maybe I'm blind, question about sr-101

DWRW said:
I will just go along with your math.
But, a purchase of 10 years worth of steel is still a huge commitment.
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First off, I'll admit that I don't know much about various steels, concerning their compositions, etc. My experience with different steels has just been seeing how long an edge has lasted on different knives I've carried over the years. Anyhow, pertaining to the quote above, I'm not sure purchasing 10 years worth of steel is such a huge commitment. To me it sounds more like a sound investment. Especially with the way steel prices have been going up over the past few years. Better to buy a large quantity now at a cheaper price, than have to deal with price increases each year.
 
DWRW said:
I will just go along with your math.
But, a purchase of 10 years worth of steel is still a huge commitment.

.
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it is, but the company has enough of a market that I don't think there was ever any chance of them failing as a bussiness.

and they might have purchased it as a back up stock for later knives. also, they may have purchased it to turn around and sell in smaller quantities at a higher price, helping them get a better financial foot hold (???)
 
I think that the elemental analysis of INFI has proven many times in the past so I know there is no need to discuss it now.

The information I have from SR101 is from other sources. However lets begin with the term "modified" as has already been stated it doesn't just imply a different steel it basically tells you that it is a slightly different steel. Just like Johanings modified A8 is not A8 steel, but a derivation thereof. I got info on SR101 from another source and that source indicated that it had more of one element and that was Chromium. Do I know for sure or has Busse verified this? no. So this is what I have learned from other sources. Do you want to know who the source is? Well, it is another knifemaker, a well respected one. There are several people here who know who that person is and if they wanted to they could state who. I see no need.

As for SR77, this is again a modified steel. Think about the qualities that are lacking in S7 and then what would you add to make it better. S7 has low wear resistance and does not harden very high, hence it's toughness and I already presume Busse likes to add Chromium to things, so I would bet he upped chromium by a few points on this one and increased carbon by a hair, now I have no proof of this one and is just my supposition. I know for sure he did change the chemical composition though as it is a modified steel.

In fact the only steels that he did not change were ATS34, D2 and A2 and he never mentioned modified when he spoke of those.

elemental composition of sr101 and sr77 is easy enough to proove to anyone who wants to spend the money to analyze the steel as was done by a forum member 8 years ago for INFI.

So, in the end we are still in the dark until someone does indeed test these steels. I would be interested in knowing what sr77 is
 
that certainly is a very well respected knife maker.

the pervading feeling across the families boards is that any in depth discussion about any secret that is not specifically divulged is essentially bad for business, and off limits in a moral sense. and on some levels I would agree with that, especially under certain "types" of discussion.


the reason I ask this question specifically in its own thread in this detailed manner is because there was not a defined understanding of whether or not sr101 and s77 are their parent steels, or compositionally changed from their parent steels. while searching for info for this thread, I only found 2 opinions stating differently from the idea that they are simple 52100 and s7 with an in house heat treat, one from cliff and one from cobalt. having the steels themselves be different from 52100 and s7 is a fairly huge delineation. if they are the parent steels with a specific heat treat, anyone, any company could reproduce it if they understood the heat treating process.

however, if they are company specific steels that are modified specifically for that company, you would be unable to find that particular steel anywhere else on earth.


generally when searching deep, or when watching other people searching deep for specific answer regarding anything about the three companies, I get a feeling of "don't ask.", which is fine. I don't believe that determining whether or not a steel is a generic formula or modified with a level of credible certainty would hurt, hinder, or endanger the companies in any way shape or form, business wise, personally, or company secret wise....


but I could be wrong. I'm not one to rattle cages if I know they are being rattled.


I was just seeing if anything had actually been posted on the subject clarifying it before.
 
honestly, I do not think chemical compositions for both SR's are to secretive as anyone can determine what they are at any time. The HT is the secret part to those steels.

both steels are very close to the parent steels with only slight mods to their compositions. However, as there is no trademark, anyone can copy the steels formula if they can get a mill to produce it for them.
 
If Busse bought 45000 pounds of high end blade steel at 1990's prices he made a crapload of cash even if he did not make any knives. The price of good steel has been skyrocketing ,if you can get it so I hope they bought and are buying lots of it.

My guess as for the difference between Sr101 and 52100 is that the Busse kin do some sort of process in house that changes the chemical structure slightly accounting for the change in name. Whether this is some type of cryo treatment ,or chemical reaction I don't know but I doubt they would ust rename it as some type of Cold Steal type gimmik.

Blue label whiskey aside these guys are no dummies. They would have kept up with all the metallurgical research coming out that could make a better blade. Maybe the Busse heat treatment process is an adaption of some US military research that got declassified at the end of the cold war? It sounds far fetched but both D2 and 440C(the first super stainless) were the result of military research into high strength steel.
 
Unsub said:
If Busse bought 45000 pounds of high end blade steel at 1990's prices he made a crapload of cash even if he did not make any knives. The price of good steel has been skyrocketing ,if you can get it so I hope they bought and are buying lots of it.

My guess as for the difference between Sr101 and 52100 is that the Busse kin do some sort of process in house that changes the chemical structure slightly accounting for the change in name. Whether this is some type of cryo treatment ,or chemical reaction I don't know but I doubt they would ust rename it as some type of Cold Steal type gimmik.

Blue label whiskey aside these guys are no dummies. They would have kept up with all the metallurgical research coming out that could make a better blade. Maybe the Busse heat treatment process is an adaption of some US military research that got declassified at the end of the cold war? It sounds far fetched but both D2 and 440C(the first super stainless) were the result of military research into high strength steel.
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any chemical reaction they would do the steel would likely only be a surface treatment, as it would be difficult to ad a chemical throughout the steel matrix without resmelting the steel.

lol, I always assumed the military would take their heat treat developement cues from busse :rolleyes::p:thumbup:
 
Could it be the old D2 was from someone else's cancelled or unpaid order, sold at a bargain? Could it be INFI is used elsewhere under a different designation and Busse gets added into the big batch? Pratt & Whitney doesn't care what their steel designations are so long as they are accurately alloyed. There are many possibilities beyond custom smelts. Just a thought.:) regards, ss.
 
straitshot said:
Could it be INFI is used elsewhere under a different designation and Busse gets added into the big batch?
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I think jerry has rights to the infi as a smelted steel, chemical composition wise...

also if the spectral analysis is correct, no other commonly known or used steel has that exact composition.
 
LVC- Agreed. I mention it because the lack of specifics seems to invite harmless speculation. For example, I seem to recall an old Busse web site that read "when Jerry discovered Infi" which I took to mean it already existed. But, people sometimes substitute "discovered" for "invented". SR 101 and S77 are just a little mysterious as well, helping to keep our hobbies interesting and them in business- a good combination. I'm not nearly so curious about Tru Sharp, Schrade+ or other masked designations.:) Regards, ss.
 
DWRW said:
[...] Most of the Germans are very vague and indiscript about what steel they are providing. But, it seems to me the Germans were and still are having problems with that as many people are just generally associating all German steels as lesser steels these days - since it is hard to differentiate most German steels - You never really know what you are getting. [...]
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Huh? FYI, there is nothing more precise than the good old Stahlschlüssel. Stahlschlüssel - since 1951 the publisher of the worldwide unique cross reference manual Stahlschlüssel (Key to Steel), well-known to everyone dealing with steel. Available as book or on CD-ROM (material database including search program for Windows) ready to decipher the steels of the world. You can even enter INFI's composition and find very similar alloys ... (Link to Stahlschlüssel) :)

Cheers,
mark23
 
Fallkniven experimented with INFI in the past but did not like the results. My guess is it had more to do with machining and manufacturing difficulties than performance issues. It could also be difficult to get a supply in Japan or Scandinavia.

I like Cobalt's theory about adding chromium or carbon to S7 because I recently put a very fine edge on my YKLE and it took a LONG time to remove the steel even with a coarse diamond hone. Much longer than I would have expected from S7.
 
Unsub said:
Fallkniven experimented with INFI in the past but did not like the results. My guess is it had more to do with machining and manufacturing difficulties than performance issues. It could also be difficult to get a supply in Japan or Scandinavia.

I like Cobalt's theory about adding chromium or carbon to S7 because I recently put a very fine edge on my YKLE and it took a LONG time to remove the steel even with a coarse diamond hone. Much longer than I would have expected from S7.
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http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4679887&postcount=73

thats jerry's response to that claim about falkniven. It has been constantly hinted and stated that busse combat has either a patent or a copyright on infi, but I don't know the specifics of that. when I went looking for a post specifically stating that infi has a patent on its steel formula, i couldn't find one.

still, it is questionably how falkniven got the infi, and how they tested it. it has always been my understanding that you can't get a supply of infi anywhere because it is proprietary to busse combat. so the idea of them wanting to distribute it was either a very misguided assumption on their part, or a break down in communication where he said something he didn't mean to say.

It is also questionable as to what he meant by bending stength. were the using a factory production model knife from busse combat made from infi? did they have someone manifacture the formula for infi and try to heat treat it themselves? did they grind down a factory model to be very thin, and compare it to vg10 in very thin cross sections?

there are far to many questions about Peter Hortberger's response to take anything away from it. to do that, I would first have to have answers to the questions:
"where did you get the infi?"
"was it heat treated by busse, or you?"
"what cross sections were you comparing during your bending test?"
 
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