Ranking of Steels in Categories based on Edge Retention cutting 5/8" rope

You're gonna get repetitive-stress injuries with this one
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Not Jim. He has done longer endurance tests with customs. Maybe that's why his arms look like Popeyes. :)

Still, that is a pretty darn impressive number of cuts.

Joe
 
Great work Jim! I was getting tired of being the only one trying to put K390 through its paces :) It's a great steel and survives alot of abuse even at 64rc
 
I would be very curious to see where a cheap Boker ceramic knife would fall.

Also, would love to see a Stellite 6K test or maybe some Dendritic Cobalt from David Boye. Beta Ti would be cool, as would some Ti with a carbide edge.

The Stellite and Cobalt stuff may be harder to get.

Steel is old news. Bow to my ultra fragile ceramics!
 
JNewell said:
I think Cat 1's M390 Mule should be K390p Mule? :confused: :)
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The coarse edges are here, didn't test the K390 yet with a polished edge.

K390 - 820 - Mule - 62-64 RC
S90V - 460 - Military - 60 RC
CTS 204P - 420 - Para 2
M390 - 380 - Military - 61 RC
S30V - 300 - Military - 60 RC
CTS-XHP - 240 - Military - 60.5 RC
CTS-B75P - 240 - Mule
Dozier D2 - 220 - Dozier K2
ELMAX - 220 - Mule - 58.5 RC
VG-10 - 160 - Stretch
AUS-8A - 160 - Recon 1
 
singularity35 said:
Is the K390 mule even at 50% of the customs?
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Well, Phil's Customs are a lot thinner behind the edge than the K390 Mule is at .025" so that really factors into it a lot, then design and his HT methods on top of that.

Not really fair to compare his knives to a production blade.

I would guess that if a custom was the same thickness behind the edge as the Mule and around the same hardness they would be very close to the same performance.
 
The Mastiff said:
Not Jim. He has done longer endurance tests with customs. Maybe that's why his arms look like Popeyes. :)

Still, that is a pretty darn impressive number of cuts.

Joe
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Joe,

Yes I was impressed with how it performed, it did extremely well. :)

Jim

capid1 said:
Great work Jim! I was getting tired of being the only one trying to put K390 through its paces :) It's a great steel and survives alot of abuse even at 64rc
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Yes it's a good steel, didn't suffer too much edge damage either, impressive.
 
Ankerson said:
Well, Phil's Customs are a lot thinner behind the edge than the K390 Mule is at .025" so that really factors into it a lot, then design and his HT methods on top of that.

Not really fair to compare his knives to a production blade.

I would guess that if a custom was the same thickness behind the edge as the Mule and around the same hardness they would be very close to the same performance.
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I understand that Jim, I was just wondering how much of difference there was.
 
Ankerson said:
I have tested:

10V (64.5)

K294 (64)

S110V (63.5)

S110V (65)

All Phil Wilson Customs....

Once we get into this level of edge retention, and it's very high one is really splitting hairs.

Nothing beats K294 and CPM 10V that I have seen yet.

The closest thing that I have personally tested was S110V at high hardness.

Phil Wilson says K390 is very close to K294 from his testing.

This Phil Wilson Custom Bow River in K294 at 64 HRC made 1,800 slicing cuts through 5/8" Manila rope and it would still slice printer paper clean, K294 is an extremely aggressive cutter.
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I found this on this thread. It blew me away when compared to the likes of S90V. By this course, the K390 Mule did about half as well as the 10V custom, though it was probably even less since the Mule had a coarse edge and I assume the Custom had been taken to a higher grit. I doubt the performance loss lies in the steel, but rather the geometry as Jim has stated.
 
Ankerson said:
The coarse edges are here, didn't test the K390 yet with a polished edge.

K390 - 820 - Mule - 62-64 RC
S90V - 460 - Military - 60 RC
CTS 204P - 420 - Para 2
M390 - 380 - Military - 61 RC
S30V - 300 - Military - 60 RC
CTS-XHP - 240 - Military - 60.5 RC
CTS-B75P - 240 - Mule
Dozier D2 - 220 - Dozier K2
ELMAX - 220 - Mule - 58.5 RC
VG-10 - 160 - Stretch
AUS-8A - 160 - Recon 1
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Thanks...that's insane... :eek: :thumbup:
 
cm_bushman said:
I found this on this thread. It blew me away when compared to the likes of S90V. By this course, the K390 Mule did about half as well as the 10V custom, though it was probably even less since the Mule had a coarse edge and I assume the Custom had been taken to a higher grit. I doubt the performance loss lies in the steel, but rather the geometry as Jim has stated.
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They where sharpened to the same edge finish..

The differences where the K294 blade was a lot thinner behind the edge at .010" and 10 Degrees per side vs .025" and 15 Degrees per side, and K294 was at 64 RC, not sure yet what the Mule is and then the difference between K294 and K390.
 
TriviaMonster said:
I would be very curious to see where a cheap Boker ceramic knife would fall.

Also, would love to see a Stellite 6K test or maybe some Dendritic Cobalt from David Boye. Beta Ti would be cool, as would some Ti with a carbide edge.

The Stellite and Cobalt stuff may be harder to get.

Steel is old news. Bow to my ultra fragile ceramics!
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Any thoughts on the materials I mentioned Jim? Will ceramic chip out on the dirty rope? The ceramic and Ti with carbide edge blades are the ones I am most curious about.
 
WorkingEdge said:
How would this K390 Mule compare to the Spyderco Southfork or is this still not a fair comparison?
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Since the two have similar behind the edge geometry from the factory , K390 is an A11 grade steel so if leaves S90v behind due to more hardness and wear resistance.
 
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