Makers that have their heat treat down to a science

[kda89508]

Alan Davis is a wizard. His elmax is amazing! I am posting this because he is too busy filling ordes to come on this thread and brag about his own work......

Russ

My main edc is a custom knife made to my specs by Alan Davis and it is with Elmax and is the sharpest knife I have. It cuts and stays sharp longer than anything I have ever carried! Alan does great work and takes pride in it. 👍👍👍 Kevin

 

[noob93]

My main edc is a custom knife made to my specs by Alan Davis and it is with Elmax and is the sharpest knife I have. It cuts and stays sharp longer than anything I have ever carried! Alan does great work and takes pride in it. 👍👍👍 Kevin

Mr Davis has gotten a lot of love here I'll have to check him out. From the sounds of it he's probably backlogged for a long time but you can't be mad at a man doing good work.

 

[353]

Who ever heat treats the vg-10 &aus 8 on Al Mar knives.
Hittachi knives in all steels as well as all the Fallkniven' s produces

Fällkniven is King on HT. Enzo is also very good. The Enzo S30V is said to have an extremely good HT.

 

[Daniel Dorn]

I'll second Bob Dozier's heat treat of D2. From A. G. Russell's description, it was Bob's HT that brought D2 back to the forefront of knife blade materials. It's incredibly still in high-profile production use as a "premium" steel, which is saying a lot considering how long it's been around.

 

[Gaston444]

Do you even read the things you write, or do you just type random sentences and hope that they make sense?

That's what a 2K custom by a top maker in S30V looked like after about four chops: You can see the gap where that mean nasty wood did not have a chance to micro-curl the edge instantly (I deliberately kept that area from hitting wood, just to see the difference):

I attribute this to the CPM process. I've never seen a factory knife do this, not even the $100 fairly thin-edged Bk-9 I so disliked (for other reasons)...

This is another high-end custom in CPM 154cm, about the $600 range:

This is a Lile after doing twice as much work on the same Maple branch (yes, this is good, and it looks less used due to the Cerakoat):

This is yet another $700 custom after less than 30 hits in some soft wood that left many other factory knives totally unimpressed:

Here is one more high end custom, in the 1K range this time, after less than ten hits in Maple:

And here is a factory Randall Model 12, after doing the same thing a hundred times over, with identical geometry, but maybe only four times over after the last touch up (as you can see, it was really just about to give up):

So yeah, my observation is Maple wood is really tough on some custom steels...

Gaston

 

[Cobalt]

Gaston, if that is S30V and it folded over like that, then I am betting it was HT'd very soft. What is the edge angle?

 

[noob93]

That's what a 2K custom by a top maker in S30V looked like after about four chops: You can see the gap where that mean nasty wood did not have a chance to micro-curl the edge instantly (I deliberately kept that area from hitting wood, just to see the difference):

I attribute this to the CPM process. I've never seen a factory knife do this, not even the $100 fairly thin-edged Bk-9 I so disliked (for other reasons)...

This is another high-end custom in CPM 154cm, about the $600 range:

This is a Lile after doing twice as much work on the same Maple branch (yes, this is good, and it looks less used due to the Cerakoat):

This is yet another $700 custom after less than 30 hits in some soft wood that left many other factory knives totally unimpressed:

Here is one more high end custom, in the 1K range this time, after less than ten hits in Maple:

And here is a factory Randall Model 12, after doing the same thing a hundred times over, with identical geometry, but maybe only four times over after the last touch up (as you can see, it was really just about to give up):

So yeah, my observation is Maple wood is really tough on some custom steels...

Gaston

I would have been pissed if that was me... Wer they all s30 and did you contact any of the makers?

 

[Justin Schmidt]

Why would you chop maple with a 2k knife? To each their own I guess.

OP if custom makers are selling knives they either have their HT dialed in by following strict recipe that's been proven or they pay a pretty penny to have them sentry off for companies that specialize in HT. Paul bos, peters heat resistant
Treat, etc. So MOST of the time if you buy custom there shouldn't be any problem with HT what so ever there's really no excuse.

 

[noob93]

Why would you chop maple with a 2k knife? To each their own I guess.

OP if custom makers are selling knives they either have their HT dialed in by following strict recipe that's been proven or they pay a pretty penny to have them sentry off for companies that specialize in HT. Paul bos, peters heat resistant
Treat, etc. So MOST of the time if you buy custom there shouldn't be any problem with HT what so ever there's really no excuse.

I kind of figured that but seeing the last post made me think pretty hard about thst. Although one if the knives from what I could see looked like a first blood knockoff. If I payed that much for a knife and that happened it would be going back... No if ands or buts about it

 

[pubert]

Why would you chop maple with a 2k knife? To each their own I guess.

Just curious, why wouldn't you? Or is a 2k knife generally just "Knife Art"? If it is "Knife Art" why would the heat treatment matter anyway?

 

[spyken]

one of the knives looks like a Blackbird/Raven. I think it would be good to let the maker know.

 

[Sirryacus]

00000

 

[Justin Schmidt]

My thinking is why drop 2G on a KNIFE to use it as an axe. Yes knives CAN chop would but they soul purpose is to cut and slice. I can buy a Ferrari and take it mudding. Probably not going to go well. But would I be pissed because I paid 100k for something and it didn't do what it wasn't built to do? No.
Basically knives cut, if you wanna abuse and chop and beat a knife don't buy the Ferrari buy the Honda

 

[The Mastiff]

My eyes aren't calibrated well enough to be able to tewll the geometry angle and thickness on those edges. All steel will meet it's match at the right combination of thin/wrong angle on whatever it's cutting. I find it strange that one would pay to have a custom made with a usable edge on it ( compared to OTC rambo knives) and then destroy the edge on wood while leaving the saw blade untouched. We have different ideas about knife use, to be sure.

I'll go with Phil Wilson on Customs. Big Chris, where ever he gets his work done heat treating is excellent. Moki does great VG10 and Aus8. Spyderco generally does really well getting the best out of a knife blade of manufactured knives done in large batches. Buck is excellent as well. Mcusta, whoever makes their stuff, has impressed me with their VG10. Busse likewise does everything well including heat treat. There are lots of other good ones out there.

 

[noob93]

My eyes aren't calibrated well enough to be able to tewll the geometry angle and thickness on those edges. All steel will meet it's match at the right combination of thin/wrong angle on whatever it's cutting. I find it strange that one would pay to have a custom made with a usable edge on it ( compared to OTC rambo knives) and then destroy the edge on wood while leaving the saw blade untouched. We have different ideas about knife use, to be sure.

I'll go with Phil Wilson on Customs. Big Chris, where ever he gets his work done heat treating is excellent. Moki does great VG10 and Aus8. Spyderco generally does really well getting the best out of a knife blade of manufactured knives done in large batches. Buck is excellent as well. Mcusta, whoever makes their stuff, has impressed me with their VG10. Busse likewise does everything well including heat treat. There are lots of other good ones out there.

I have to say iv chopped wood with a meyerco terzuola cqb in 154cm with a 40 degree inclusive edge. There was absolutely no damage at all and to further test it I found an old garbage can made of soft metal and wacked it a few times. Still no damage at all... Now I payed 140 for that knife and it scares me to think our friend here has spent thousands only to ruin the edge doing less abusive stuff then me with a 140 dollar knife. I usually don't use knives in such a manor but people kept telling me the steel was brittle so curiosity prevailed and the knife was a okay

 

[Cobalt]

I have to say iv chopped wood with a meyerco terzuola cqb in 154cm with a 40 degree inclusive edge. There was absolutely no damage at all and to further test it I found an old garbage can made of soft metal and wacked it a few times. Still no damage at all... Now I payed 140 for that knife and it scares me to think our friend here has spent thousands only to ruin the edge doing less abusive stuff then me with a 140 dollar knife. I usually don't use knives in such a manor but people kept telling me the steel was brittle so curiosity prevailed and the knife was a okay

154cm which is the same as ATS34 is actually a fairly tough steel. I have used an ATS34 fixed blade hard and it held up way better than all my S30V blades ever did. Edge angle is very important as the mastiff stated. It matters as much as proper HT to reduce damage.

 

[DeadboxHero]

That's what a 2K custom by a top maker in S30V looked like after about four chops: You can see the gap where that mean nasty wood did not have a chance to micro-curl the edge instantly (I deliberately kept that area from hitting wood, just to see the difference):

I attribute this to the CPM process. I've never seen a factory knife do this, not even the $100 fairly thin-edged Bk-9 I so disliked (for other reasons)...

This is another high-end custom in CPM 154cm, about the $600 range:

This is a Lile after doing twice as much work on the same Maple branch (yes, this is good, and it looks less used due to the Cerakoat):

This is yet another $700 custom after less than 30 hits in some soft wood that left many other factory knives totally unimpressed:

Here is one more high end custom, in the 1K range this time, after less than ten hits in Maple:

And here is a factory Randall Model 12, after doing the same thing a hundred times over, with identical geometry, but maybe only four times over after the last touch up (as you can see, it was really just about to give up):

So yeah, my observation is Maple wood is really tough on some custom steels...

Gaston

Here is a $160 axe in 5160



Here is the edge after cutting a tree in half

 

[noob93]

154cm which is the same as ATS34 is actually a fairly tough steel. I have used an ATS34 fixed blade hard and it held up way better than all my S30V blades ever did. Edge angle is very important as the mastiff stated. It matters as much as proper HT to reduce damage.

Yes 154cm I found to be far from brittle yet they do claim s30v is a tougher steel by a good margin. It would be nice to see a test comparing the 2