Some further help about CPM steels needed

[Falcenberg]

Dear Forumites,

many thanks for your help.

I am here to ask again some help for a well known Italian Custom Knifemaker, who wants to improve his use of CPM steels. He need some advices, because he had some problems as I wrote in

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=163762

This is a small abstract:

"an Italian Custom Knifemaker I met, complained he tried to use CPM 440V and CPM 10V, in bars of 1 inch, and he had BIG problems to forge it.

Moreover, he wasn't able to work and finish them after the heat treatment, because they were too wear-resistent to be "worked" by abrasives he uses.

He really wants to try these alloys, but he needs some hints how to "work" them and where he can find some bars 1/6-1/8 of an inch.
"

Here is the URL of the site of this Knifemaker. Have a look, there are nice knives I saw at MICA in Rome, Italy:

http://members.tripod.it/maxknife/index.htm

Could you please help him to solve his problems? You can post here your advices or send it to me or him.

Many Thanks in Advance again.

Falcenberg

 

[Bugs3x]

Hi Falcenberg. Thank you for the link to your friend's site. I liked his knives very much.

I'm hoping that some people have written via e-mail to give you information to help your friend. I am sorry, but I simply don't know anything that would help.

All I can say is that I have never heard of anyone forging any of the CPM steels. Few stainless steels are forged very much, except to make Damasteel, so far as I know. As far as the CPM steels are concerned, since they were never molten like most steels, that they do not take well to forging. They have much finer grain structure than regular steels that were molten then rolled etc. That could be part of the problem. The CPM steels are made by Crucible Metals, I believe. They might be able to best answer your questions.

If I have said anything incorrect, I hope somebody who knows better will correct me.