INFI steel - Does Busse own it?

V

Vorpal Blade

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May 26, 2005
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INFI is widely acknowledged as a superior performance steel for sporting/survival/utility knives. Why don't the well known production companies use it in their top knives?

Is Busse the only maker that can obtain INFI steel? If so; Why? If not, who else uses it? Maybe there is no mystery here but it sure baffles me.
 
AFAIK, it's Busse proprietary.

However there are other knife steel with nitrogen.
 
Vorpal Blade said:
Why don't the well known production companies use it in their top knives?

Is Busse the only maker that can obtain INFI steel? If so; Why? If not, who else uses it? Maybe there is no mystery here but it sure baffles me.
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1. Because they can't.

2. INFI is proprietary steel.....Jerry Busse formulated/invented it. If you don't allow the steel producer to make it for anyone else, and you don't release the formula to the public....no one else can use the steel.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
:thumbup: Thanks for the replies. I thought that INFI was the only steel with nitrogen in it.
Hey, Moon...but does it hold an edge?
 
It's not just the steel, it's also the heat treat.

Busse heat treats INFI for a much longer time in a controlled environment as compared to most production blade heat treats.

This is how he gets the most performance from his steel.
 
The composition of INFI steel is not a secret - I've posted it before.Yes there are always two parts to it - picking the steel , heat treating it .
 
I've often wondered why there aren't other steels attempting to approximate INFI. I wonder if it's just that expensive to make, or does not provide enough of an advantage in other commercial applications to warrant use. We've got ATS-34 & 154CM, SK5 & 1085, 13C26 & AEB-L, etc., there must be something out there similar. There was a thread about chipper steel, but the composition wasn't actually all that close.
 
Troop said:
:thumbup: Thanks for the replies. I thought that INFI was the only steel with nitrogen in it.
Hey, Moon...but does it hold an edge?
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I can't remember where I read this, but someone did a test comparing H1 and VG10. VG10 was significantly better in edge holding with a plain edge grind, but they were equal when the edge was serrated.

One think I can tell you, it gets crazy sharp.
 
mete said:
The composition of INFI steel is not a secret - I've posted it before.Yes there are always two parts to it - picking the steel , heat treating it .
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Can you please post it again? Or, provide a link to your post that has the composition? I tried last week to find it with the search function to no avail.
- Thanks
 
hardheart said:
I've often wondered why there aren't other steels attempting to approximate INFI.
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Yes. I've often wondered the same thing myself. Since INFI has such a high reputation for excellence, it seems surprising that it hasn't been imitated by now. Proper heat treatment should not be hard to work out.
 
You're lucky I found it quickly ! INFI -- C .50, Cr 8.5, V .36, Co .95, Ni .74, Mo 1.3, N .11
 
Vorpal Blade said:
Proper heat treatment should not be hard to work out.
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It can be. With heat-removal, there's a big difference between dunking a blade in dry ice and throwing in some kerosene and using a vacuum packed chamber to steadily lower and raise the temperature of the affected steel. Then there are various manners and speeds of heating and quenching the steels and different compositions of those quenchants. Heat treating is some complex stuff.

hardheart said:
I've often wondered why there aren't other steels attempting to approximate INFI. I wonder if it's just that expensive to make, or does not provide enough of an advantage in other commercial applications to warrant use. We've got ATS-34 & 154CM, SK5 & 1085, 13C26 & AEB-L, etc., there must be something out there similar. There was a thread about chipper steel, but the composition wasn't actually all that close.
Click to expand...

They were close in a superficial way, but it's the little things that mean so much. INFI is both the steel and the heat-treatment, so just an equivalently alloyed hunk of steel wouldn't be a defacto substitute.
 
thombrogan said:
It can be. With heat-removal, there's a big difference between dunking a blade in dry ice and throwing in some kerosene and using a vacuum packed chamber to steadily lower and raise the temperature of the affected steel. Then there are various manners and speeds of heating and quenching the steels and different compositions of those quenchants. Heat treating is some complex stuff.
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I probably should have explained myself. I agree that heat treating is far from simple. But I think, with the help of an experienced professional like Paul Bos it would not take a prohibitively long time to develop the ideal heat treatment for a given steel.
 
Gotcha. Sorry.

Get some L6 or 5160 (or 4350-mod or S5 or, or, or, or) and some molten salt pots and you'll be able to have steels tougher than sin.
 
I think that there are many makers out there who have the resources needed to produce a steel that may be on par with INFI, but they do not have the desire to spend the time heat treating their knives that it would take. This is what separates Busse from the rest, Jerry is willing to do whatever it takes to produce a knife that is better than it has to be. From what I recall reading about the process behind INFI, and the other Busse family steels, the time spent on heat treating is something like ten times what it takes to produce a run of the mill steel. That is an extremely large expense that other makers are just not willing to incur.
 
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