Little thought of super steel SHTF reality

unwisefool said:
And you don't know me, the land I have, nor the ursine army I secretly command!

We also have a small detachment of raccoons, buuuut they aren't great at formations and keep wandering off to steal things. So yeah...
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Raccoons platoons are an absolute must in a shtf scenario +6 points
 
Currawong said:
Assuming your criteria boil down to 1. Steel that is very easy to sharpen and 2. maximum edge-holding steels that also meet criteria 1...... and assuming 'very easy to sharpen' means it can be brought back to an effective working edge in the field using a hand stone in less than 10 minutes, then....

Vanax is probably the highest-wearing steel that is also very easy to sharpen. It is also virtually rust-proof. For a steel with such high edge retention and stainlessness, the toughness is also very good (though it is not a tough steel). But it is expensive and hard to get. But it would be the best steel to my knowledge for the two criteria above, so it would be my starting point. If you want to vary the criteria a bit, then....

If you want to retain ballpark the same edge-holding ability as vanax, but are willing to downgrade ease of sharpening a bit (along with stainlessness), then Magnacut, S30v, M390, 20CV, CPM-154 and Elmax would be good alternatives. This assumes they are run at a lower hardness than they're capable of, otherwise they can become hard (not impossible) to sharpen in the field. You wouldn't want to spend a lot of time maintaining their edge using river rocks and the edges of car windows however.

If you want to retain the same ease of sharpening and stainlessness as vanax, but are happy to compromise on edge-holding, then LC200N. It is also much tougher than vanax. But LC200N is relatively expensive and harder to find.

If you like LC200N, but want something cheaper and easier to get, and are willing to compromise on stainlessness to achieve it, then AEB-L. This steel is a bit tougher than LC200N and has exceptional edge-stability. Therefore you can run it very thin behind the edge, which will in turn increase its edge-holding (but because of the geometry, not because of the wear-resistance of the steel).

If you don't need stainless, then there are many steels that have good edge-holding and are relatively easy (not necessarily very easy) to sharpen - M4, CPM-4V, Vanadis4E, and the cheap and widely available 52100. (Again assuming lower hardness heat treats).

The caveat is that edge-holding and ease of sharpening are heavily influenced by geometry and heat treat (hardness), so there are more ways to meet your criteria than just steel selection.
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This is what I’m talking about thanks!!
 
drebs said:
I don’t think many people think about maintaining a knife that’s beholden to diamond stones or cbn…Odd question but in a shtf scenario .. think post apocalypse or semi.. diamond plates wear out, silicone carbide wears out, water stones. It seems ceramic such as Spyderco’s bench ceramic stones will never wear out, dish, like other types will (maybe a hard Arkansas stone?) It seems in this scenario it would be more prudent to consider matching a knife to a immortal stone instead of a “immortal” steel that’s near impossible to sharpen with natural rocks or stones with extremely high longevity ..

so my question is two fold would I be right in assuming ceramic stones are almost indestructible? If not which would would be better? Or comparable ?

furthermore, sharpening a rex-45 or k390 on ceramic’s would probably be miserable. What’s the highest quality steel do you think could be relatively easy to sharpen on ceramic? Qualities would be edge stability abs edge retention as first priority. Stainless and toughens as second.

Off the top of my head Lc200n seems to be one of the only knives I can think of right now that would be a great match at quality of longevity of edge retention while hitting all other 3 qualities any others? Even if they fall short in a catagory .. I’d rather start re gearing my collection in this direction.
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Grab any... supersteel, powder metallurgy, high carbide, triple quenched, cryo treated timascus blend, edge quenched combination of banite and vanadium carbides..... and saw a sharpening stone in half, even a house brick or river stone.
It will blunt the edge, no question.
Sharpening modern ,properly heat treated, high carbide steels might be slow but is certainly possible.
Remember people have been cutting and polishing diamonds, sapphires, and ruby's for a long long time, it might be slow but not impossible!
 
In the extremely unlikely event, I am going with my Busse TGULB in Infi. Easy to sharpen, extremely tough, and pretty stain resistant. I’ll be eating you S110V guys for breakfast!

In reality, I’ll likely be dead in the first 15 minutes, so someone else will have my knife then I suppose.
 
srTvUV.jpeg

Zombie Attitude Readjustment Tools in 1075 & 420HC
 
I would take up flint knapping ,and Saks would be come my new grail knife
 
A couple of years ago I was quite into the zombie / apocalypse thing.
Got some amazing gear then... :) Found out that all this gear needs to be lugged around... :(

When you run from a flooding in your basement or from the smoke of the forest fire next to your village, you can't be to picky or you won't need a knife soon...

Any knife you carry at the time of the shtf will be a good one, whatever steel this happens to be.


If you survive long enough that you roam around in a cannibalistic post apocalyptic world, you've had time enough to obtain whatever means necessary to sharpen your SV-RustafreeTM-PM survival cleaver...
 
I will be bringing 2 dmt diafolds, blue/red and green/tan. Small, light, and will outlive me and my kids. Then it doesn't matter what steel ANY of my knives will be.
 
great! now i m a gonna have to stockpile a lifetime of various sharpening mediums.
imo once the shtf, knife care matters
would be least of the problems in a post aftermath existence.
i picture scavenging as a way of life,
there will be lots of kitchen knives about.
to probably last another generation of resilient survivors at least.
readapt to new situations means
getting rid of things or ways which
can no longer serve purpose in an
efficient manner. my guess is that
there will be less need for
the superfluous and a hark
back to basic requirements.
hence kitchen knives and machetes
would be standard post apocalyptic
cutlery; stuff which doesn't need the fancy sharpening.
besides, a nuclear winter would spell the end for the existance of steel snobs as we know it.
 
Doesn't everyone already have 2x lifetimes of knives and sharpening gear salted away?

If there's a collapse of civilization I think they only people who'll have a problem are those who don't know how to sharpen. No more mailing the knife in to the maker.
 
Danke42 said:
Doesn't everyone already have 2x lifetimes of knives and sharpening gear salted away?

If there's a collapse of civilization I think they only people who'll have a problem are those who don't know how to sharpen. No more mailing the knife in to the maker.
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Sharpening would be easy during an apocalypses. You no longer need worry about appearance or resale value, and need only get enough of an edge on blade to satisfy your immediate use.

It is not something any of us need worry about; none of us are likely to live long enough to worry about sharpening anything. Anyway, what exactly are you planning to cut. Unless you are planning to operate a surgical unit, there wouldn't be enough packaged goods or wild game for continuous knife use, and knives are all around us. Even if you are not a collector, there are probably dozens of knives in your kitchen. The same goes for everyone else's kitchen. Food and water might be a problem, and even air, but knives we will have in abundance.

n2s
 
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End of "Civilization" as we know it or no, I'll stick with 10xx, 440A, 420HC, whatever the heck it is carbone steels Mora and Opinel use.
I've always gone with knives I could touch up easily in the field.

As for edge holding ... A Buck 110 with 420HC holds an edge long enough to peel 2.5 ... maybe 3 whitetail before needing stropped or a couple swipes on the bottom of a ceramic cofffee mug or pocket Arkansas stone. (440A might be 0.25 to 0.50 whitetail less)
It will also whittle a replacement tent stake, a snare trigger (if I don't use one of the pocket knives I always carry), cut a willow shoot or pine braugh (spelling?) for a shelter if needed, without edge damage.
Do I really "need" an edge that lasts longer?

Also, I hear (ok ... read) on here that the so called "Super Steels" hardened to 60 ~ 61 Rockwell C "for edge retention" are prone to chipping. I've never chipped a blade made of the "obsolete" steels, and on the rare instaces the redge rolled, a stropping brought it back to sharp.
 
My survival knives are all rare GECs that I'll be able to swap for home made sausages and vinyl records I can play on my wind up Victrola; a fine machine, with a vulcanized rubber listening tube which you cram in your ear... The tube will go in easier with some sort of lubricant like linseed oil.
 
What's there to worry about? It seems a good percentage of people are afraid of using their knives and have a plethora of safe queens. So in the case of a Mad Max future, you just have to go to their house and grab their unused knives. That's assuming you're stocked up on firearms and ammo to survive the initial craziness. :D
 
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