Thank you - very interesting - is AOD unique process for Sandvic only, which gives you advantage over competitors? And high purity and microstructure control makes you steel better then everybody else.
Or what do you think make you special?
About testing - I meant blade testing, how do you test that blade stays sharp long. Is it manila rope cutting or something else.
Thanks, Vassili.
Hi again,
"better than everybody else".
We have strong competitors as well, of course. Apart from the product we compete on soft issues like tech support, flexibility own local sales force etc. We believe that all of this put together makes us a strong supplier. The days when a good product was enough are over. Good product is only a qualifier these days.
I cant imagine us being the only ones with an AOD converter. But our combination of AOD, stirring system and continous casting would probably not be seen in many other places.
We believe, and we have never asked anyone to agree with our opinion, that fine-carbide steels are superior to coarse ones for edge applications. And we do make fine carbide steels in a good way compared to the competition we have. After all, powder-mets exists because it allows coarse grades to become finer with the same chemical composition. Why else would people pay ALOT extra for CPM154 than for 154CM, if not for the added benefits of the finer carbides (with constant carbide density)?
When it comes to purity it's kind difficult to measure but we know from some customers who makes tests for the nuclear industry for instance that we are very good at this.
And product quality, that also includes things like surface finish, straightness, flatness, composition tolerances, tensile strength tolerances, thickness tolerances and so forth. We are a "Precision strip mill" which means that our maximum width on our steels are around 400 mm, many 420/440 suppliers out there makes 3 times that width. Precision mills are generally more specialized and into "small volume business" like razorblades instead of bulk produced 440 for instance. We mainly act where the wide width mills cant fulfill the demands required.
About testing: Blade testing is done by our customers. We cant make blades or grind them. We do some standardized wear tests if necessary but for knives I think customers/field testers are a better reference. We have toughness tests made but these are somewhat difficult to present in a general way since the toughness for varies with hardness and retained austenite levels. One test was an impact energy test, where a piece of steel is broken by a swinging arm (this is a common test and it surely has an english name but I dont know it). The toughness is measured on the amout of energy required to break the piece. High energy=high toughness. With this method a D2 blade of 55 HRC had one third of the toughness of 12C27 at 58 HRC. We did this tests since many people seem to regards D2 as tough and that does not make sense with the theoretical knowledge we have of steel. We tested and falsified this myth.
But in general we do no blade tests. i have heard of an old home made CATRAish machine somewhere in our R&D building but I never bothered with it.
Regards
//Jerker
:thumbup:
