I think we put WAY too much emphasis on alloys...

[elkins45]

Isn't it 1095 Cro-Van (chrome vanadium)?

I wasn't aware that 1095 had any alloys in it other then Carbon and traces of others. I thought that the 10XX series are all considered "simple" carbon steels.

My understanding is that Case's Chrome Vanadium steel is essentially a base of 1095 alloyed with a little chromium and vanadium. Sort of a 'deluxe' 1095.

Queen does use a lot of D2 but they also do contract or SFO work and use a lot of 1095. The 2010 Traditional Forum knife is a Queen moose with 1095 blades.

1095 at Rc 66? That sounds like fun to sharpen.

I have a homemade knife that is made from 1095 at somewhere around RC 65. I brought it to temp, quenched it, then tempered it at 325 just like this chart recommends

I sharpen it on a belt sander--and I NEVER pry with it. I can tell you that it is unfazed by a plastic cutting board unless you have been butchering for hours. It is truly ugly, but I am immensely proud of it. It was the first knife I ever did completely from scratch.

 

[THG]

It's not that obvious most of the time unless one is 440A and the other is VG-10 cutting cardboard.

There are way too many variables for the ave Joe to really tell the difference.

For what most people really use their knives for they wouldn't know the difference between AUS-8 and CPM-154 unless they were told before hand.

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

I guarantee that in the end, the results will be scattered, meaning that no one can really tell the differences among all of these steels in real life situations.

 

[Ankerson]

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

I guarantee that in the end, the results will be scattered, meaning that no one can really tell the differences among all of these steels in real life situations.

Yep, you got that right as it would be a real eye opener. :thumbup:

 

[Ankerson]

Doing some stuff like this, but even then one would have to cut a lot of cardboard to really tell.

This is a Busse SAR-3 SE, INFI Steel @ 58-60 Hardness.

Yes I know it's a fixed blade, but it's an EDC type blade with a 3 1/8" blade .162" thick and flat ground.

[youtube]<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-15FpJmaNo0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-15FpJmaNo0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>[/youtube]

 

[Bill1170]

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

I guarantee that in the end, the results will be scattered, meaning that no one can really tell the differences among all of these steels in real life situations.

A blind test to eliminate confirmation bias. I like it! Sort of like the Mule Team project, but without prior disclosure of the alloys used.

 

[thejamppa]

Elkins45: That is remarkable knife... Beauty is in eye of beholder. I always prefer function over form. That looks no BS working knife. Congrats

 

[J.Mattson]

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

I guarantee that in the end, the results will be scattered, meaning that no one can really tell the differences among all of these steels in real life situations.

Welcome to the spyderco mule…

 

[THG]

Welcome to the spyderco mule…

Alright, let's gather together one of each of the Mules, grind the steel marking off of each one, and randomly assign specimen numbers. Then carry out the test and we'll put this dispute to rest forever

 

[samhain73]

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

I guarantee that in the end, the results will be scattered, meaning that no one can really tell the differences among all of these steels in real life situations.

Cliff Stamp started this very project before he was banned.

 

[Fred Sanford]

michaelmcgo,

Good post. I do take everything with a grain of salt however. I do think that we all as knife and steel lovers take some things too seriously. I think that regular 1095 properly heat treated (like something from Rowan and ESEE Knives) will kick ass on a regular basis.

I think that there are companies out there that can heat treat 440C better than other companies can heat treat CPMS30V.

I do think that companies can make a good steel and have someone heat treat it like crap and then the steel gets a bad rap.

For the most part as long as I've stuck with a good knife company (Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw, ESEE, Case, Victorinox) I've never had a problem with the steel.

I will say however that when performing cutting tasks that I do notice that my Spyderco CPM-S30V and ZDP-189 hold edges longer than my VG-10 models do. On the same token, however my RAT Cutlery (ESEE) Izula made from 1095 will hold a shaving sharp edge just as long as my ZDP-189 Caly III. Rowen must heat treat like a mad man!

I think that most people don't have any idea how kick ass 1095 really is. I think it gets written off a lot because it's not stainless. If you don't have something in 1095 you should. Seriously.

 

[me2]

1095 at 65-66 HRc is a thing of beauty, in small fixed blades and folders. I've read the tests, made some myself, had former Marines "test" them and they always came through with flying colors.

While I agree in principle that too much emphasis is put on alloys, I still have issues with the original post. There are a few statements that could be misleading to beginners. One thing to keep in mind is that these "super leaps" in performance can mean just 5-10% increases from previous alloys. For industrial uses, that's huge. For most of us here, its barely noticable. Push the useful temperature of a jet turbine superalloy up just 1% and see if you can keep Boeing from camping on your lawn to figure out how you did it.

Remember that most of the alloys used for knives were originally developed for something else. Relatively thin cross sections with even thinner edges were not part of the design consideration.

New alloys are developed to give someone an advantage, that includes salesmen. If the heat treater could just increase the soak time and get the same performance as the CPM and other powder steels, I think one of the hundreds or maybe thousands of professional heat treaters in this country alone would have figured it out by now. Its a little more complicated than that. Going from water to oil to air hardening steels can save makers a lot of frustration, wasted steel, grinding time, cost for quenchants, etc. In the mean time, you will generally get better performing blades. Each maker must weigh the expense of one method vs. another and decide which is best. Makers make knives the way they do for a reason. I use prehardened M2 because I have only dry grinding equipment and don't have to worry about overheating it when grinding. I use 1095 and O1 because I can harden them with a torch and get a useful blade, though not optimal in either case.

 

[Ankerson]

I have a few cutting test videos uploading that may surprise a lot of people here that think they know what they are talking about when it comes to edge retention and certain steels.

There are a lot of myths that have been taken as facts here that have been started by some steel snobs that just aren't true.....

 

[A_Blade_Afficionado]

I call BS. The blind test would still be a crapshoot because the sharpenings and edge geometries would have to be identical or the test would be invalid. When you're testing for a difference between two steels a 10% difference could easily occur just because of sharpening since no human or steel sharpens the same every time so different levels of sharpness would occur and skew the results. Plus sharpness is subjective when measured by humans so that also renders the test invalid.
I find it hard to believe that a few community college classes contain enough information to discredit metallurgist and the super steel craze as empty hype.
YMMV but I don't believe it.

 

[Ankerson]

I call BS. The blind test would still be a crapshoot because the sharpenings and edge geometries would have to be identical or the test would be invalid. When you're testing for a difference between two steels a 10% difference could easily occur just because of sharpening since no human or steel sharpens the same every time so different levels of sharpness would occur and skew the results. Plus sharpness is subjective when measured by humans so that also renders the test invalid.
I find it hard to believe that a few community college classes contain enough information to discredit metallurgist and the super steel craze as empty hype.
YMMV but I don't believe it.

But you see they all would be exactly the same.

Exactly the same blades in every way except for the steels used.......

Now there are differences in the Steels etc, but under normal use most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them if they didn't know what they were before hand.

MOST people don't really do a lot of cutting, that is enough to tell the differences.

 

[Gator97]

I am finding out that a lot of what knife/steel companies tell us is total bullcrap.

Same applies to telling us that 30-50 year old alloys are premium steels today.

As far as most of the industry is concerned, 99% of alloys are added to steel for two things: corrosion resistance or depth of hardness.

Agreed, but rockwell Hardness its't an abstract number, it does influence steel and edge properties. And in many knives I sure can and do benefit from high hardness.

Therefore, with properly heat treated and tempered plain old 1095 steel you have a strong hard edge.

That is way too generic statement. What is properly HT and strong edge in this context? 1095 or similar steel in the kitchen for vegetables has very different requirements from 12" chopper. I've seen the same steel used in very different knives. Besides, how does 1095 having "strong" edge influences ZDP-189 or any other steel form having even a "stronger" edge?

For the most part, it's good old carbon and heat treat that does almost EVERYTHING for the edge, good or bad.

Is that a reason not to look for improvement or new steels offer no carbon in them? I was under impression that carbide type and distribution was important. While distribution is dependent on HT, carbide types are purely chemical composition. No HT will create Chromium, Vanadium or Niobium carbides in the alloy if they weren't in there to begin with.

Steel companies put out a lot of literature that makes it seem like the newest steels are vastly better, but for the most part I think it's in our heads.

Partly, another part is if you sharpen all of your knives at the same 40+ deg. edge it's unlikely you will really see the benefits of the better steel. It's like buying a sports car, driving it at 40mph on a highway and complaining that it gave you no benefits over your old volkswagen bug

Think about it: 1095 is usually heat treated and tempered back to around 58-60 Rc. 1095 can be heat treated to 66 Rc and have awesome edge holding with the cost of increased brittleness. Now ZDP-189 is hardened to 65-66 Rc. It holds a great edge, but what do you know: IT'S BRITTLE!

So, do I read you right, you say ZDP-189 at 66HRC is more brittle than 1095 at 66HRC, or just as brittle? Or you mean in general "brittle" which is way too vague again.

2000-present: Now we are seeing super steals up to 66 Rc (ZDP-189, M2, etc.) but these knives are usually quite brittle and suffer from edge chipping whenever they encounter resistance.

I have to disagree with that statement, strongly. Without specifying what is that "resistance" you make is sound as if those steels behave like glass, which is not true. I've posted some of the results of metal cutting in another thread last weekend, and I didn't observe anything similar to what your statement implies. To the contrary, 64HRC edge took less damage w/o chipping on the same material compared to softer steel, it was also easier to restore using a strop.
If all goes as planned, I'll test ZDP-189 at 67 and 63-65HRC on the same medium and perhaps other steel(s), depends how much time I will have.

The last myth: powdered metals.

I am sure there is more than enough hype associated with CPM, PM and many other technologies, but I don't believe they're as pointless as you say. After all, micrographs and compositions are publicly available and on top of that, if they were no improvement, why would all sorts of companies would buy them, forget knife industry, we're not seeing that many pm steels anyway.

Don't expect a 55 Rc 420 blade to hold the edge of a 66 Rc ZDP-189 blade, but also don't expect to be able to bend the ZDP-189 blade and not end up with two knives.

Good point, although, I was never tempted to bend my kitchen knives, and therefore I see no reason why should I settle for 420 or 440C in there, when there are much better choices.

I'm not trying to ruffle feathers, merely pointing out a few observations.

Those observations would have a lot more weight if you had posted a few numbers, brittleness or toughness, wear resistance, etc those are measurable to some degree. Given your statements about field experience and testing, it is surprising you didn't provide anything concrete besides very vague statements.

Where did you see the micrographs? Were they put out by CM by any chance?

Are you implying that in all the time Crucible sells CPM steels, nobody could take micrographs of their steel to test the validity of their claims and you're the only one who found out it was all a lie?


P.S. I'm not sure I understand the general idea of your post though, my apologies tor that. Are you concerned that steel industry is not giving us significant improvements (to which I wholeheartedly agree) or you are just saying 1095, or insert "any old classic" is good look no further, then I strongly disagree.

 

[THG]

I call BS. The blind test would still be a crapshoot because the sharpenings and edge geometries would have to be identical or the test would be invalid.

Please read my above post:

Yep. You know what needs to be done? We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of.

 

[Gator97]

We need to get someone to make say 10 knives, all created exactly equal. The only variable will be the steel that the blade is made of. And then we do a pass around. No blade has any steel marking on it, just the numbers 1-10. Then each user is to use the knife and rate them in terms of their capability to hold an edge.

Couple things though, if it's a light cutter, or a kitchen knife, then grind them at 15 per side, or even better 10 per side. I guarantee you, the results will be a lot less scattered.
There is a reason Furi recommends sharpening their knives at 20 per side, claiming that is the best possible edge for a knife

 

[Ankerson]

Couple things though, if it's a light cutter, or a kitchen knife, then grind them at 15 per side, or even better 10 per side. I guarantee you, the results will be a lot less scattered.
There is a reason Furi recommends sharpening their knives at 20 per side, claiming that is the best possible edge for a knife

Furi wants a 30 degree back bevel with a 40 degree edge to be exact...

 

[Gator97]

Furi wants a 30 degree back bevel with a 40 degree edge to be exact...

That's not what I see here, on Furi's site, although they don't mention backbevel at all. Just precisely 20 per side with every swipe with their sharpener.

Anyhow, to me that's pure bull#$#, claiming that kitchen knives must be that way... May be with their knives, but not in general. Although, last time I had Furi knife in my possession for sharpening and testing, even at 40deg inclusive angle it couldn't keep up(edge holding) with Watanabe honyaki gyuto, which is closer to 8deg per side at max, probably even less.

 

[Ankerson]

That's not what I see here, on Furi's site, although they don't mention backbevel at all. Just precisely 20 per side with every swipe with their sharpener.

Anyhow, to me that's pure bull#$#, claiming that kitchen knives must be that way... May be with their knives, but not in general. Although, last time I had Furi knife in my possession for sharpening and testing, even at 40deg inclusive angle it couldn't keep up(edge holding) with Watanabe honyaki gyuto, which is closer to 8deg per side at max, probably even less.

That's what it says in my Literature I got when I bought my Furi Pros..

I really don't use them that much though, I mainly use my CS K4 and K5 with VG-1 steel and they are sweet.

But nothing is like using a real Japanese Kitchen knife from what I have experienced. :thumbup: