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MagnaMax hitting the market
- Thread starter Ilikesharpstuff
- Start date
I feel like the real trick is just convincing the masses that you have a new super steel and then getting the manufacturers to adopt it.
Look at magnacut, now it's a great balanced steel, but for folders, very few users are chipping/breaking their blades/edges. Yet somehow the entire market is convinced that Magnacut is the next supersteel with god like properties. When it's edge retention at the hardness most companies are using is basically in the s35 to s45 range and nothing special. So unless you are really abusing your knives or work in a salt environment, for most users, Magnacut brings almost nothing to the table that s30-s45 doesn't when it comes to cutting performance. It can't even come close to comparing to s90v, 20cv, 204p. The toughness only matters if you're already chipping out your current blade/geometry. The vast majority of users, are going to see almost zero cutting improvement going from s30/35/45 to Magnacut. Now of course you could make a case that you can thin down the edge on magnacut with it's extra toughness, and increase cutting performance which is totally true, but I've yet to see any of the manufactures do this, so unless you are going to re-profile the blade it's not a feature.
Don't get me wrong it's a great steel, and I'd happily steer someone to it over s30v at similar prices, but I really feel like the folder world has gotten far too obsessed with toughness as opposed to actual cutting performance the last decade. It's like we're going back to the days of hammering knives through car doors.
I'm in the same camp, to some extent. I see the value of MagnaCut at 60 Rc or so, where its toughness shines. I use a large folding knife that sees hard use. I'd love to have a 60 Rc MagnaCut blade for it.
I tried to get a knife maker to make a reblade for me, and he was willing, but only at 64 Rc. He does multi-blade heat treats, and 64 Rc is where his customers want the hardness -- because harder is better, right? He thought the best hardness was 61 Rc, but he didn't want to do one-blade heat treats.
For a high-wear steel, MagnaMax looks pretty good, because you get decent toughness and high wear resistance.
Maximumbob54
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I've only in the last couple of years finally tried M4, K390, and a few more and fairly recently 15V. I feel like at the M4 level you reach a point of diminishing returns for it getting "better" at each new level. But for the most part they've all been steels at least somewhat prone to rusting. None of them are run them hard and hang them up wet. But tell me that MagnaMax will be a stainless K390... Wow.
My guess is most folders in Cut will turn into Max while the toughness of Cut will keep it in fixies. Maybe, who knows.
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I don't think so. Or at least, as far as "most".
I think there will still be a large segment of the folder base that continues to want the balance of toughness, edge retention and corrosion resistance. It's not like there haven't been a number of high edge retention stainless steels available, (albeit with somewhat less toughness), so I'm going to opine that the MagnaCut, Cru-Wear, M4 / 3V / 4V crowd, (of which I am a constituent), will still maintain a steady, if diminishing, demand.
But, the allure of a stainless equivalent to K390 is real. I only have three knives in K390, which I was seduced into by those who said that it made M4 (nearly) obsolete. I'm not sure that it has, but I don't have the facts and figures.
Time will tell.
Maximumbob54
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Having bought a few "higher toughness steel" folders I'm confused by all of them why a folder needs a 3V or other similar higher toughness steel. For sure not that I'm speaking for everyone. Just seems like the focus of the bulk of folders is to slice or cut without any serious need for added toughness factor. It wasn't until I saw all the pics of broken Maxamet blades (cringes a little) that I started to think maybe we've flown a little too close to the sun with that particular steel. I guess I'm just trying to say I'm hoping Max only tilts the scale a little (not a LOT) in sharpness over toughness.
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That's my thinking as well, for folders Magnacut or similar steels are great, for a fixie that's likely to sustain some real work, I want real toughness, 3V, 420HC, 5160, etc.
Yep, but sadly that's the trend, 95% of the folding knives being sold have way too thick of blade/edge geometry to really be good at most people's everyday cutting tasks, but they look tacticool so they sell.
No idea why, think about how many times we see people complain of chipped or broken blades, it almost never happens. So clearly even the thinner built designs like spyderco's say are still more than adequate for pretty much everyone's everyday use.
Now if they were using that tougher steel to it's real advantage, say using Magnacut wtih a higher RC, and a thiner blade/geometry so you could still have a durable edge, but amazing cutting performance, that would be something but the vast majority of popular folding knives are basically sharpened pry bars. Spydero does a good job with this compared to most, but even they could go a lot further with some of the higher durability steels and modify the edge geometry and blade thickness to make incredible slicers.
I received a limited amount of Magnamax and have made a few blades in it. So far, Magnamax is set to replace S90V as my preferred stainless steel for small fixed blades.
Here are two recently finished.
What hardness did you decide to go with? And I'd be curious about your reasoning.
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Maxamet is in a different class, for lack of a better term, than most of the steels we are discussing. For sure, lateral stress is not something that Maxamet excels at.
I think the main "plus" with MagnaMax is what was stated earlier...K390-like performance in a highly stainless steel. I'd certainly consider that as raising the bar for high performance stainless in terms of adding some additional toughness to the level of expected performance.
Matthew Gregory
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I’ve seen you post this statement numerous times. What basis do you have for it? What metric have you utilized to reach the outcome that it ‘shines’ at 60rc? If that’s just a personal preference, okay, but I can’t say my experience matches yours. The first test blade I made out of it - which was also one of the first blades made out of the alloy, was a chopper at 62RC that had near kitchen knife geometry, and after driving it through a cinder block with a hammer on the FOURTH time managed to get the blade to fail .
I’m not one to point to anecdotal evidence as conclusive, but maybe you’re on to something I’m missing…?
I received a limited amount of Magnamax and have made a few blades in it. So far, Magnamax is set to replace S90V as my preferred stainless steel for small fixed blades.
Here are two recently finished.
Looks good, Josh. Was wondering how you made out with it. How close was my description of it?
Danny Linguini
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Eh, so he got lucky. Twice.
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Wherever the Magna steel line goes Larrin should call the last one "MagnaOpus".
Larrin
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Don’t forget the two low alloy steels I worked on - ProCut and ApexUltraEh, so he got lucky. Twice.
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Hmpf! I doubt it would cut any better than my sword Excalibur, if I could get that danged thing out of the rock it's stuck in. 
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Or MagnaOpine as he has to continually explain himself...
Personally, I like apples and I like oranges. Blueberries are more expensive. I like them too.
I’ve seen you post this statement numerous times. What basis do you have for it? What metric have you utilized to reach the outcome that it ‘shines’ at 60rc? If that’s just a personal preference, okay, but I can’t say my experience matches yours. The first test blade I made out of it - which was also one of the first blades made out of the alloy, was a chopper at 62RC that had near kitchen knife geometry, and after driving it through a cinder block with a hammer on the FOURTH time managed to get the blade to fail .
I’m not one to point to anecdotal evidence as conclusive, but maybe you’re on to something I’m missing…?
It's just my opinion, based on scientific research data that show a large trade off in toughness for a small gain in wear resistance when MagnaCut is run harder. I'm going by Larrin's own data sheet. So, as it has been posted, Crucible MagnaCut at 60.5 Rc was measured by Larrin to have about 17 ft-lbs of toughness. When you run the Rc up to 65, the toughness drops to 8 ft-lbs. The gain in edge retention is small (looks like you go from 510 TCC to 580 TCC), but you lose about half the toughness. MagnaCut isn't a high-wear steel, but it is exceptionally tough for a powder stainless steel. If you choose to go with higher hardness, go for it. I'm expressing my opinion based on research data.
I did test drive a MagnaCut knife by Bluntcut Metal Works that Luong took up to 63.5 Rc. The edge geometry was exceptionally acute, so I expected a quick failure. But at that hardness with Luong's heat treat, the steel was exceptionally tough.
The edge on the test knife looked like 0.009 inches BTE and the edge angle was about 10 degrees, maybe less, but it was convexed so it was difficult to read with a laser protractor. I chopped with it in tests that have chipped or ruined the edge of steels like S30V, A8(mod), and Aus8. I had to abuse the edge to get any damage -- which was light chipping.
So, yes, if I could get Luong's heat treat on a folder, I'd probably go for a higher Rc. But with production knives, I'd much prefer a hardness around 60-61.
Below is a Blade in A8(mod) that had an edge geometry of 15 thousands BTE and 15 DPS -- much more robust than Luong's MagnaCut blade. The test that damaged this A8(mod) edge was easily passed by the MagnaCut heat treated by Luong. Heat treat is really key.
