Is it really the steel it's claimed to be?

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luethge said:
Unsolicited opinion. AEB-L is one of the best steels in any price range.. and it happens to be affordable too. You’ve got a lot of makers to choose from using it as well. If I was in the market for a stainless knife and didn’t want to spend too much - AEB-L, 14c28n or Nitro V would be my preference over the competition.
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I can think of a number of makers, myself included that would make knives with AEB-L (and her sisters) Regardless of its cost.......it's That Good!
 
waughstreet said:
Hi. My budget is what it would be for any good tool. My main usage is minor utility. And I depend on a knife for a quick fix that without the knife in hand would take longer/be more difficult. But my question is not about budget or use or need: it was, how do you, if you're buying a knife based on the steel, satisfy yourself that you got the steel you paid for?
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I sharpen them. I’m almost never happy with a factory edge so I tend to sharpen brand new knives. The stones feel different on different steels. I may not be able to tell the difference between s30v and s45vn (definitely not), but I’ll certainly notice if 8cr has been swapped in for what was advertised to be m390.

That said, I don’t buy knives from companies I have any reason to doubt. I’m not ever expecting to find something other than what was sold to me.
 
I want to speak about how I'd just know that the steels were what they claimed, because I had such extensive hard use experience with any given knife that I just knew that the steel was really that expensive supersteel, but I'm going to be honest since I have no reason to lie. Every single one of my knives could be lower end steel, and my cutting needs these days are so basic that I'd never know. I mean, even 8cr13mov will accomplish EDC tasks all day long for weeks without any issues or any real dulling.

Youtuber knife guys like "How many rope cuts can cheap knife XYZ do before it's dull?" as though 99.99999999% of the users out there are going to do a lot of rope cutting, and those that do, for some reason decided a cheap Kershaw or whatever was the knife they were going to use. Like, dude, let's be real. Rope? I want to see something actually pertinent to real life. How many Amazon boxes can this knife open before it's dull? How many threads can it snip off a shirt sleeve? How many bags of chips can it open before you need to touch it up? How many apples can you peel with that Kershaw or Chinese Spyderco before it's time to break out the Sharpmaker? Spoiler alert: it's going to be a very long time.

All of that said, I just do my due diligence, and make sure I buy supersteel knives from reputable companies who stand behind their products* and move on with using it without a second thought.




* So, not Bark River or anything from Mike "SO WHAT IF OUR MAGNACUT RUSTED! IT AIN'T TOTALLY STAINLESS!" Stewart.
 
I don't think that this is really a discussion about what steel is better than another; it is about whether or not you think that the person or company is using the steel and heat treat that they say they have used in a knife that you bought from them. Since very few of us have a metal spectrographic analysis machine or other way of actually determining what the steel composition is, I guess we have to trust the maker or don't buy from them. Trying to tell if knife A is a particular steel by cutting paper or any other material is meaningless. So if you don't think the maker is worthy of your trust then obviously don't buy from them. I have worked in two steel mills and one machine shop that had the capability to test steel composition, but I never did. IMO, which ain't worth much, the only makers that might fall into that category are not located on the North American continent or Europe or in Japan so I try to stay away from them or I don't expect much from them. YMMV.
 
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I would say that any reputable and smart manufacturer and any major knife maker would make sure the metal is what it is supposed to be. Because if they were not using what they claim and someone found out and investigated they would be in big trouble and probably go bankrupt and out of business.

Now an overseas company or some fly by night company might try it and some probably have but we don’t have much of a way to make them accountable or any recourse. I know I have a couple knives that sure don’t behave like 440c as was claimed in the specs and actually were stamped as 9cr18mov and the heat treatment was terrible like the main blade went from soft edge rolling to a brittle easily chipped mess. The other two blades weren’t much better. I won’t name names but some of you might guess which company I am referring to with old timey patterns. Lol
 
waughstreet said:
Is the knife you bought the steel you think it is? What are some of the ways you satisfy yourself that you weren't ripped off? My own rules simple and basic: don't pay too much, look at reviews, buy only from reputable sellers/makers/manufacturers - what steel do they say it is, does the knife do what I expected it to do, and can I sharpen it? Or in short, I'm not buying the steel (being unable to judge it) but the usability.

So far, I'm well-served by "old Krupp carbon steel" - 1075-85-95? (YP Taonta, Finland), pretty much anything from Mora or other Scandinavian makers, and my old Swiss army knife "Soldier" with Inox. A lot of other knives have come and gone. If I ever upgrade, S30V or S35VN look good - but would I be able to detect the improvement?
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As my mentor used to say " Does a bear whisk in the woods ?
 
I mostly own Spyderco, and the reason is I trust the company to heat treat the advertised steel properly for the knives design and usage intent.
I did buy a knife recently that I am skeptical about but I figure the cost and light use makes it a knife id give a chance to even though i've no experience with the brand.
Had no issues removing a burr in sharpening and the edge is holding better than expected so I am not gonna worry about it anymore.
For me, sharpening is the only way I have to tell if my knife is legit. Well, legit enough that I can use it as intended and it performs as or better than expected.
 
I have seen a hand held device that does a metallurgy assay on objects. Some coin or jewelry shops might have something like that. I think it shoots weak x-rays into the metal a d reads what bounces back. . . .I think.

It would be one way to get a nondestructive evaluation of the steels chemistry.
 
If you want to be comfortable the steel is what the manufacturer says it is, stick with the blue chip makers and avoid the secondary market like the plague.
 
As I and others have said, the only way to be certain a steel is as it is labeled is expensive and beyond the layman's reach. This is why trust is so important and why some makers can never live down their past actions. Good makers build the trust and do the work to keep that trust.

On a wider note, our whole civilization is built on trust and once that is lost, well, it isn't going to be pretty.
 
My intro to high alloy steel came when I was buying "combat" knives for a young marine on his way to Iraq at the height of the fighting n 2004.

I had no real knowledge of high performance knives. I bought a Randall and an Ek on WW-II reputation alone. Then I became aware of modern high alloy steels considered o be "better " than chrome vanadium carbon steel and 440C. At that time, Chris Reeve was making his Green Beret in S30V, so I bought one of them. Since then, CRK has gone through several other formulations looking for the top end in performance Iguess. . .now its Magnicut.
 
If you want to know the material then get access to a PMI gun:

PMI Gun – Conhagen

conhagen.com conhagen.com

There was a post here somewhere that a guy was checking metallurgy. If I was buying knives from China I would be more concerned with verifying the metallurgy of the blade. Here is the post:

Maxaem

Thread 'Would people be interested in seeing PMI results on knife steel?'

I have access to PMI (Positive Material Identification) equipment, including, but not limited to: XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence), LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, which is a form of OES, optical emissions spectroscopy), hardness testers, non-destructive yield and tensile strength testing, and potentially access to destructive lab testing. I would be happy to discuss anything listed more, but XRF and LIBS are basically two different methods of spectroscopy that allow us to get chemical compositions of alloys using non-destructive methods. Oversimplified, they look at light/energy...
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If I might close with a summary: the sense of the thing seems to be that while some research can be done, mostly anecdotal, the main "strategy" is to buy only from trustworthy sellers. And that makes obvious good sense. And there's a less intuitive underlying reason that most folks likely always knew, but I wasn't smart enough to figure out, and that being that trustworthy sellers have too much invested to risk selling bad knives.
 
waughstreet said:
If I might close with a summary: the sense of the thing seems to be that while some research can be done, mostly anecdotal, the main "strategy" is to buy only from trustworthy sellers. And that makes obvious good sense. And there's a less intuitive underlying reason that most folks likely always knew, but I wasn't smart enough to figure out, and that being that trustworthy sellers have too much invested to risk selling bad knives.
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There have been past incidents of the wrong blade steel or heatreat with established firms.
 
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