Knife steel

What reason would Victorinox have to upgrade the steel they use? They make and sell world wide millions of knives each and every year, now. That is more knives than any other single manufacturer, and more than several big name manufacturers combined. "To go after the knife enthusiast ..." NOT a valid reason. I doubt world wide the knife enthusiast makes up one percent of the market.
What they make works. "Don't 'fix' it, if it ain't broken."
 
I would personally love to see a better steel offered in limited production on a Vic with Alox scales. That being said the soft but easy to maintain steel that Vic uses does enable the user the ability to sharpen "in the field". This summer I was in Maui for 11 days and the only knife I carried was my alox Cadet. Of course after a few days of use the main blade was dull. The upside was I sharpened the blade on the bottom of a coffee cup that we had in the hotel room. Didn't take too much work to get it sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. I doubt I would have been able to do that with a more modern "super steel".
 
tomsch said:
I would personally love to see a better steel offered in limited production on a Vic with Alox scales. That being said the soft but easy to maintain steel that Vic uses does enable the user the ability to sharpen "in the field". This summer I was in Maui for 11 days and the only knife I carried was my alox Cadet. Of course after a few days of use the main blade was dull. The upside was I sharpened the blade on the bottom of a coffee cup that we had in the hotel room. Didn't take too much work to get it sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. I doubt I would have been able to do that with a more modern "super steel".
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IME, you would be able to just as easily maintain the blade is it were hardened to 58Rc. That's been my experience with Opinel, Buck and Mora, all of whom use a similar type of steel only hardened a bit more.

Note, I'm assuming you meant sharpened (as in removing metal to form a new apex) and not honing (as in straightening and folded edge as you might do with a honing rod).

I don't prefer carbide rich steels for EDC. I have a nice older Buck 500 with carbide rich 440C. Carbides have their place. Cutting lots of cardboard? I reach for the 500 over the Opinel. But I'm not going to sharpen the 500 on a coffee mug.

One thing I've noticed about soft (<55Rc) steel is the propensity to roll an edge (even on a wood cutting block) and the ease with which the rolled edge responds to a honing rod or steel. This makes me wonder how much of the "sharpened on a mug" discussion is really sharpening as opposed to honing. If that's the case, I definitely prefer harder fine carbide steel. Less likely to roll an edge to begin with IME.
 
Yes, I would say that the mug was used more to straighten the edge and put a slight micro-bevel. It was not about removing much metal but more aligning what was there and potentially folded.
 
I carry a dedicated folder for cutting, mostly for the incredible convenience of one-handed opening, but also because I do like modern knives and I do like experimenting with different steels. That's just my personal preference, though—I enjoy it, others don't. I also carry a Victorinox Pioneer alox alongside it about half the time, though I've recently acquired a Böker Tech Tool which is seeing a lot of carry.

I get that the SAK is a time-honored classic, but the entire reason I learned to sharpen knives was that the SAKs I grew up with dulled so quickly. The Böker's blade is 12C27, which is hardly a "supersteel," but it's heat-treated to "58-60" HRC vs. the SAK's spongy 54(?) HRC. Yes, the hunters and trappers and ranchers and folk heroes of lore used knives made from the steels of centuries ago, but those steels weren't inox, and we've definitely advanced in metallurgy since the 1950s.

It seems like they could at least bring the hardness up to 58 HRC or so, make a lot of us happy, and not sacrifice anything for people who don't care. And they'd knock our socks off with even 154CM or VG-10.
 
I use my Farmer daily and spend about five minutes a week with it on a Arkansas Hard. Truth be said, it just isn't that big of a hassle.
 
Couldn't remember the last time ive sharpened Vic Camper. I'm guessing that other folks don't find everything to be an excuse to use the knife blade either, when you have so many tools at hand.
 
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