SPY27?

Jack3dBrett said:
From what ive gathered from the interviews it is analagous to bd1 with hopes for a slight upgrade. Not a high end steel but another 'mid grade' so to speak. Definitely interested to hear peoples experience.
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I think it’s definitely a step above that, it’s a PM steel and has a lot more as far as alloying elements and especially carbide formers (vanadium, niobium).

BD1 is basically a medium carbon VIM stainless with a moderate amount of chromium carbides, BD1N is this but with the ability to get a bit harder.
 
dano said:
SPY27 is American made VG-10.
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I would not put it in the same class as VG-10. It is essentially VG-10 with a little more carbon and double the Mo, plus the addition of 0.1% N, 1% Nb and 2% V. That added Nb and V will make a significant difference in performance. I'm waiting for reports from folks who have the knives in hand and try them out.
 
lambertiana said:
I would not put it in the same class as VG-10. It is essentially VG-10 with a little more carbon and double the Mo, plus the addition of 0.1% N, 1% Nb and 2% V. That added Nb and V will make a significant difference in performance. I'm waiting for reports from folks who have the knives in hand and try them out.
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Just going of what Sal said on Spydercos board. I'd think he would be the best person to describe it, without over thinking it.
 
dano said:
Just going of what Sal said on Spydercos board. I'd think he would be the best person to describe it, without over thinking it.
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It is not terribly difficult to predict what a steel will be like in general by analyzing the composition. SPY27 not only has a higher alloy content than vg10 but it is also a powdered steel. VG10 is an ingot steel.

It is not really like VG10. The only reason Sal said that is because they both have cobalt added. I expect it to be lumped into the same group as XHP, CPM154 and Super Gold/R2. It appears to be an improved steel in that class. It will likely fall just below S30V in performance and should sharpen up very nice.

It is not rocket science, it is just metallurgy. ;)

Read Larrin’s article:

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/01/15/spyderco-exclusive-cpm-spy27-steel-analysis/
 
SPY27 is not on the same class on VG10 or a downgrade from S30V ...

While it has lower vanadium content, it does has potential to be able to harden to higher hardness while retain better toughness due to the finer carbide structure compare to S30V or S35VN. |
 
shqxk said:
SPY27 is not on the same class on VG10 or a downgrade from S30V ...

While it has lower vanadium content, it does has potential to be able to harden to higher hardness while retain better toughness due to the finer carbide structure compare to S30V or S35VN. |
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And the Niobium addition will make up for the lower vanadium as far as carbides are concerned, Nb carbides are roughly the same hardness as V and form at very low alloy content levels (unlike Vanadium which needs like 1%+ to form carbides).
 
John_0917 said:
And the Niobium addition will make up for the lower vanadium as far as carbides are concerned, Nb carbides are roughly the same hardness as V and form at very low alloy content levels (unlike Vanadium which needs like 1%+ to form carbides).
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Well, actually both Niobium and Vanadium are very strong carbide former because they are dissolved at very high temperature that usually higher than hardening temp. So both alloy will help reducing the grain size and increase wear resistance.

But the presence of Niobium carbide will reduces the amount of chromium carbide forming. So more free Cr in the matrix = more corrosion resistance.

Niobium carbide also trend to formed in the grain not at the grain boundaries which will benefit toughness/ductile of steel.
 
shqxk said:
Well, actually both Niobium and Vanadium are very strong carbide former because they are dissolved at very high temperature that usually higher than hardening temp. So both alloy will help reducing the grain size and increase wear resistance.

But the presence of Niobium carbide will reduces the amount of chromium carbide forming. So more free Cr in the matrix = more corrosion resistance.

Niobium carbide also trend to formed in the grain not at the grain boundaries which will benefit toughness/ductile of steel.
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Knife Steel Nerds has a good read on niobium in steel, one of the parts I found interesting is that even very small amounts of Nb will form carbides. So, when we see these steels with 0.5-2% Nb it doesn’t sound like much but in reality it is (since it’s mostly all going to carbides and the carbides it forms are among the hardest).

Most Nb steels have 0.5-1.5%, the highest I am aware of is RN15X, which has 4.5%. Compared to vanadium content in some alloys (10%+), that is very small.

In a sense, you could almost view SPY27 as a watered down S110V...it contains all the same elements (plus nitrogen) just less of them. As we know, S110V is up with Maxamet as far as wear resistance and is also extremely hard to machine, hence why very few makers use it.
 
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