K390 Military

[Ben Dover]

There are costs to using these steels, costs all over the place. You can go from a couple bucks a pound to over a hundred bucks a pound, just for the steel. If you can't grind it with your equipment, you need new equipment. So then you buy the new equipment, test it, buy newer equipment, test again, and continue until you have the right equipment. You need to figure out the heat treat. To do that, you heat treat that hundred dollar a pound steel, then grind on it, beat on it, break it, rust it, etc. When you've done your testing, called the metallurgists, retooled the shop, you order your steel. Hopefully they have it. Hopefully in the right dimensions. Hopefully with a good surface finish. Hopefully without flaws and inclusions. You buy the steel, grind it, experiment with it, pay your workers to do this, buy new equipment for it, and you haven't even made a single knife to sell yet. Cause once you do sell a knife, it needs to be right, or you eat even more costs fixing the problems once they hit the market and frustrate your customers.

Everything you say is true.

However, if no one is willing to take a risk to make something better, then we'll never have any real progress in the world. The United States became the leader of the world because entrepreneurs like Mr. Glesser are willing to take that risk and make something better than anyone else makes.:thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Ankerson]

If anyone could make it happen it would be Sal Glesser for sure.

 

[singularity35]

But that would come at a price (cost) and difficulty in sharpening that would have to be addressed I would think so people would know what they are in for if they buy one of the knives so they can get the proper sharpening supplies that would be needed.

Yes, this one. There would probably have to be some kind of resource to address this before the knife is out(positive thinking here).

 

[Ankerson]

Yes, this one. There would probably have to be some kind of resource to address this before the knife is out(positive thinking here).

Most of that would come from people who OWN KNIVES IN THESE STEELS and the Custom makers who make the knives.

There really isn't anything that is comparable to these that has been used in production knives.

The S110V production knives that have been out are on the soft side sadly so they aren't a reference.

Those steels being CPM 10V and K294, also CPM 15V and CPM S125V.

That said no they aren't impossible to sharpen with the proper materials and patience to succeed.

 

[skwurll]

Deleted

 

[singularity35]

That said no they aren't impossible to sharpen with the proper materials and patience to succeed.

Yep, and the rest of us would need the tips from the guys like you if ever this knife gets made and we are able to get our hands on it. Good thing that there are those of you willing to share your experience and knowledge.

 

[Ankerson]

Yep, and the rest of us would need the tips from the guys like you if ever this knife gets made and we are able to get our hands on it. Good thing that there are those of you willing to share your experience and knowledge.

And they will get extremely sharp too, make fuzzy sticks out of hair sharp.

K294/10V are very fine grained, not sure about K390.

 

[Ben Dover]

And they will get extremely sharp too, make fuzzy sticks out of hair sharp.

K294/10V are very fine grained, not sure about K390.

M390 isn't particularly difficult. I am in the process of reprofiling/sharpening my M390 Mule to 15 degrees per side. The 140 grit ATOMA plate on the EP Pro cuts it quite welll, albeit rather slowly. It does require a bit of patience, but it shaved arm hair after the 400 grit ATOMA.

This particular mule will be a "bragging rights" blade, and I plan on polishing it to 30K, on a Shapton, and then stropping to .125 micron CBN. Fuzz sticks from hair?? Absolutely! I plan on doing this with the M390 mule.

M390 is far less of a challenge to sharpen than I had been led to believe.

While I most certainly expect K390 to be considerably more of a challenge, I am quite confidfent that I am up to it!

If you can sharpen 1095, and have diamond plates and just a bit of patience, you can sharpen anything. :thumbup:

 

[neuron]

Most of that would come from people who OWN KNIVES IN THESE STEELS and the Custom makers who make the knives.

There really isn't anything that is comparable to these that has been used in production knives.

The S110V production knives that have been out are on the soft side sadly so they aren't a reference.

Those steels being CPM 10V and K294, also CPM 15V and CPM S125V.

That said no they aren't impossible to sharpen with the proper materials and patience to succeed.

Would Strider's S110V knives be included in that? Just curious since I own some of them (but don't have customs in 10V, K294, etc. to compare the performance to like you do).

 

[Ankerson]

M390 isn't particularly difficult. I am in the process of reprofiling/sharpening my M390 Mule to 15 degrees per side. The 140 grit ATOMA plate on the EP Pro cuts it quite welll, albeit rather slowly. It does require a bit of patience, but it shaved arm hair after the 400 grit ATOMA.

This particular mule will be a "bragging rights" blade, and I plan on polishing it to 30K, on a Shapton, and then stropping to .125 micron CBN. Fuzz sticks from hair?? Absolutely! I plan on doing this with the M390 mule.

M390 is far less of a challenge to sharpen than I had been led to believe.

While I most certainly expect K390 to be considerably more of a challenge, I am quite confidfent that I am up to it!

If you can sharpen 1095, and have diamond plates and just a bit of patience, you can sharpen anything. :thumbup:

M390 and K390/K294 are in completely different worlds.

Take a ceramic rod and move it across one of your stones and you will start to get an idea of what steels like K294 and 10V are like.

 

[Ankerson]

Would Strider's S110V knives be included in that? Just curious since I own some of them (but don't have customs in 10V, K294, etc.) to compare the performance to like you do.

Nobody really knows and it really wouldn't matter anyway if S110V wasn't Sub Zeroed in Liquid Nitrogen because it will lose like 30% performance if it wasn't.

 

[neuron]

Nobody really knows and it really wouldn't matter anyway if S110V wasn't Sub Zeroed in Liquid Nitrogen because it will lose like 30% performance if it wasn't.

Gotcha. Guess I'll just have to hope I can snag a Phil Wilson in S110V that I can then compare the edge retention on my Striders to.

 

[Ankerson]

Gotcha. Guess I'll just have to hope I can snag a Phil Wilson in S110V that I can then compare the edge retention on my Striders to.

They should be comparable to S90V, but a little bit better.

S110V done right, now that is a different world.

If it's done right S110V will make the other steels we normally see look like AUS-6, that's how good it really is.

However it's very limited due to manufacturing issues with making the steel and rolling it out into sheets and also very expensive, same with S125V and S150V in that respect.

 

[Ben Dover]

I find this a truly fascinating topic for intellectual discussion. I sincerely hope that someday soon we will have the opportunity to discuss it from a "hands on experience" perspective. :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Ben Dover]

Last evening I completed rebevelling my M390 Mule to 15 degrees per side. It will pass the TP and hanging hair tests, but I intend to polish it just a bit more. (polish to .125 micron)

A very pleasant and rewarding experience.

Now bring on the k390!

 

[Disciple]

There is a big difference between steels like S90V, M4 and S110V, K294, K390.

Other than K390 I have worked with all of these steels reprofiling, testing ect.

Using my Stones.... Silicon Carbide stones the wear resistance is huge between the 2 groups with K294 being the hardest to work with, noticeable difference between it and S110V.

S90V and M4 are cake compared to these other steels from my experiences.

Do you know how these steels may compare in their "soft" states? For K390 BÖHLER claims:

Too hard to be machinable?

Quite the opposite. The task of the tool steel manu-
facturer is to produce a steel which is, on the one
hand, easy and economic to machine (with a
hardness of around 280HB) and simple and unpro-
blematic to heat treat, but which, on the other hand,
has a very high hardness (up to 64HRc) and opti-
mum performance in use. The secret lies in the pow-
der metallurgy process. A very fine, homogeneous
microstructure guarantees optimal machinability.

 

[OTK]

Just saw this thread after a buddy alerted me of it.

I've made a few out of K390 and minus corrosion resistance it is probably the highest performing blade steel out there. It is super wear resistant ...way more than s90 but the big difference is toughness. It is much tougher than 10v or the high vanadium stainless. Corrosion is about like M4.

Grinding is not bad in the annealed state. Much harder after ht as expected. Hand finishing over 400g is super tough.

I'd love to see a para2 in k390. That would be a hard use machine.

 

[Ben Dover]

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Bohler's claim of relatively easy machinaility was one of the primary factors that motivated me to initiate this thread!

While I would far prefer a Military, I would most cerrtainly purchase a para. (or two )
I must wonder if there are other custom bladesmiths on these forums who have experiences they are willing to share about this wondeful steel?

 

[OTK]

There may be others who have used k390 but it is a new and somewhat hard to find material. Keep your eye on Bohler, more good stuff out there and more on the way. Bohler and Carpenter are really upping the game in the pm steels. 3v is about the only cpm steel I buy. When Bohler Vanadis 4E is easier to get I'll be done with 3v too.

 

[neuron]

Just saw this thread after a buddy alerted me of it.

I've made a few out of K390 and minus corrosion resistance it is probably the highest performing blade steel out there. It is super wear resistant ...way more than s90 but the big difference is toughness. It is much tougher than 10v or the high vanadium stainless. Corrosion is about like M4.

Grinding is not bad in the annealed state. Much harder after ht as expected. Hand finishing over 400g is super tough.

I'd love to see a para2 in k390. That would be a hard use machine.

Great info -- thanks for sharing your experiences with the steel. I'm especially intrigued by the higher toughness compared to other high-vanadium steels. Now I really, really want to get a knife in this stuff.