My experience with S35VN (lrg Insingo)

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Corpus

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Discovered recently a bit of controversy surrounding Crucible's S35VN steel, and CR's heat treatment of said steel. Since I recently purchased a lrg Insingo in S35VN, that had me a bit worried. But like all people of free will and open minded thinking. I decided to see for myself if this steel was, to put it frankly - craptacular, or was (hopefully) an ok steel for my needs. This was all spur of the moment, not something I planned to document, was basically for my own peace of mind.

But after a bit of cutting cardboard, I felt compelled to post my personal experiences using CR's S35VN....

Test consisted of a medium large 24" L x 16" W x 10" H sized shipping box from a past order.

The Insingo edge was basically factory + sharpmaker touch up. In other words, able to shave arm hair nicely.

Aftermath of cutting the box:
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I sliced printer paper to see if it was still sharp. It did fine, however, there was a very small, I guess you could call it a micro burr, that could be felt but not seen. I've had M390 steel, S30V, 440C, 1095, 154CM, and 12c27 - all those steels, as soon as I did any semi-aggressive cutting - cardboard, wood, or whatever I was cutting at the time - they all lost their initial super sharpness after relatively brief use. The CR Insingo seemed no different, at least in that regard. To me, the important factor was the Insingo still retained a very sharp working edge.
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I decided to see how well the working edge held up after another box. If it would still be able to slice paper cleanly.
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I was able to cut this much (about half the box) before it wasn't cutting as smoothly.
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After that I tried to slice some printer paper. As you can see it no longer sliced cleanly, ripping the paper a bit.
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The edge was still plenty sharp enough to work with, it never dulled completely. In fact, I was able to restore the edge to hair popping sharpness in a matter of seconds. 12/13 strokes on the Sharpmaker was all it took. Isn't that something people celebrate on a premium steel ? How easy/quickly it was to restore a razor edge ?

All in all, I wouldn't say I'm ecstatic with S35VN. But I am pretty content with it's performance. I mean, it did cut quite a bit of CB before it no longer cleanly sliced paper.
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I like your basic testing style.
I don't need to know how many inches and things were cut.
You proved that it works good enough for you, and spent the time to document and let us know.
I appreciate it.
Thanks!
 
Good test IMO.

I think your results are about right :thumbup:

Knives get blunt after use and they need sharpening :)
 
I'd like that steel if it didn't burr after cutting the cardboard but for a non "hard use" knife, I'd say it did a respectable job. Just remember to bring your dia-fold or double stuff if you carry on a camping, canoeing, rafting excursion. But in all fairness, I'd be doing that with any knife I carried in such a situation - even a fixed blade.

Thanks for sharing your test result. :thumbup:
 
Good news. I love my large insingo with S35VN. I agree it is not a miracle steel, but it does hold up well and is worth it.
 
After reading statements 154CM had better edge retention than S35VN, I did a little cutting comparison.

I cut the remaining 4 pieces of cardboard from the what I had left from the Insingo test using my Spyderco Manix 2 (in 154CM). I keep the Manix 2 VERY sharp. It was much sharper than the Insingo was. However, thicker bevel than the Insingo.

Pile on right is the 4 leftover pieces from the Insingo test. Left side pile is from a large box my RC order came in. The first 4 pieces noticeably dulled the Manix2's edge. It would cut paper ok, but also ripped it on some cuts. No detectable burr. Lost it's ability to shave arm hair.
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As you can see, thicker box panels. Only took the one flap off. All I needed. The Manix 2 gassed pretty bad.
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Here you can see the Manix dulled enough that it was actually ripping the thicker cb.
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Paper cut test after all the CB cutting. Did not bode well.
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I love my Manix 2 hollow ground 154CM folder, but there's no way it's on par with my Insingo's S35VN, not even close. It lost it's razor edge really fast. Also, it's edge was worse off than the Insingo was at the end of the test. I suppose one could argue that the Manix 2 was at a disadvantage due to the thicker panels from the second box. But honestly, it never really lasted long enough for that to be a factor, imo.
 
Corpus - just to confirm we weren't comparing 154cm on the last page of the thread that I believe got you started second guessing your blade steel, but CPM154 which is not the same steel.

Check out Ankerson's steel ranking tables and you'll see that he ranks 154cm below the S30V and S30VN so your conclusions pretty well bear out what his test have found as well. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...based-on-Edge-Retention-cutting-5-8-quot-rope ;)

Your tests are pretty much in line with what others have been experiencing for S35VN and 154cm. Thanks for sharing - you've got some sharpening to do now buddy! :D :thumbup:
 
cziv said:
Corpus - just to confirm we weren't comparing 154cm on the last page of the thread that I believe got you started second guessing your blade steel, but CPM154 which is not the same steel.

Check out Ankerson's steel ranking tables and you'll see that he ranks 154cm below the S30V and S30VN so your conclusions pretty well bear out what his test have found as well. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...based-on-Edge-Retention-cutting-5-8-quot-rope ;)

Your tests are pretty much in line with what others have been experiencing for S35VN and 154cm. Thanks for sharing - you've got some sharpening to do now buddy! :D :thumbup:
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First of all, Thanks :) And yeah I know CPM-54 is different :) Part of that test was inspired by Tsujigiri's comment about 154cm, also reading how some were saying 420HC held a better edge than S35VM. Surely Hitachi's 154CM ranks better than 420HC ? All my testings, which are far from professional. Only meant to demonstrate the perspective of the user, not a lab analyst. All I wanted to know was, how the steel worked for me. I'm now feeling it's no worse than S30v, in comparison to my HTM knife. My reason being - Before I went to bed, I sliced some of that double thick cardboard using my HTM Gun Hammer (s30v). It lost it's razor edge pretty fast and had a difficult time slicing paper at all. This was after one 23.5 L x 5" W x 1/4" thick flap and 1 1/2 10.5" x 5" x 1/4" flaps taken from the box. However, I have not tried the Insingo on this particular material so I could be misguided in my opinion. I still have the bottom flaps and sides of this cb to work with, so I'm going to see how the Insingo does on it.

Edit: Just dulled my Insingo again. This is some nasty ass cb. In my experience, the Insingo fared no worse than the HTM's S30V did on this stuff. I cut 3 flaps total. One long piece and 2 short (same dimensions above). Insingo cuts the paper just as poorly as the HTM did after it's test. I also tested the Insingo's edge after each flap. All this means to me is that I don't see any issue with CR's HT on my Insingo. No problem here.
 
Corpus said:
First of all, Thanks :) And yeah I know CPM-54 is different :) Part of that test was inspired by Tsujigiri's comment about 154cm, also reading how some were saying 420HC held a better edge than S35VM. Surely Hitachi's 154CM ranks better than 420HC ? All my testings, which are far from professional. Only meant to demonstrate the perspective of the user, not a lab analyst. All I wanted to know was, how the steel worked for me. I'm now feeling it's no worse than S30v, in comparison to my HTM knife. My reason being - Before I went to bed, I sliced some of that double thick cardboard using my HTM Gun Hammer (s30v). It lost it's razor edge pretty fast and had a difficult time slicing paper at all. This was after one 23.5 L x 5" W x 1/4" thick flap and 1 1/2 10.5" x 5" x 1/4" flaps taken from the box. However, I have not tried the Insingo on this particular material so I could be misguided in my opinion. I still have the bottom flaps and sides of this cb to work with, so I'm going to see how the Insingo does on it.

Edit: Just dulled my Insingo again. This is some nasty ass cb. In my experience, the Insingo fared no worse than the HTM's S30V did on this stuff. I cut 3 flaps total. One long piece and 2 short (same dimensions above). Insingo cuts the paper just as poorly as the HTM did after it's test. I also tested the Insingo's edge after each flap. All this means to me is that I don't see any issue with CR's HT on my Insingo. No problem here.
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Unfortunately the generalization of this statement (i.e., there's nothing wrong with S35vn's HT) your test alone can't support, since your test won't affect the edge the same way as CTS's. (Of course if that's the only way you use your Insingo, there's no reason to try anything else.) The issue in CTS's test was not that it dulled faster than S30v, it was the way it dulled--with a huge section of the edge bending over. Running a knife through cardboard won't replicate that problem so can't refute it. All this is to say your test and CTS's combine to show S35vn is perfectly fine in some cutting (as you show, cardboard) but fails utterly in others; that's why multiple tests are important and appreciated :D so thanks for doing it!
 
kreole said:
Unfortunately the generalization of this statement (i.e., there's nothing wrong with S35vn's HT) your test alone can't support, since your test won't affect the edge the same way as CTS's. (Of course if that's the only way you use your Insingo, there's no reason to try anything else.) The issue in CTS's test was not that it dulled faster than S30v, it was the way it dulled--with a huge section of the edge bending over. Running a knife through cardboard won't replicate that problem so can't refute it. All this is to say your test and CTS's combine to show S35vn is perfectly fine in some cutting (as you show, cardboard) but fails utterly in others; that's why multiple tests are important and appreciated :D so thanks for doing it!
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I hear ya. I should have phrased it, "no problem with the HT thus far, or cutting cardboard" I'll be on the lookout for some harder material. Hardwood maybe. See if that warps my edge. Only hardwood at hand is my Lee Valley strop handle made of maple. Yes I did cut into the bottom with my Insingo a few times to see if it warped the edge. It did not. Meaningless ? Probably :)

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Thanks for the thread. I also did similar cuts with my Sm Insingo the other day along with some other cutting tasks to see how my knife did. My results were very similar, but there's no doubting the sisal cut test caused some serious damage to CTS's knife. My take is that knife should be sent back before anyone can draw any more conclusions. I also think there has to be a lot more "user time" with this fairly new steel before we can say it's great/poor/other...

In my opinion, I feel these sorts of tests can be valuable to a point, but they need to be taken with a grain of salt. My reasoning is that my real life experiences might go fully against someone's test(s) or experience(s). For me, extended time spent using a particular product will give the user all the info they will ever need. I've been carrying(using) some flavour of CRK folder since early 2006 about 90% of the time, eventhough I've had knives from other very popular makers/companies during this time. To this point, the CRKs meet my needs better than anything else I've tried. It doesn't mean they're better, just better for me.

Hopefully, S35VN will stand the test of time and any issues will get sorted out.
 
Maybe a test like this one, this is S30V.

[youtube]DJ6IiVGGNmg[/youtube]
 
You said in the comment part that you had an S35VN zaan coming (5 months ago) - did you perform the same tests as the above vid ? Curious to know.
 
Corpus said:
You said in the comment part that you had an S35VN zaan coming (5 months ago) - did you perform the same tests as the above vid ? Curious to know.
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No, I didn't get one of them, don't want anything to do with S35VN in anymore knives until it's been around longer and I am certainly not going to pay $400+ for one until the issues have been sorted out.

I really use my knives so I need something that will hold up, not going to roll the dice on it.

Now if CRK wants to send me one to test then OK I will test it out and see what happens.
 
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Ankerson said:
Maybe a test like this one, this is S30V.
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Jim, that was an extreme test for a quality EDC folder. You really tore it up man with that Umni. :thumbup:

I got quite a chuckle when you got your blade gummed up with glue - always happens to me when slicing cardboard too. "I'll get rid of that glue" and proceed to whittle down on that big stick to get it off. :D

You proved what a great working edge S30V maintains afterward by slicing up more rope & cardboard. As far as it losing the edge that sings through paper at that point well that's S30V.

I think it's important for anyone who "doesn't know it," that kind of edge is extremely, crazy, sharp and though nice to have, the working edge you developed won't slow you down from performing EDC duties. Nice job!
 
cziv said:
Jim, that was an extreme test for a quality EDC folder. You really tore it up man with that Umni. :thumbup:

I got quite a chuckle when you got your blade gummed up with glue - always happens to me when slicing cardboard too. "I'll get rid of that glue" and proceed to whittle down on that big stick to get it off. :D

You proved what a great working edge S30V maintains afterward by slicing up more rope & cardboard. As far as it losing the edge that sings through paper at that point well that's S30V.

I think it's important for anyone who "doesn't know it," that kind of edge is extremely, crazy, sharp and though nice to have, the working edge you developed won't slow you down from performing EDC duties. Nice job!
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I really just love that knife, the performance is great and I am using that knife at work and it's just working awesome. :thumbup:

I have 2 of them. both S30V and I am keeping them.

I had that blade HRC tested and it came back at 59.5 HRC.

S30V is really one of the better EDC steels for real work from my experiences with it and other steels, I just strop it about once a week on SIC and it just keeps on cutting and I cut a lot of cardboard, some of it very tough and abrasive too.
 
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Ankerson said:
I really just love that knife, the performance is great and I am using that knife at work and it's just working awesome. :thumbup:

I have 2 of them. both S30V and I am keeping them.

I had that blade HRC tested and it came back at 59.5 HRC.

S30V is really one of the better EDC steels for real work from my experiences with it and other steels, I just strop it about once a week on SIC and it just keeps on cutting and I cut a lot of cardboard, some of it very tough and abrasive too.
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I so wish that I had bought my CRKs when they were still S30V.

Oh well, live and learn.
 
CrimsonTideShooter said:
I so wish that I had bought my CRKs when they were still S30V.

Oh well, live and learn.
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I am sure that CRK will get S35VN worked out before too long. :)

Yeah I got lucky and got some of the last ones in S30V they made, and they were run harder than usual. :D
 
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