It's the Heat Treat

[johno]

In a number of 'what's the best steel' threads it's not uncommon for makers and others to point out that the heat treat is as important and maybe more important. The authors of an older Fine Woodworking test of chisels concluded the same. The article was in a small book on hand tools from the mid 1980s, and they looked performance, hardness, type of steel, carbon content, and grain of some US, English, German, and Japanese woodworking chisels. Most of the chisels were W type tool steel, one was an S type, one was 1095 (Stanley) and another was 1050 (Sears). The 1050 didn't do well but as I recall the Sears chisels did fairly well in a more recent review by the same magazine, and the 1095 did pretty well. They observed that hardness combined with fine grain produced sharper, longer lasting, more durable edges, where the Japanese chisels as a group did the best but were also the most expensive. One author noted that one of his Japanese chisels was prone to chipping due to the very high hardness, but they didn't have that problem with any in the test. Hardness ranged up to +RC62.

 

You are SO right!
A famous man once said: picking the optimum steel is 20%, good heat treating 80% of success.
That's why there are wizzards (like Paul Bos) who make the difference!
Happy sharpening

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D.T. UTZINGER

 

[Cobalt]

I agree that heat treat is and can be the difference between a good blade and a POS. The only problem you get into is when you have these secret heat treating methods, and the makers knife fails, when it should not have. You are left to wonder what the issue was since you cannot get any information on the heat treat or other specifics.

 

[Bennett Richards]

I would think a large company like BM would expound on its method of HT as it IS that important...!?

Ben

 

[Walt Welch]

Perhaps a posting on the Benchmade forum would be more likely to get an answer from Les de Asis. In a private communication with me some time ago, he mentioned that they had had problems with the heat treat of ATS-34 in the beginning. This was noticed when the thumb studs were pressed into place and cracking of the blade at that site occured.

The heat treating was modified, with resolution of the problem, but no specifics of the heat treating were furnished to me.

Walt

 

[Samurai6]

Production companies are generally close-lipped about their heat treatment. I doubt very seriously if it is the equal of a custom heat treat, as a mass production engineer would be looking for any place where he could reasonably cut corners and production cost. That is not to say that the blades won't be good. Performance is the ultimate indicator of good heat treatment. Benchmade has thousands of knives in use whose owners can attest that the heat treat is pretty good. The ATS-34 blades hold an edge not just well, but in my opinion, exceptionally well.

So knowing exactly how Benchmade, or Gerber, or Spyderco does it isn't of much importance. How the knife holds an edge is what matters. Advertising their heat treatment would only give amunition to their competitors.