ProCut, new steel, it’s a good one 👍

There is so much talk about edge holding that the expectation exceeds the performance with all steel alloys.

Keep your expectations low and you won’t be disappointed.

There are steels that hold an edge longer but they don’t always make me happy.

I tend to like the simple steels. I need to make a knife out of ProCut for my personal use. So far the pattern welded material that I’ve made is very impressive.

Hoss
 
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I usually just search knifesteelnerds and then whatever steel I want to learn about or topic. It's more of a blog format where it's the newest articles first, so sometimes the gems are tucked away a few pages in!
 
C_Claycomb said:
😣DOH!
Thank you Larrin!
Does your collection of articles have an index page? Think I have always just followed links from your posts here, not tried to find past articles.
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The only index is the home page. I used to have a “Getting started” page but it got too big. There are 181 published articles. The buttons at the top include links to the two books, the introduction to heat treating article, and the knife steel ratings article. The knife steel ratings article has CATRA data in it and the link to the main CATRA article.
 
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DevinT said:
There is so much talk about edge holding that the expectation exceeds the performance with all steel alloys.

Keep your expectations low and you won’t be disappointed.

There are steels that hold an edge longer but they don’t always make me happy.

I tend to like the simple steels. I need to make a knife out of ProCut for my personal use. So far the pattern welded material that I’ve made is very impressive.

Hoss
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This is an excellent point that I wish more people understood.
 
I agree that far too much time is wasted on worry over edge holding. I put it in the same category as all the talk about TBE.

I'll add my comments on edge holding:
Edge holding is a factor of several things ... it is not one thing.
Edge holding is determined by hardness, toughness, and geometry.
Edge holding is determined by the intended use of the knife. There is no one set of parameters that give every knife perfect edge holding. The parameters vary depending on use.
Each of those parameters can shift edge holding up or down. It is the proper blend that gets the best edge holding for the use of the knife.
 
Thanks, Stacy, and I will add (more correctly reiterate) that "edge holding" or "edge retention" is WAY WAY too often used when the correct term is "wear resistance".

Edge retention is a factor based upon many things, not just the carbide type and volume.
 
I am almost regretting asking my question with the words “edge retention”! 😳😄
What I meant was “wear resistance”, but the section on Larrin’s article was titled “Edge Retention” as were the axes of the graphs I was looking for. The two heat treatments are described as one being better for toughness, and one for max edge retention.

Most of what I want an outdoors knife to do is cut wood, so low angle edge stability is very important, much more so than abrasion resistance. With AEBL being so good at toughness it seems reasonable to be curious how it compares to both HT versions of ProCut. If I have two knives of identical geometry for sale, one in each steel, I wanted to know what to tell a potential buyer. If the difference is “well this one will rust, but I was able to treat it in my home forge and the other will resist rust but I have to send it away”…I would probably just keep quiet! 😁
 
C_Claycomb said:
well this one will rust
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Just carry one for personal use, upon which you have curated a viciously beautiful patina. That can be your marketing for carbon steel blades to the uninitiated masses. Along with a little "how to care for" card, of course.
 
I bought some procut last night. I am most excited about this steel being "easy to heat treat". I am still a long way off from being able to purchase an oven, so this steel offers me the ability to heat treat well in a PID controlled forge.

Thank you Larrin for considering the knife maker like myself in the engineering of Procut.
 
How stable has it been in heat treat?

Previously I kept looser holes for my screws, but in this batch, I tightened them to about .005" clearance .

I'd think only tenths would change?
 
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