand that high carbon makes a knife hard, but carbides make it abrasive resistive and this and that and it was enough to satisfy my curiosity... for now

i'm still curious as to what makes crk knives so legendary, but since i can't find any scientific data that quenches my thirst for knowledge as to the wondrous quality, i guess i'll find out when i own one :D
 
I just read about how difficult they are to sharpen, if they're more prone to corrosion, etc.

I don't really buy into most of the ideas of one steel having better edge retention or another taking a sharper edge, but I do like to know what makes various steels different so I read up about carbon, chrome, vandium, and what effects those have on various steels.

That's really about as far as I go with caring about steel. If I can't get a specific Rocwell hardness rating for a knife, I might shy away from something in 420 because I think that's a bit too soft, but other than that steel is steel to me.
 
Most of the knives I want are always 154cm / S30V and D2 tool steel so I just buy them. But same as the first guy said "proven steels".
 
i tend to be a knifenut & certainly look to members as an i.d. on alloys. the maker is important since the identical alloy can be heattreated very differently.
 
"Jesus Christ, Himself, could send a bar of steel down from Heaven. It will only be as good as the heat treatment it gets".

It's OK to choose a steel, but your heaviest burden is to find the Maker or the Manufacturer that knows how to properly heat treat it.

The most middle-of-the-road, mundane, run-of-the-mill, boring steel, properly heat treated will ALWAYS!!! out-perform even the most exotic, designer, Steel-of-the-month that has been poorly handled.

Educate yourself on the treatment of the steel and you'll never go wrong.
 
I generally try to stick with steels that have worked well for me in the past. I like sandvik steels, for example, so if a company releases a blade with a sandvik steel, I take that as a sign that that blade steel will be acceptable to me. On the flip side, I really dislike 8cr13mov, so I stay away from knives that use the chinese 'alphabet soup' steels. I don't really know much about the composition of the steel itself or even the heat treat, etc. For the steels I'm familiar with, all I really care to know about them is how they perform in use / maintenance.

If it's a steel I haven't tried before, I log onto this nifty website called 'bladeforums' and take a look at what its users have to say about the steel, and go by their recommendations. :D
 
SpartanSaint said:
i'm still curious as to what makes crk knives so legendary, but since i can't find any scientific data that quenches my thirst for knowledge as to the wondrous quality, i guess i'll find out when i own one :D
Click to expand...

"scientific data.... quality" ??? I thought that would have been covered under engineering quality control at CRK, which is to incredibly precise tolerances. As to everything else - whether or not a knife does it for you is almost entirely subjective - the only way to know is to use one - for me I give the Sebenza :thumbup:
 
Yeah that sticky is actually kind of what I was referring too. It's incredibly detailed.
WAY over my head to be honest. I mean I get it, but to someone like me it would
take several readings to fully comprehend the complexity of it all. So I guess I just
look around and see what people are raving about.

It's true though, if you know a company to be a solid one you kind of just trust the
steel they put on their knives to begin with. Kershaw uses some steels that are less
common, but I really like their knives and they are a great company. If they had a
knife and I like it and they said the steel was made of pure awesomeness I'd probably
just buy it.
 
I have a bit different take on it.

I am fascinated by steel chemical composition and variations thereof.

I want to try them all. I often buy a knife because I've not had one in that alloy before or because I've not tried that alloy at that hardness.
 
antonio_luiz said:
"scientific data.... quality" ??? I thought that would have been covered under engineering quality control at CRK, which is to incredibly precise tolerances. As to everything else - whether or not a knife does it for you is almost entirely subjective - the only way to know is to use one - for me I give the Sebenza :thumbup:
Click to expand...

yeah, but my thing is, what about ridiculously precise tolerances makes it that legendary? like i said, from data alone it doesn't make sense, so i guess i'll find out when i own one :D
 
I love learning as much as possible about each steel that I'm interested in and what makes it perform the way it does. Since I started buying knives I have always put emphasis on the blade composition/hardness. True sometimes I don't necessarily need the highest wear resistance/highest hardness/best possible geometry/Above average heat treat but I get a kick out of using them and comparing them to other knives that I also use. I have a few multitples of certain models with differing blade steels and its awesome to be able to test two different steels with the exact same blade geometry so you can actually gather something from your testing.

All in all yes I do love finding as much information as possible on blade steels and optimized geometries.
 
For the most part, as long as it's from a reputable company, I'm not too worried about it. However, if I'm looking for something specific, like something that I don't want to worry about corrosion for example, then I may look into it somewhat. I'll be primarily concerned with it having a reasonable amount of corrosion resistance, edge retention and that it won't be too difficult to sharpen. It's good to know that I probably shouldn't choose something like SR101 or bead blasted AUS8 if I was planning on using a knife mainly for fishing. But for overall EDC, any commonly used steels should be fine along with new steels from reputable makers/companies.
 
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