How to Pick the Best Steel for Every Knife

Larrin said:
New article on how to select steels based on the intended knife and various steel properties. And recommendations based on which steels have the best edge retention-toughness balance in different categories. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/05/20/how-to-pick-the-best-steel-for-every-knife/
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I thought you couldn’t exceed yourself, but you did and this is (for me) your best article!!! How much nicer the knifemaking world would be if every maker followed your advices so very well explained here!
 
Great article. I’m switching from heat treat is more important than steel comments to good heat treat of a good steel choice is most important. The toughness values are much wider than I thought when we started all the testing.

Great summary of the important choices knifemakers have to make in designing a high performance tool.
 
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Nice read. I’m curious about the throwing knife failures. I’m surprised anyone broke s7 or 8670!! I’ve been using 8670 with a spring tempered spine, and haven’t had any failures yet! Were yours through hardened?
 
Hence my preference for the term “idiot resistant” as opposed to “idiot proof.” People can break anything f of they try hard enough. :D
rodriguez7 said:
Nice read. I’m curious about the throwing knife failures. I’m surprised anyone broke s7 or 8670!! I’ve been using 8670 with a spring tempered spine, and haven’t had any failures yet! Were yours through hardened?
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jdm61 said:
Hence my preference for the term “idiot resistant” as opposed to “idiot proof.” People can break anything f of they try hard enough. :D
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Very true, but I’m one of those idiots who can usually break anything. But I’m a good test bed for my knives!
 
Awesome Larrin, thank you.
Do you have more data points for CPM-154 than are on the current chart?
I've been leaning that direction for my high-alloy stainless "standard".
 
daizee said:
Awesome Larrin, thank you.
Do you have more data points for CPM-154 than are on the current chart?
I've been leaning that direction for my high-alloy stainless "standard".
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Nope. Need to get some more to see the distribution across hardness.
 
For clarification, I didn’t do any cpm-154, but we have more data points coming for m390, 8670, M4, V4e/4v, as well as W2 and 15n20 which haven’t been tested yet. I normalized/cycled a bar of NJSB 1084 to redo the samples previously sent that were unhardened. Elmax has also been done. There should be good toughness/wear resistance balance data on the most common steels soon.

I’ve received a few PMs asking about when tempered martensite embrittlement kicks in on a few steels, so I’ll discuss this with Larrin, and come up with some samples that make sense.
 
Willie71 said:
For clarification, I didn’t do any cpm-154, but we have more data points coming for m390, 8670, M4, V4e/4v, as well as W2 and 15n20 which haven’t been tested yet. I normalized/cycled a bar of NJSB 1084 to redo the samples previously sent that were unhardened. Elmax has also been done. There should be good toughness/wear resistance balance data on the most common steels soon.

I’ve received a few PMs asking about when tempered martensite embrittlement kicks in on a few steels, so I’ll discuss this with Larrin, and come up with some samples that make sense.
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I’m curious to hear about the tempered embrittlement!
 
I took a few simple carbon or low alloy steels up to 450f or 500f for this reason.
 
Larrin Larrin , with the air hardening carbon steels, what temp range would be expect tempered martensite embrittlement to occur?
 
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