Sandvik steels and reps at the Blade show

[Larrin]

Sandvik will be at the Blade Show talking about their 13C26 and 19C27 stainless steels that they are trying to bring to the custom knife market. They're doing a seminar on Saturday at 1:30 p.m and will be at the Admiral steel table during the show. 13C26 is the carbon steel of stainless steels, with super fine carbide and grain structure, something that hasn't been available in stainless, this stuff is as fine as 52100, CPM steels are much more coarse. 13C26 is perfect for anything with an extremely thin geometry (like kitchen knives or thin folders), a knife that primarily push cuts, or anyone who likes a steel that is extremely easy to sharpen. Also, even though the carbon is fairly low, it can easily be hardened to 63+ Rc.

19C27 is a high wear resistance steel, it is an upgrade over 440C and 154CM, IMO, and should be in the same price range, so it's kind of a steel for someone looking for an upgrade on 440C and 154CM but don't want to spend the extra dough on CPM-154. 19C27 is probably better than CPM-154 in some categories. 19C27 does have some larger primary carbides (unlike 13C26), but in a much lower volume than CPM-154, 440C, or 154CM. 19C27 is perfect for anything that primarily slices such as a hunting knife. I would liken the properties of 19C27 to VG-10, a steel some American makers have been interested in because of its popularity with Spyderco knives.

They will have 13C26 in pieces at .130" and .105" at 4"x12". The word is the 19C27 in knife sizes hasn't come in yet, so it won't be available at the show.

I'm really excited that these steels will be readily available, so I thought I would share with everybody.

 

[steierknives]

Sounds good. How easy is it to polish?

 

[magneto]

Thanks for the heads up. The price sure looks a lot better than CPM 154. But did they give you any info on the heat treat for these two steels? There doesnt appear to to be any info about it on the Admiral site. And a quick search on the Sandvik site turned up nothing.

 

[Larrin]

The 13C26 is especially easy to polish, even easier than CPM-154.

There is heat treat info on Sandvik's site, it can be a little hard to navigate. The rockwell hardnesses for the Sandvik heat treatments are a little low. I heat treat 13C26 like this:

Austenitize 1925F for 15 min. and plate quench, or quenchin in oil or air, and then cryo for 30-60 min. for a hardness of 63 Rc or greater

Then temper once at 300F and then again at 300-400F. 300F has zero reduction in hardness, and seems to be the minimum for good toughness (this is a very tough steel, so minimum temper is pretty low). 350F will reduce the hardness by 1-2 Rc, and 400F by 2-3 Rc. You can minimize the reduction in hardness and minimize extra carbide precipitation (and convert the greatest amount of retained austenite) by quenching in water after the first temper, going back in to cryo, doing the final temper, and then quenching in water again.

Heat treating 19C27 isn't much different, but I would use 1940F for 15-20 minutes and temper at 350-450F. 19C27 gets very hard.

Edit: I didn't realize the steel was already up on Admiral's website.

 

[Larrin]

I've been thinking about the 19C27 some more. I've been thinking for a while about what steel to choose for hunting knives I plan on making, it's basically come down to CPM-154 or 19C27. I need to do more testing with 19C27, but theoretically, it could have greater push cutting edge retention, greater ease of sharpening, and greater toughness than CPm-154, with close to the slicing edge retention. How the slicing edge retention compares is the big question for me, they could be equal, I don't know. If it matches the slicing edge retention of VG-10 than they are very close, at least as far as the CATRA testing from Spyderco goes. They are pretty equal as far as maximum hardness, I think the corrosion resistance of CPm-154 is probably higher.

 

[magneto]

Thanks Larrin,

I dug this up if you can decipher it.

Na da würds schön eingehen mit den Vorgaben,

die sind für Stripmaterail im Durchlaufofen gemacht und das sind komplett andere Bedingungen, als wenn manns in die Härterei gibt und mit deren Angaben macht oder wenn man es selber vormnimmt.

Das eine Härterei weiß wie man ein stück Stahl hart bekommt daran hab ich keinen zweifel, nur wenn man Ihnen solche vorgaben macht wie vorher machen die das einfach so wie es ihnen passT


Schön schützen vor Entkohlung mit Härteschutzfolie oder Schutzgas Vakuum, Salzbad.
Hängend chargieren und darauf achten dass keine Großen Brocken in der Charge sind damit die Auf- und Durchwärmzeiten auch entsprechend eingehalten werden.

AEB L
For normal HT this steel
1. Preheat stage 1 550 -600�C soak for 3-5min
2. Preheat stage 2 900- 1000C� soak for 3-5 min
3. Austenizing 1050°C equalize for 3-5 min,, soak 8 min
4. Quench in preheated in Oil 60-80°C (For Vak. Furnace min 4Bar N2)
5. Cryo minimum -70°C or more soak for 1h (Cyo. has to be done immediately after Quench to be efficient, maximum time for delay is 2h)
6. Temper 1 150°C for 2h
7. Quench in Cold Water
8. Cryo minimum -70°C or more soak for 1h immediately after Quench
9. Temper 2 150°C for 2h
10.Quench in Cold Water
11.Cryo minimum -70°C or more soak for 1h immediately after Quench
12.Final temper 150°C-200°C for 2h depending on the job that has to be done you select the final temper temp.
This will lead you in the range between 63 - 59HRC

In englisch weil da hatte ich das Schema schon fertig
Grüße Roman

 

[Larrin]

Yeah you can use an online translator to decipher some of that. My heat treatment has been influenced by this example, so it is a good one to look at.

 

[Danbo]

Admiral Steel was giving away nice sample pieces of the 13C26 steel, and I made sure to get a couple to play with.