s30v

[Cliff Stamp]

Was that 20° on a side?

Yes, per side.

I do not agree with Cliff about 440a being better in edge holding than 440c ...

As I said, I never said that, that statement is undefined. I stated 440A has better edge stability than 440C. This will mean it has better edge holding in certain applications, specifically it will hold a high polish at lower angles for longer.

The general point I'm trying to make is that S30v is hard to heat treat and it's even harder to get it right to make it tough enough for a large chopper.

This is a line of hype propogated to respond to the complaints. The reality is that the steel was designed and promoted for EASE of heat treatment and toughness, specifically compared to 440C.

Now if I remember correctly from the micrographs I've seen posted, ATS34 has far bigger carbides than S30V. So if ATS34 is good at 30° inclusive, S30V should be also.

It depends on the carbide volume as well as CATRA tests generally take blunting to such an extent that they favor wear resistance over edge stability. They are also not well correlated to cutting by people as has been known in Germany for over 50 years.

could this be the reason why S30v is getting so much negative reports...?

No, the main reason is that it was overhyped far past its actual ability.

-Cliff

 

[zenheretic]

Zenheretic,

And I am unaware of any blades, especially those that chip/crak, that are permanent, though my old Gerber's hard chromium plating was as good as when I boought it some ten years down the track, and it saw plenty of use.

S30V chips and cracks? That is hype perpetuated by a few internet armchair knifemakers. I'd bet there is no statistical reality to that claim

 

[zenheretic]

Jerry, another thing you mentioned is that Paul does your heat treating. We all know Paul is a master at his realm and not many people complains about the knives that he treated. But there are a number of manufacturers like Benchmade and Spyderco who doesn't use Paul, and it's their knives that most people complain about. When people pay an arm or leg for "new super steel" they expect it to perform better than "old super steels". But S30v just :barf: .

This is not directed toward you, Jerry, just trying to point out why S30v is perceived as a "hype steel" because it fell short of its claimed performance.

I don't pay attention to Benchmade, but am quite a fan of Spyderco, watching there subforum here and their homesite extensively for roughly two years.

I'd be surprised if there were 5 complaints chipping.

If one was to read this thread with no salt to partake, one might conclude that S30V crumbles before our very eyes.

 

[FernetBranca]

S30V chips and cracks? That is hype perpetuated by a few internet armchair knifemakers. I'd bet there is no statistical reality to that claim

I did not say anything about S30V

Regards
FernetBranca

 

[zenheretic]

I did not say anything about S30V

Regards
FernetBranca

My bad; pardon me for assuming the topic at hand was what you were talking about cliff.

 

[FernetBranca]

My bad; pardon me for assuming the topic at hand was what you were talking about cliff.

Look, this is getting a tad tiresome. For a start I am not Cliff and then all the coarse carbided steels have a tendency to chip. Read Landes, Verehoven or use common sense - It is not too hard to grasp. If the sides of the carbides, and not just the tips, get exposed by an acute edge, the carbides will tear out.

I have no first hand experience with S30V and joined up this thread because I am learning quite a lot, thanks to contributors like Cliff , Jerry and many others.

Something that I find hard to understand about this forum is how frequently very informative and learned discussions are constantly being derailed by trivia and plain immature commentary that has nothing to do with the topic on hand. I just finished reading through several other threads on related subjects and its the same pattern; Two or three good posts and then someone decides that its time to stuff it up.

To be sure, metallurgical technical discussions can be boring and incomprehensible to laymen leading to frustration and resentment for not being able to participate meaningfully. Perhaps the way around this is to have a dedicated forum for metallurgists, engineers, cutlers and the like to talk shop and as well for learned members to write technical articles that are comprehensible to laymen.

FernetBranca

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Something that I find hard to understand about this forum is how frequently very informative and learned discussions are constantly being derailed by trivia and plain immature commentary that has nothing to do with the topic on hand. I just finished reading through several other threads on related subjects and its the same pattern; Two or three good posts and then someone decides that its time to stuff it up.

I was not always like this, ironically, what you described is exactly why this forum was formed as Knifeforums was like that at the time.

Perhaps the way around this is to have a dedicated forum for metallurgists, engineers, cutlers and the like to talk shop and as well for learned members to write technical articles that are comprehensible to laymen.

SwordForums has a number of them, it isn't just restricted to Swords.

-Cliff

 

[KeithAM]

Let's say you thin an S30V blade to 10 degrees per side. Does the addition of a 20 degree per side micro bevel provide sufficient support for a stable edge?

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I asked the same thing to Landes when he first addressed the subject. The answer as far as I know is that it has not been studied in detail yet. The first thought I had was that as long as the microbevel was itself obtuse enough and deep enough (past the carbide depth). It should be stable, but then it occured to me that if the edge was flexing because of the primary bevel being too acute then this could cause breakout anyway. But again, it has not been quantified. The basic question would be what depth of microbevel is required with a specific primary bevel angle.

-Cliff

 

[zenheretic]

Look, this is getting a tad tiresome. For a start I am not Cliff and then all the coarse carbided steels have a tendency to chip.

Oops my bad, as was previously stated, you post so much like him, and then when did the old "I wasn't talking about that" when you clearly were, I must have slipped and thought I was talking to Cliff.

Luckily you consider it a compliment.

Carry on.

 

[hardheart]

Was there a problem with any of the early melts, I know it was commented on for CPM154. I've read Crucible responds really well to feedback about the steel they ship out.

 

[Jerry Hossom]

Of course all high Carbide steels chip. That's why ALL of the top competitors at the Professional Cutting Competition at the Guild Show in Orlando this weekend were using high carbon steels. CPM-M4 is thought by most competitors to be the toughest of all and has in fact been winning the event regularly.

Let me note something about these mysteries of S30V. Whatever peculiarities S30V may possess have been know by the custom makers who have used it since about 2-3 months after it was introduced. By the end of the first year nobody in the custom world was having troubles with it except maybe those who didn't talk with other makers, OR those whose interactions were restricted to BladeForums. Most custom knifemakers, including virtually all of the earliest S30V users won't come near this place.

Would you like to guess why?

SO, if there is a lack of information available to companies or users about the care and feeding of S30V, the problem is unique to this forum. It's pretty much old news elsewhere. If you compiled a list of the internet active, custom knifemakers who don't post (some read only) on Bladeforums it would read like the who's who of stock removal knifemaking. Why should they bother with this place? The only rewards are insults and arrogance.

Oh yeah, one other group of people who seldom if ever post here are real metallurgists. Several read here as well, but don't participate. In fact, some used to have productive and open discussions elsewhere until Cliff showed up one day. That forum pretty much died as well. The price of offering inputs is too high for most.

FernetBranca will likely reduce participation even further with his contributions for the intellectually arrogant end of the gene pool. Not bad for a guy who only has 9 posts.

Here's what I think. If there are people on here who really want to know about how knives work and why, you're going to have to defend the dialog that would provide you with that information. Even so, I doubt there will ever be a meaningful custom knifemaker participation on Bladeforums. When you drive away guys like Kit Carson, etc. you've lost a huge resource of technical information on knives and knife construction. You know what guys like Kit and others do elsewhere? They spend almost all of their time helping new knifemakers learn the intricacies of turning steel into knives and helping knife users understand why it's done that way. They are a wonderful resource and you've trash them here. Don't blame knifemakers for S30V not working the way you like. It works fine for us.

 

[Jerry Hossom]

There were a couple melts that had some bubbles. That was a problem only to the knifemakers who finished a blade and had to throw it away. It was never a performance issue.

Where do these rumors start?

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Of course all high Carbide steels chip. That's why ALL of the top competitors at the Professional Cutting Competition at the Guild Show in Orlando this weekend were using high carbon steels. CPM-M4 is thought by most competitors to be the toughest of all and has in fact been winning the event regularly.

The logical conclusion would thus be the events are not demanding on toughness as those are brittle steels.

-Cliff

 

[hardheart]

I dunno, but if that is something Nimravus Nut read, that may be where he got the idea there were 'bad' batches of S30V at the beginning. It's always good to clarify such things.

 

[Bastid]

No the logical conclusion is that CPM-M4 can do what a knife is supposed to do pretty well - cut.

An assumption would be that it is not tough.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The materials properties show it isn't tough, there is no assumption, again FACTS and PROPERTIES. If the cutting can be done by those brittle steels then it isn't demanding on toughness. M4 is a high wear replacement for M2, those are the facts. The assumption was made by Hossom when he reached conclusions with no supporting FACTS.

-Cliff

 

[Broos]

It depends on the carbide volume as well as CATRA tests generally take blunting to such an extent that they favor wear resistance over edge stability. They are also not well correlated to cutting by people as has been known in Germany for over 50 years.

You continue to state here that machine tests are not valid for determining edge retention despite repeated requests to provide any technical information backing it up. You were repeatedly asked to provide information and did not do so in the friction forged threads. Those threads also had the BEST hand testing confirming the CATRA results.

And maybe some peoples definition of "brittle" has little to do with knife performance. If you can do 1,000,000 chops and never experience a failure, is the knife too brittle?

 

[Kohai999]

The logical conclusion would thus be the events are not demanding on toughness as those are brittle steels.

-Cliff

These were some past challenges in the competition:

"Each Cutter attempted 11 different cuts with the 2 X 4 the only timed event..... 2nd was cutting rings of a heavy paper tube, next was a looped 1" rope, 3/4" dowel, 12 wood strips, a free standing golf "T", 5 rolling ping pong balls, cleanly cutting a golf ball, 2 full seltzer cans made for an exciting cut followed by 4 bundled 1" ropes and 10 water bottles made the last cut another visual end to the event."

I leave it to those reading to judge if this would require "toughness". Personally, I would think so.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

 

[shaldag]

SO, if there is a lack of information available to companies or users about the care and feeding of S30V, the problem is unique to this forum. It's pretty much old news elsewhere. If you compiled a list of the internet active, custom knifemakers who don't post (some read only) on Bladeforums it would read like the who's who of stock removal knifemaking. Why should they bother with this place? The only rewards are insults and arrogance.

Oh yeah, one other group of people who seldom if ever post here are real metallurgists. Several read here as well, but don't participate. In fact, some used to have productive and open discussions elsewhere until Cliff showed up one day. That forum pretty much died as well. The price of offering inputs is too high for most.

FernetBranca will likely reduce participation even further with his contributions for the intellectually arrogant end of the gene pool. Not bad for a guy who only has 9 posts.

Here's what I think. If there are people on here who really want to know about how knives work and why, you're going to have to defend the dialog that would provide you with that information. Even so, I doubt there will ever be a meaningful custom knifemaker participation on Bladeforums. When you drive away guys like Kit Carson, etc. you've lost a huge resource of technical information on knives and knife construction. You know what guys like Kit and others do elsewhere? They spend almost all of their time helping new knifemakers learn the intricacies of turning steel into knives and helping knife users understand why it's done that way. They are a wonderful resource and you've trash them here. Don't blame knifemakers for S30V not working the way you like. It works fine for us.

It's too bad that you and others feel that way, Jerry. You should keep in mind that there are a very small number of people here who treat folks the way you describe, and as a matter of fact, most of the rest of us do not bother to listen to them. We know who they are and either put them on ignore or just scroll right through their posts. You have shown remarkable patience with certain individuals in this thread, but you will never be able to have a meaningful discussion with them--any point of view contrary to their own is like water off a duck's back. Hopefully, you and other makers and metallurgists will recognize this, and continue to participate in real discussion with the rest of us.