if infi steel is really as good as people say, why no close copy?

[jbmonkey]

i have been reading posts galore about infi steel and i just don't get it? if it is so good why hasn't anyone backward engineered it? and copied a close version to it, meaning something legal like CTS20CP is a close copy of cpms90v. is infi patented? i mean we have big steel companies like carpenter, crucible and bohler and sandvik and such making all kinds of exotic steels for knives and yet only busse, which is a very small operation..and never seems to have any knives for sale on it's sites pretty much ever, only uses it? he doesn't license out it's use to anyone else.....makes me think the other knife making companies don't think its so good or any better than the wide range of exotics steels available to everyone.


doesn't anyone else think it's odd that on internet forums is graced as the best knife steel ever made, and yet it's hard to find a knife made of it, and the big steel companies could make something very close to it, but no one does? that and busse doesn't seem to make many out of it, and doesn't lease it's use to anyone else to make himself ultra rich.....and with all the chatter on the internet about how great it is, you'd think one of the bigger knife companies like benchmade or syderco, or someone would team up with busse and make him some real money for that steel if it was really all it's said to be. i just don't get it. on the surface it appears to be more marketing than actual.

please don't post the videos and pictures.... i've seen them, but i've also seen the same performance with 1095 knives of the same thickness.

i'm not calling b.s., cause i just don't know enough, but all the pieces don't seem to add up...anyone else feel this way?

 

[RevDevil]

http://www.bussecompanystore.com/infi.htm

INFI is a proprietary steel and heat-treat protocol developed by Busse Combat Knife Co. It is ONLY available through Busse Combat.

Not sure what you're after here, but that's all I can provide at the moment.

 

[Ankerson]

INFI is Patented so it can't be copied and nobody really knows for 100% sure what it really is, some say it's an A8 mod, but nobody is really sure.

CPM 3V is the closest thing you will find to it that is in use.

The knives aren't that expensive if you get them from Busse when they are making them or buy them at one of the Big Shows.

 

[Reeper22]

A lot of the magic is in their heat treat which is not public knowledge.

 

[NothingCoherent]

I have a feeling that hype plays a big part on posts seen online.

Not trying to discredit Busse or INFI... I'm just sayin'. They're pretty rare knives, and more difficult to purchase than a basic production knife, and of course the blades are high end -- so people are obviously going to be excited when they talk about their awesome new knife. This shows through in their posts. Excitement. Hype.

Whether or not the steel actually is as amazing as it's made out to be? Well, that's up to the user! Most guys seem to like it.

But in the end, steel is still steel. It's my opinion that there just ain't a huge margin of difference amongst the current high end super steels. I have blades in CPM 3V, which is supposed to be some of the best steel on the market right now, and in practice I can't tell much difference between it and something like 1095. If my knife takes a good edge and performs when I want it to, that's enough. The blade shape and grind geometry is infinitely more important than a few marginal differences in steel strength and structure.

 

[The Mastiff]

Infi isn't really any great steel mystery in the knife industry. Carbon V wasn't either. In case you do want to try A8 (mod) chipper steel it's made by latrobe Spec. Steels. One of those locations Latrobe has a facility is Wauseon, OH. I've heard Latrobe is difficult to work with if you are a knife maker or company not buying huge amounts but a guy came here and stated that Jerry had a relative that worked there, or something similar.

Start with A8 ( mod) , get a good heat treat with Cryo, and triple tempers and you're gonna be there pretty much. Busse fans go on about special 40 hour treatments but if you look around and count cooling, cryo times etc., 40 hours is not any big deal, to be honest.

Infi is a marketing concept just as Carbon V was. Does it make good knives? Sure, but so do lots of other steels done right.

I don't even buy into the whole "infi" thing but even I have a knife or two made by them . They are good knives if you get them sharpened and buy a sheath for them. Not many of them make very good slicers though, which I prefer.

 

[jbmonkey]

ok, so it's patented...that answers a good chunk of my questions. thank you.

i guess what i am after is trying to cut through the devoted fan praise, myths if there are any....cause i just do not know...this is the internet after all, and get to the sheer facts of how this steel compares to the other stuff out there. that and why it's so secretive or better said unable to be copied even somewhat? maybe i just don't get the steel industry and what can be done and what can't? i was running under the impression the big steel guys could backward engineer anything out there. make their own version...thinking of the ats-34 vs. 154cm, stuff like that. i mean some steel company is making the stock for busse right? so they have the recipe to start with, not the heat treat and processing or whatnot, but the composition.

anyways, there seems to be no negative comments out there on infi steel....and so it makes me think it is indeed that good, but then i step back and wonder why hasn't any other steel maker come up with their own legal copy of it...something like that carpenter cts20sp deal that is about an exact "replacement"(for a lack of a better term) for cpm s90v.

the other part of my question is i am perplexed why mr. busse doesn't license it out to other brands, at some point a patent runs out doesn't it and then it's open access to anyone, right? or am i way backwards on that as well?

i'm not here to slam brands or such, rather just trying to get a better grasp on the whole picture...and i apologize in advance if my wording comes off as attacks...i've never been a very good typer and putting my thoughts into sentences. also thanks to everyone for the feedback already, without your feedback/insight i wouldn't learn more than i know already, so thank you. greatly appreciated.

 

[American Puukko]

There's also the issue of reasonable return on investment. How many INFI blades do you think Busse turns out in a year? I'd be willing to bet that the number is small enough that it wouldn't attract the attention of a concern large enough to easily pay for the metallurgy required to skirt the patent. It's really only been small manufacturers of high end blades and innovative mass marketers like Spyderco that even bother to use more common "super steels."

If there's no profit in ripping off Busse, no one is going to "rise" to that "challenge."

 

[Ankerson]

There's also the issue of reasonable return on investment. How many INFI blades do you think Busse turns out in a year? I'd be willing to bet that the number is small enough that it wouldn't attract the attention of a concern large enough to easily pay for the metallurgy required to skirt the patent. It's really only been small manufacturers of high end blades and innovative mass marketers like Spyderco that even bother to use more common "super steels."

If there's no profit in ripping off Busse, no one is going to "rise" to that "challenge."

Fehrman has an excellent reputation and they use 3V so there is another choice.

 

[Kentucky]

Infi isn't really any great steel mystery in the knife industry. Carbon V wasn't either. In case you do want to try A8 (mod) chipper steel it's made by latrobe Spec. Steels. One of those locations Latrobe has a facility is Wauseon, OH. I've heard Latrobe is difficult to work with if you are a knife maker or company not buying huge amounts but a guy came here and stated that Jerry had a relative that worked there, or something similar.

Start with A8 ( mod) , get a good heat treat with Cryo, and triple tempers and you're gonna be there pretty much. Busse fans go on about special 40 hour treatments but if you look around and count cooling, cryo times etc., 40 hours is not any big deal, to be honest.

Infi is a marketing concept just as Carbon V was. Does it make good knives? Sure, but so do lots of other steels done right.

I don't even buy into the whole "infi" thing but even I have a knife or two made by them . They are good knives if you get them sharpened and buy a sheath for them. Not many of them make very good slicers though, which I prefer.

Cant really comment on INFI but your right. 40 hour heat treat isnt uncommon at all. In fact plenty of makers take 72 hours to heat treat 52100. Just a "plain" normal heat treat for something like 1095 can take a long dang time with three normalization cycles, hardening and three temper cycles.

 

[American Puukko]

Fehman has an excellent reputation and they use 3V so there is another choice.

My point was low volume manufacture=low incentive to go through the expense and hassle of reverse engineering INFI and modifying it a bit to skirt the patent, not that there were no decent alternatives to Busse's wares.

 

[The Mastiff]

If there's no profit in ripping off Busse, no one is going to "rise" to that "challenge."

Would anybody in the knife industry have bothered making knives and calling them "carbon V"? Why, when you could go to camillus, get the same steels and same heat treat and make different looking knives. Others did that with "carbon V".

 

[Ankerson]

My point was low volume manufacture=low incentive to go through the expense and hassle of reverse engineering INFI and modifying it a bit to skirt the patent, not that there were no decent alternatives to Busse's wares.

Well someone could as was already posted get some A8 Modified and make blades out of that and given proper HT and tempering they would be very close to INFI in performance I believe.

Depends on the type of knives they wanted to make, choppers etc I guess, there are better steels to make the smaller thinner slicers out of in Stainless and non stainless.

 

[Poez]

The magic is in marketing. So that gets copied close enough all right! Quite a few manufacturers do the same thing.
The material itself does not mean much. Everybody can do it. At least too many. What is in the head of the consumer - that is the thing that counts.

 

[macwv]

I've owned a bunch of Busse knives and I still own several, and in my opinion INFI is a great steel for big, thick knives designed for chopping. In smaller blades I haven't seen any advantages that it has over 4 or 5 other "super steels".

Big, thick chopping knives just happen to be what Busse is known for and what they seem to do best so INFI is perfect for their uses. It is fairly stain resistant, holds a good edge through a lot of chopping, and it is very resistant to chipping which in my opinion is the most important trait for a steel that will be used in this role.

I can't really think of any other company that hangs their hat on making big, thick knives like Busse does. If there was another company that wanted to go down that path then it might be worth it for them to try and copy INFI. Most of the big name companies are primarily folding knife manufacturers, I know that Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw, etc all make a few fixed blades but folders are what yu think of when you think of those brands. To me INFI just doesn't offer any advantages in that realm that would be worth the cost of producing it in a folder.

I hope I've made sense with all this and remember that this is all ust my opinion as a user of these knives.

 

[chiral.grolim]

ok, so it's patented...that answers a good chunk of my questions. thank you.
.... why it's so secretive or better said unable to be copied even somewhat? maybe i just don't get the steel industry and what can be done and what can't? i was running under the impression the big steel guys could backward engineer anything out there. make their own version...thinking of the ats-34 vs. 154cm, stuff like that. i mean some steel company is making the stock for busse right? so they have the recipe to start with, not the heat treat and processing or whatnot, but the composition.

...why hasn't any other steel maker come up with their own legal copy of it...

the other part of my question is i am perplexed why mr. busse doesn't license it out to other brands, at some point a patent runs out doesn't it and then it's open access to anyone, right? or am i way backwards on that as well?

I'm no metallurgist, but mass spectroscopy could give you the general composition of the steel (hence A8 mod. steel). But that does not tell you how to combine the elements properly, nor how to heat treat them for knife making.

From what I know (which is very little and only from reading online), Jerry Busse spent a great deal of time and effort researching many steel types/compositions and also heat-treatment protocols in his search for what is now INFI. INFI is his creation, both in composition and in treatment. How many knife companies create their own steel that way, before turning it into a trademark knife design? Busse knives also use D2, 154CM, 52100, and S7, but none of those did Jerry create.

Jerry does not make the steel himself but, again from what I've heard, contracts out locally (Wauseon), and both the making and the HT of the steel is very difficult.
I remember reading that he did allow some other knife makers to use INFI (make their own or heat-treat their own) and that some of the results (quality of performance) were less than acceptable to Jerry, so he doesn't do it often. Imagine what would happen to INFI's reputation as a knife-steel if other manufacturers started producing less-than-optimal batches. Jerry seems hesistant to allow anyone to so tarnish his creation.

I may be wrong on much of this, perhaps the man himself will chime in, or you could search old threads for remarks he's made in the past. As to the patent on the steel, the name INFI is trademarked forever, so no other manufacturer could create a duplicate and call it INFI without Jerry's permission, and the heat-treatment (perhaps the ultimate key to INFI's performance) is his trade-secret, so no need to renew a patent on that.

As to INFI copies, there are such a variety of steels out there, stainless and non-stainless, it's up to the users themselves to judge comparative performance levels in various applications. For the majority of users, steels more readily available for less $$ will suffice, and they can choose from among those.

Finally, it'd be nice if people were more discriminating in their use of the term "hype". Hype as it is commonly used is a slang shortening of the English word hyperbole which, by definition, involves exaggeration, i.e. the use unfounded statements of greatness as emphasis.
Much of the "hype" surrounding INFI is founded on actual user experience and live demonstrations by Busse Knives... sooo not "hype" at all.
Saying that an INFI blade can cut apart an alien spacecraft is hyperbole (as far as I know, no one has even attempted this due to the low availability of such craft for demolition). Saying that INFI can chop through blocks of concrete without serious edge damage - that is not hyperbole. A lot of it has to do with edge geometry... but it's not hyperbole

 

[chiral.grolim]

I've owned a bunch of Busse knives and I still own several, and in my opinion INFI is a great steel for big, thick knives designed for chopping. In smaller blades I haven't seen any advantages that it has over 4 or 5 other "super steels".

Big, thick chopping knives just happen to be what Busse is known for and what they seem to do best so INFI is perfect for their uses. It is fairly stain resistant, holds a good edge through a lot of chopping, and it is very resistant to chipping which in my opinion is the most important trait for a steel that will be used in this role.

I can't really think of any other company that hangs their hat on making big, thick knives like Busse does. If there was another company that wanted to go down that path then it might be worth it for them to try and copy INFI. Most of the big name companies are primarily folding knife manufacturers, I know that Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw, etc all make a few fixed blades but folders are what yu think of when you think of those brands. To me INFI just doesn't offer any advantages in that realm that would be worth the cost of producing it in a folder.

I hope I've made sense with all this and remember that this is all ust my opinion as a user of these knives.

:thumbup: This was my thought, though I own no INFI blades as yet (I don't usually need that kind of performance)

 

[Joshua J.]

The composition of INFI is well known. If someone wanted to use the same composition it wouldn't be that hard. Composition isn't everything though. For example, CPM S90V in cast form would behave more like a cast iron fry pan, and be worthless in knives. Jerry has said that there is some trickery in the manufacturing method.
Regardless of that, the Busse knife family gets similar performance out of other blade steels as well. INFI does perform better than other similar steel types, but only marginally. The best "secret" behind INFI is incredibly thorough quality control. I would wager that Busse is better at checking their steel for faults and heat treat than anyone else in the business.

 

[Brules1]

I have a feeling that hype plays a big part on posts seen online.

Not trying to discredit Busse or INFI... I'm just sayin'. They're pretty rare knives, and more difficult to purchase than a basic production knife, and of course the blades are high end -- so people are obviously going to be excited when they talk about their awesome new knife. This shows through in their posts. Excitement. Hype.

Whether or not the steel actually is as amazing as it's made out to be? Well, that's up to the user! Most guys seem to like it.

But in the end, steel is still steel. It's my opinion that there just ain't a huge margin of difference amongst the current high end super steels. I have blades in CPM 3V, which is supposed to be some of the best steel on the market right now, and in practice I can't tell much difference between it and something like 1095. If my knife takes a good edge and performs when I want it to, that's enough. The blade shape and grind geometry is infinitely more important than a few marginal differences in steel strength and structure.

Well said...I've owned a few Busse & don't believe the hype of Infi. It makes no sense for a steel manufacturer to produce a special steel in small volumes.
Lot's of marketing (hype) is going on.

 

[The Mastiff]

I've seen different compositions listed for Infi. He could use D2 and call it "infi" if he wanted. There is no steel in any companies catalog called "infi". It doesn't exist.

Cold steel went through at least two (?) other manufacturers and steels before they went to camillus and ended up with the steel we are used to as carbon V until Camillus closed it's doors. Nevertheless, they are all "carbon V" knives.

If Busse buys a whole heat of steel having it slightly customized isn't going to be difficult. That would likely be about the extent of invention here.