Sandvik steel

johnniet · Mar 5, 2001

The other day in the general forum, a lot of people raved about Sandvik 12C27 as an inexpensive, very underrated steel. I've heard many other people praise it at other times.

Has Spyderco done any tests on it? Are there likely to be any Sandvik spydies in the future?

giuli · Mar 8, 2001

I recently built a machete using a part of a broken industrial saw. It's made of some Sandvik steel. It was very very very very hard to sharpen! But very tough too: you can truncate a carbon steel nail (1.8mm in diameter, about 0.071in)without ANY damage for the blade.
Ciao
Giuli

johnniet · Mar 8, 2001

For production knives, the most typical Sandvik steel is 12C27, which has a reputation for being relatively easy to sharpen. I'd bet your industrial saw was made from something different, but I'm glad to hear that it came out so nicely.
Have you cut any weeds or branches with it? How does it compare with ordinary machetes?

What were you using to sharpen it BTW?

dePaul · Mar 8, 2001

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by giuli:
It was very very very very hard to sharpen! But very tough too
</font>

Hi giuli, I am almost sure that the Sandvik steel you are refering to is 19C27.

This steel is harder than 12C27, but also somewhat more brittle. It contains more carbon than 12C27. It´s often used in lathes and drills. 12C27 is more rust resistant.

Regards!

giuli · Mar 9, 2001

Someone told me that my machete would have been too brittle with that tipe of steel. But I usually use it to chop branches and any other thing I need to cut working in the wood. Up to now I've only used forged carbon steel billhooks to do the same work. The billhooks work better than machete because of their particular shape; but I can say Sandvik is much more better in edge holding and I've never had problem with brittleness, also if roughly hurted against rocks.
I initially worked the blade with a water stone grinding machine, to obtain a convex edge, about 40° inclusive. Then finished manually on a bench stone using not water, nor oil, but only my...saliva. All these came from the advices of an old woodman.
Unfortunately the mark on the blade has erased and I don't remember if it was 19C27.
This machete is not very much rust resistant: it behaves like carbon steel.

Ciao
Giuliano

giuli · Mar 9, 2001

I'm sorry with you all: the correct definition is "gang saw" not "industrial saw".
My English is really bad!

Buana
Giuli

dePaul · Mar 9, 2001

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by giuli:
Someone told me that my machete would have been too brittle with that tipe of steel.
This machete is not very much rust resistant: it behaves like carbon steel.
</font>

Both yes and no. It depends on what batch you´ve got. The first batch 19C27 was somewhat brittle.

However, Sandvik has managed to eliminate most of the original brittleness and the steel nowadays should perform very well in connection to such cutlery as machettes and big knives.

Unfortunatelly, the higher level of carbon makes it more prone to rust. I´ve been told that its place is somewhere between SS and carbon steel.

On the other hand, Sandvik also manufactures high carbon steel, and it will rust as soon as a cloud appears in the sky

So my answer would be: Depending on to what degree of rust resistance your machette is showing, determines what kind of steel it is.

Take care!

The General · Mar 9, 2001

Sandvick 12C is nothing special on a par with 425M and the 6m and 440a series steels.

Benchmade do not even list the amount of Carbon it contains in the new cat. They must be a little worried people will see it for what it is...(cheap low alloy steel)

Good for a Balisong however.

A fair steel when used in an inexpensive knife.

W.A.

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cerulean · Mar 10, 2001

It looks like Sandvik makes a lot of different steels. Here's a page about their steels and here's an interesting page about some of their knife steels specifically.

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Cerulean

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Sal Glesser · Mar 18, 2001

Hi Johnniet. We've done a little testing. We usually stay in the steel range over .8% Carbon, with our main models in the 1.0% range and higher. When we use .6% Carbon Stainless, it is usually a model designed to be less expensive. We could use 12C27 as a replacement for AUS-6 (6A), or 440A, but we've had good luck (customer satisfaction) with 6A in the performance/cost ratio.

Cerulean. Thanx for the link.

sal