INFI blades!

[Jaxx]

Question, when they say "proprietary" what does that really mean? I find it hard to believe a steel company manufactures a steel just for Busse.

And you would be correct.

bearcut,

Are you sure about that? What I mean is, if you are so quick to make what I believe to be a false statement then you must know something more than me, so can you back your words up with something more substantial? Perhaps you have some proof or documentation, or source of information on which to base your your claim that no steel company manufactures a specific steel just for Busse??

Come on...Prove me wrong. I'm all ears.

 

[The Mastiff]

Dunno about other steels, but looking at INFI vs. A8 steels compositions, don't look very much alike.

I agree with you on that Gator. A8 ( mod) is a different steel.

C .50
CR 8
mn .45
Si .95
mo 1.30
V .45

Which is closer to what I'd guess is used as a starting point for infi. Infi has added nitrogen, for one thing.

Gator, when you did your research you never found a steel in any foundry called infi did you. Most others have analogs that the industries standardize on. Do you really think Busse had the funding and resources to invent a new class of steel just for knives?

My guess is he took an existing steel and modified it to fit his needs. The closest fit is A8 Mod. Easy to do when you order an entire heat.

We all recall when a well known maker stated on another forum that he was aware that infi was A8 modified, and stated a rep from a company that Busse Sourced it from told him. Jerry got online and denied it, and asked the knifemaker for a PM to talk. I agree, It's not A8 mod, as the listings don't show it having nitrogen. Other than that it's real close. Put A8 (Mod) in your system and you will see closer, but obviously not exact similarities.

I do believe that Busse just has the steel tuned to his specs. It's nice stuff too. I just sort of react to the chanting mantras about 40 hour heat treats like it's something mysterious or unusual, and the use of made up names the same way I did when Lynn Thompson called a perfectly good steel Carbon V just as a marketing tool. The knives are great, just overpriced IMO.

 

[Leeble611]

there are no others

 

[WalterDavis]

It's not that hard to believe that Jerry Busse has his steel made specially for him. Aldo Bruno here on BF has a special melt of 1084 made yearly especially for knifemakers, and Crucible (just prior to their bankruptcy) came out with Cru-Forge V especially for knifemakers. I'm sure Jerry could run through a minimum order of steel pretty quickly

 

[hardheart]

Busse is the only one that uses INFI and it's Patented.

However there was a short run of Bussekin blades.

what's the patent number?

 

[Gator97]

Perhaps you have some proof or documentation

No, he doesn't, what he does is very strong aversion for Busse Combat as a company and as usual he won't miss a chance to post negative about them...
So, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for his facts. If he had any, we'd already have few pages long post "exposing lies" from BCK.

I agree with you on that Gator. A8 ( mod) is a different steel.

Ah, I C. Cool, I'll add A8 mod and A7 mod to the steel database, except those 2 are going to the new database, which will be online this month I hope. Well, if I am not too lazy I'll add them to the current one too. Thanks for the tip

Gator, when you did your research you never found a steel in any foundry called infi did you.

No, no maker, dealer, catalog etc, and I went through over 100 of those, registered with a dozen sites, etc... Nothing.

Do you really think Busse had the funding and resources to invent a new class of steel just for knives?

What I also found in my research was that steel makers that make most of the "good" steels we see in better knives are not in world top 10 or even world top 30 steelmakers. The only name I readily recognize there is Thyssen-Krupp and even though they produce multitude of HSS tool steels which would work well in knives mostly 4116 or couple other crappier steels are used in knifemaking from them. Ok, I do recognize a few Russian steelmakers in there, but that's not because of knifemaking but various scandals associated with them.
My point is, a lot of steel making companies are not nearly as big as one might think and given that we live in Capitalist society it is absolutely conceivable to imagine one of them making steel by custom formula. And it's not gonna cost astronomical prices, well unless you want unobtanium mixed in your steel I guess.

My guess is he took an existing steel and modified it to fit his needs. The closest fit is A8 Mod.

Works for me. One way or the other Jerry had to use existing knowledge in some form right? It's not like he could come up with unknown alloy from unknown elements. No such thing these days.

The knives are great, just overpriced IMO.

This one is purely supply and demand thing. Jerry sells them quite a bit cheaper compared to what the resell prices are. So, if he is successful, it's good. It's not like he has monopoly on knives, there is plenty of competition, independent users can test/abuse his product and post results freely here, Bearcut can post his rants w/o any effort at all

 

[Ankerson]

bearcut,

Are you sure about that? What I mean is, if you are so quick to make what I believe to be a false statement then you must know something more than me, so can you back your words up with something more substantial? Perhaps you have some proof or documentation, or source of information on which to base your your claim that no steel company manufactures a specific steel just for Busse??

Come on...Prove me wrong. I'm all ears.

I wouldn't hold you breath waiting for an answer.

All he does is bash Busse every chance he gets.

what's the patent number?

Couldn't find it, I could have been wrong, it's happened before, not that often, but it has happened.

 

[Jaxx]

what's the patent number?

I'm not entirely sure there's a patent. But, I could be very wrong on this... If there was, the steel & heat treat protocol would then be public record, yes? The steel's composition is well known, but the heat treat process is not.

From the Busse website:

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

I wouldn't hold you breath waiting for an answer.

All he does is bash Busse every chance he gets.

Yep, I'm not holding my breath for anything more substantial from him when it comes to Busse...

 

[Ankerson]

I'm not entirely sure there's a patent, But I could be very wrong on this... If there was, the steel & heat treat protocol would then be public record, yes? The steel's composition is well known, but the heat treat process is not.

From the Busse website:

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



Yep, I'm not holding my breath for anything more substantial from him when it comes to Busse...

Yeah he is like a dog with a bone.

 

[The Mastiff]

Thanks for the info Gator.

Things get more complicated when you throw in names from the foundries that are slightly different versions of a known steel, but modified, and sold as "Viking" by a company. It's very difficult to keep track of this stuff, probably even by some guys in the business. That's why I would present a theory, but never stand up and say "I know what XYZ steel is for a fact".

Once Jerry owns the formulas rights he can source it from pretty much any foundry that has spare production capacity at that time. When you are buying a whole melt you can buy whatever steel you want and not have to buy out of company inventory, or from a middleman. What he has done is a really great way of doing it as I see it. There's also the idea that when you specialize in one thing, you tend to get good at it. You just need a large enough, and continuing market for that product. That Mr. Busse has accomplished that is not arguable. That speaks to the quality of the product obviously.

This one is purely supply and demand thing. Jerry sells them quite a bit cheaper compared to what the resell prices are. So, if he is successful, it's good. It's not like he has monopoly on knives, there is plenty of competition, independent users can test/abuse his product and post results freely here, Bearcut can post his rants w/o any effort at all

I completely agree and can't think of a better way of saying it.

BTW, when are you going to update your M2/S110V articles? I've been checking for them.

 

[Gator97]

Things get more complicated when you throw in names from the foundries that are slightly different versions of a known steel, but modified, and sold as "Viking" by a company. It's very difficult to keep track of this stuff, probably even by some guys in the business. That's why I would present a theory, but never stand up and say "I know what XYZ steel is for a fact".

Tell me about I have 355 steel compositions with ~1000 names for them. There's a lot of proprietary steels amongst those 355 records, and the rest is bunch of names for the common steels. M2, T1, M4, even 1095 and few others have over a dozen names each! Some are standard names, others are maker's proprietary names. I've still struggling on the new charts interface to present all that info somehow...

BTW, when are you going to update your M2/S110V articles? I've been checking for them.

Yeah, I have tons of notes accumulated which need to be sorted out and put together to publish, especially M2 stuff. But for now I just want to get over this steel charts ver. 2.0. Too much time (and some money) invested to give it up

 

[Guyon]

I would not find it hard to believe at all that Jerry has batches of steel made up for Busse Combat. Carbon V, which has been mentioned in this thread, was a steel made for Cold Steel and heat treated by Camillus after all. And there too, the heat treatment was an important part of the process. Who better to speak on this than Phil Gibbs, the very man who named 0170-6C, the Camillus version of Carbon V (same steel, all of it made for Cold Steel and Camillus).

Carbon V definately came first. It was the brainchild of the Metal God, Dan Maragni, & was, in my opinion, what put Cold Steel on the map all those years ago.

When Cold Steel came to Camillus to make their carbon steel knives, they did not want to pay for the vast amount of steel that had to be purchased in order to have a custom steel made to their specifications.
Consequently Cold Steel agreed that Camillus could also use the steel (& pay them a royalty, I believe) but could not call it Carbon V.

I came up with the name 0170-6C, based on an almost close (but NOT) steel produced by Sharron Steel called 0170-6.

All this is historical trivia.

The real issue for those who understand is Heat Treatment!

The reason that the Camillus Beckers perform so well is that Dan Maragni set up a system of heat treatment at Camillus for the Cold Steel knives, & oversaw almost every batch of knives produced. What we learnt about heat treating Cold Steel seeped over to the Becker knives.
All that is now lost forever!

In my humble opinion, the values of the Camillus Beckers may not rise significantly in the collector market, but for those interested in a high performance user, get them while you can. Without Maragni's methods, I don't care what a future maker of Beckers uses, they will just be well designed carbon steel knives covered in powder coat!

I dearly hope I am wrong & the new maker will consider trying to improve their methods. Time will tell..............

Jerry, in some old threads here at BFC, has posted some information about the Busse proprietary heat treatment. All I know is that it involves cryogenics and nitrogen in some fashion.

Busse has been doing cryo since the early 1980's. Back then it was a very primitive process involving an old cooler, dry ice and about a gallon of acetone. Process: pack the blades in dry ice, pour the acetone over the ice to speed the evaporation process, and hit somewhere around the -190 degree mark. Do a normalizing temper (approx. 350 - 450) and voila! Prehistoric Cryo!

In the late eighties we began the employment of a deep cryo treatment (-300/320 degrees) which was done in a dry, controlled, atmosphere. This process allows us to take our blades down to temp. over the course of 10 hours hold them at temp. (-300 degrees) for approx 50 hours, and then bring them back up to room temp. over the course of the next 10 hours at which point they receive 3 more, individualized, oven tempers. This is the same process that we employ to this day.

Some makers are out there just plunging their blades into liquid nitrogen which can shock the steel so dramatically that microscopic cracks and fissures can form that could cause massive blade failure in the field under heavy and/or light use. That is why it is crucial that the blades be cooled slowly and brought back to room temperature slowly and then normalized with a few oven tempers for stress relief.

Of course there are also some makers that I know of who claim to employ cryogenics because they stick their knives in the freezer over night. Scary! Alway ask the maker to give as much detail of his cryo process as possible.

Knowledge is power! Arm yourself!

Yours in Nuclear Cryogenics,

Jerry Busse

 

[Ankerson]

I would not find it hard to believe at all that Jerry has batches of steel made up for Busse Combat. Carbon V, which has been mentioned in this thread, was a steel made for Cold Steel by Camillus after all. And there too, the heat treatment was an important part of the process. Who better to speak on this than Phil Gibbs, the very man who named Carbon V.




Jerry, in some old threads here at BFC, has posted some information about the Busse proprietary heat treatment. All I know is that it involves cryogenics and nitrogen in some fashion.

The same goes for Striders S30V heat treatment so yes it does happen.

And what about Bucks 420 heat treat?

 

[Lycosa]

Let's mention the HT of Phill Hartsfield and Pohan Leu. Both of these makers use excellent HT on the QT.

 

[Guyon]

Let's mention the HT of Phill Hartsfield and Pohan Leu. Both of these makers use excellent HT on the QT.

I would add Paul Bos to the list of heat treatment experts.

And I edited/revised my above post. Phil Gibbs did not name Carbon V, but rather 0170-6C, the version used in the Camillus Becker knives.

 

[elkins45]

I would not find it hard to believe at all that Jerry has batches of steel made up for Busse Combat. Carbon V, which has been mentioned in this thread, was a steel made for Cold Steel by Camillus after all.

SNIP

(same steel, all of it made at Camillus).

Do you mean made FOR Camillus? Surely they didn't make their own steel?

 

[steeljhp]

DC-53...............this looks like good stuff as well

 

[cybrok]

So Jerry wrote:

Of course there are also some makers that I know of who claim to employ cryogenics because they stick their knives in the freezer over night. Scary! Alway ask the maker to give as much detail of his cryo process as possible.

Interresting

I find it hard to believe a steel company manufactures a steel just for Busse.

Why?

I study Metallurgy, the alloy research group make small alloy batches, the cast iron group make small cast iron batches, the powder metallurgy group make their own prealloyed powders.

Nitrogen? Probably a nitridization.

I would really like to see a micrography of INFI, but for that I would need a broken Busse or to order one and destroy it. So there are very little chances.


As for the price? If Jerry has no difficulty to sell knives that expensive, why would he lower the price?

 

[atony]

I am curious about this whole INFI steel as well.* I think it is just a tweaked version of another grade, and some really good heat treat. I work at Steel Dynamics, Caster Operator. Owned by Keith Busse hmmmm interesting.

 

[flatgrinder]

Some more info:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=544907&page=3