steel ranking chart?

[hardheart]

my googling didn't help

I'm looking for a chart that covers knife steels ranked in individual properties (ductility, wear resistance, etc) I want something that covers stainless and non, and not just limited to the offerings of one steel manufacturer.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I compiled a list of such references awhile ago, I am still refining the page. It is mainly now just a crude sort of notes pages I use to collect data. I intend at some point to summarize the sections.

-Cliff

 

[hardheart]

Cool, can't wait :thumbup: I saw your knife materials page while searching. It was nice, I'd just like something more visual with some relative values assigned.

 

[hardheart]

oh, is this going to include optimal hardness? I figure it will since that influences factors like corrosion resistance.

Trying to look up a bit on BG-42 to see if I should bother getting my hands on a SOG X42 reminded me of this. I don't know if I should bother with it being 59-60 on that knife. I'd like it a couple points higher to be worth the mess I'll have to make reprofiling.

 

[redscorpion6]

http://www.azom.com/Details.asp?ArticleID=1024
Try this site.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

oh, is this going to include optimal hardness?

Ideally it uses javascript to configure the output to user preferences. So you can do things like rank steels by toughness according to materials data maximum or common cutlery hardness, plus show specific manufacturer details.

I want to rewrite the entire site from this perspective using cookies to keep track of user preferences. Use these to tell when reviews you are interested in are updated and predicts new reviews you would want to read, sends emails when appropiate, etc. . In fact even customizes reviews to your request so for example if you are just interested in food preperation that is all you see when you call up a review.

I also see this coupled with an interactive forum for readers to discuss, critize the reviews, add their own comments and have editorial control over them, etc. . Just a place to discuss knives and steels. I would also like to see the reviews to be more interactive such as the ability for example to ask for similar knives, or do something like "Which knives are similar to the Temperance in cutting ability but are tougher?" and have a list of reviews automatically generated like the Howling Rat, Mora 2000, etc. .

Thanks for the 440 link, I just added it. Note that it is really dated, the properties of CPM-S30/60/90 V as well as ATS-34/154CM, 13C26, VG-10, BG-42 and AUS-10 all contradict some of the statements made about 440C. That document should be read as if the only cutlery stainless steels were the 440 and 420 series. It also ignores the effect of using cold/oil to increase the hardness of those steels as well as hotter soaking temperatures, 440A for example can reach 60 HRC after tempering with an optimal hardening. As well the reduced primary carbide fraction in 440A has advantages in edge stability over 440C which *increases* edge retention in high sharpness push cutting at low angles.

-Cliff

 

[kel_aa]

Cliff writes: Ideally it uses javascript... I want to rewrite the entire site from this perspective using cookies...

Ack! Can you instead just piggyback off the Tory mind-probe satelites while they are monitoring Grits apathy?

I can see why you would do that for those who might not be able to identify a significant portion of the knives you have reviewed. Looking at the list names it's hard to know which ones fit your needs if you haven't held them or at least seen quality pictures and know some general dimensions.

So is the goal to filter the information a little so the less informed user doesn't have to scan through a large number of review in the hit-or-miss fashion? Maybe you can have a seperate index page with a picture next to each name, scaled to size prehaps or having a low-graphic "ruler" to indicate relative sizes. In terms of the inside content I can see that you put an effort in cross-linking as much as possible already.

Personally, having a least one high-resolution picture of the knife would help the reader. But of course that is not a serious detriment, as they can easily be obtained from a search if the reader were inclined.

I also see this coupled with an interactive forum...

Your reviews link to threads here already. Why do you think this is insufficient (although admittedly one might hesitate to bring up a several year old thread)?.

 

[hardheart]

are you using a personal wiki to link things in articles, or doing it manually?

 

[Larrin]

It also ignores the effect of using cold/oil to increase the hardness of those steels as well as hotter soaking temperatures, 440A for example can reach 60 HRC after tempering with an optimal hardening. As well the reduced primary carbide fraction in 440A has advantages in edge stability over 440C which *increases* edge retention in high sharpness push cutting at low angles.

I know that Landes has said that 440A gets to 60 Rc but I have to disagree. I believe that what he is actually calling 440A isn't actually a 440 steel, it's a 420HC/12C27 series. To quote Landes:

Well to me here was 440 A is X43Cr13
and If one wants to correlate 440A to X 55 CrMo 14 this is also good

That means he's using a steel with .43% carbon (or thereabouts) with 13% chromium. Even if that's true, I'm a little surprised that he takes it all the way to 60 Rc, not that it can't be done, but it probably shouldn't be done. IMO, you would be better served by 13C26/AEB-L if you want a stainless with small carbides at a high hardness.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Looking at the list names it's hard to know which ones fit your needs if you haven't held them or at least seen quality pictures and know some general dimensions.

Yes. I have been meaning to group the reviews in a little more sensible way according to basic type. I just never expected it to every get to the size it was so never put any serious thought into data management.

So is the goal to filter the information a little so the less informed user doesn't have to scan through a large number of review in the hit-or-miss fashion?

It is the web so it would be sensible to use the resources available and not treat it like printed text as I have been doing. If all you are interested in for example are fillet knives it would be useful if the data was presented in such a fashion. None of this is actually difficult given the power of scripting languages. It is just really boring to do, I would rather be using knives.

Maybe you can have a seperate index page with a picture next to each name, scaled to size prehaps or having a low-graphic "ruler" to indicate relative sizes. In terms of the inside content I can see that you put an effort in cross-linking as much as possible already.

Pictures would help but many knives look similar but they have little in common. A Howling Rat for example and South Fork would look very similar to many but the knives have little in common where you would want one over the other, similar to a CU/7 and RD7. Cross linking helps and as of late I have been doing more of it, and specifically in each section referencing knives which do a task much better than the knife being discussed as well as ones which are worse. However given the abilities available then there is much more which can be done.

Your reviews link to threads here already. Why do you think this is insufficient (although admittedly one might hesitate to bring up a several year old thread)?.

In general you are not concerned with the age of information. It isn't like journal articles more than a year old they are not referenced anymore nor do you stop discussing the work. Many stay as benchmarks for a *long* time. Bladeforums is problematic because of the tendancy for maker/manufacturers to influence discussions by name. In general as soon as someone says listen to me because of who I am then information flow stops and it is nothing more than a hype engine.

There are threads on Bladeforums which constantly turn into wrecks but the questions are valid such as "Is the Sebenza worth it?" In such threads the main bloat comes from people who are complaining about bloat. That thread could spawn a very productive series of dicussions focused on relative finish and performance, population preferences, etc. . It just takes the right group outlook. The main problem is the question is to vague and undefined. So the first responce would just seek to make the necessary definations.

A lot of interaction about the reviews has turned to email which is a bad thing because then the person is just getting my perspective. I don't want that, but when the alternative is to ask such questions here it is not difficult to see why people choose email. Ironically this means that my viewpoints become stronger as there is no opposition which is generally not the goal of those who seek to derail the threads.

Ideally I see a forum with something like a $25 yearly membership and no anon posting, this is just to remove the trolls. Use the money to fund experiments by the members. The purpose is for serious discussion of performance. Someone posts up some work like I did recently with the S30V/ZDP-189 comparison and the user group responds and this is eventually hashed out into a wiki style article which is then made public.

This can hold for both actual reviews of knives or just articles on heat treating, methods of testing, or methods of use. Note the focus of an end goal on refined/edited and *maintained* community articles. These could even be print/published on a yearly basis.

Consider for example a very narrow subject like the edge stability of VG-10 at 10 degrees. I have done some work, so has sodak and thom, our results are in contention which is to be expected for reasons I have noted elsewhere. As others join in this is turned into a writeup on VG-10 at ten degrees which is then linked into more general articles on VG-10 and edge stability eventually leading to a ranking of steels by minimal edge angle required for specific tasks.

Like I noted in the above, I don't see any of this happening any time soon, however it is where I see the work going, or where I would like to anyway.

are you using a personal wiki to link things in articles, or doing it manually?

Old school, really old school as in VI (well actually GVIM). I have been meaning to go javascript/wiki for awhile now for several reasons.

I know that Landes has said that 440A gets to 60 Rc ...

At 1100 C 440A has 0.48% carbon dissolved which allows the martensite to reach ~60 HRC. However this requires oil+cryo, each of these can add 1-2 points, or more depending on the steel, cryo can be very dramatic if the steel is soaked very hot which floods the austenite with alloy, see the 154CM responce for example at high soaks. If you remove both of these and soak not as hot then the hardness will drop way down. There are also batch issues, note the carbon content on 440A and consider a responce at the two end tolerances. The 0.48% assumes an exact median carbon percentage.

I believe that what he is actually calling 440A isn't actually a 440 steel, it's a 420HC/12C27 series.

He refers to DIN 1.4034 as 440A which is usually referenced to AISI 420 series. The 440 series do have lower hardness values from the higher primary carbide fraction due to increased Cr. They are however in general ran *much* softer than optimal for the above reasons. In general most people would be quite surprised at an actual 60 HRC blade because many production knives are way under claimed hardness levels because pretty much everything which is less than optimal tends to reduce hardness.

...you would be better served by 13C26/AEB-L if you want a stainless with small carbides at a high hardness.

His comments were more on having to choose between 440A and 440C (not even really those steels specifically but those *types* of steels) and how to maximize the performance in a knife, not that 440A is the ideal knife steel for a stainless. It of course depends on what you want to do. He is quite clear that the high carbide steels do retain more slicing aggression in extended cutting due to edge stability as the edge thickens enough for stability, or of course you just sharpen at really obtuse angles.

The latter is a bit misleading though because if you just sharpen the lower carbide steel to a lower angle it will radically dominate anyway. His data is mainly of interest to present a more balanced perspective on performance as western cutlery, especially on the internet, tends to be totally focused on the slicing edge retention of high carbide stainless steels and this is often argued or at least strongly implied to be extended to edge retention in general which is severely false.

Of course this isn't new, Johnston noted the exact same thing over 10 years ago on rec.knives with specific comparisons he had done on blades. Clark has also commented about problems sharpening Bucks 440C blades and the increased sharpness with the 420HC as well as similar problems with ATS-34. You can also see similar comments on the wood working newsgroups where it was common to see references to coarse steels having a tolarance for polishes and for which no improvement was made as they were raised. The Japanese are also quite aware of this and choose steels accordingly. Lots of makers have done similar work, Busse has noted the importance of toughness in edge retention, Wilson has long argued that hardness is critical to prevent deformation, etc. .

-Cliff

 

[kel_aa]

The main problem is the question is to vague and undefined. So the first responce would just seek to make the necessary definations.

I agree. It seems many people either don't put in the effort to help everyone help them or they don't realize that it requires an effort on their part. Tossing around a "Is the Sebenza worth it" or "What's a good outdoors/camping knife" question is pretty meaningless. They leave me the impression that the the person clearly has no idea what they want or value or the person has never used a a cutting object before.

Sure, if I had never owned a certain product (for instance a digital camera), I'd ask the clerk what's a reliable introduction piece if I didn't want to do research myself. But having owned one or two, I'd know what qualities I want (adjustability, colour rendition, size of lense, weight, size...) for the price I'm willing to pay. People need to relate what they have used in the past and their feedback to those pieces!

I guess for knives it might take more than a couple of pieces for you to discover what you really want. But maybe you don't want to take too much from their personal discovery period? You direct them to high performance one time, but the other side of them still want that thick, heavy, and cool knife with its armour penetrator and skull smasher and they won't be happy unless they have it. A few of those, combined with some "lucky"/informed choices and they should develope a good idea of what they want. But of course there are always a few that are stuck at the Ka-bar style knives are a good cutter stage. (While I'm at it, The Tops Tracker! Ha! Top's production engineers must be laughing on their asses that people are willing to pay that much for a piece of 1095 with a quarter of a grind.)

 

[hardheart]

Tossing around a "Is the Sebenza worth it" or "What's a good outdoors/camping knife" question is pretty meaningless. They leave me the impression that the the person clearly has no idea what they want or value or the person has never used a a cutting object before.

I agree on one, but not the other. I don't like questions of value, because it is comprised of so much more than material performance. But I do like "What's a good outdoors/camping knife", I like "What's an outdoors/camping knife" even more. All of a sudden, you get suggestions from SAKs to bolo machetes, paring knives to kukris, and plenty of reasons for each. For someone who uses knives in the office, in the repair shop, in the kitchen, or elsewhere, it can be a great discussion to read through. Having used several cutting instruments, I still love to read about how others use them, and use them effectively. And once you define the knife by role, you can say what materials and properties are better suited to the job, and perhaps the user.

My only real complaint about it is the repetition of the question on the forums.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

It seems many people either don't put in the effort to help everyone help them or they don't realize that it requires an effort on their part.

I think mainly they don't realize that the question is complex. Your first post is simply to lead them towards a more productive question. At one point we were all completely ignorant to the extent that questions we asked were so vague they were undefined.

The Tops Tracker! Ha! Top's production engineers must be laughing on their asses that people are willing to pay that much for a piece of 1095 with a quarter of a grind.

I think the current popular interpretation of the scandinavian grind is far sillier. A few years back that was known to be a cheap way to make a knife as it is a very low sabre grind, usually flat but often hollow as that is cheaper still such as on the Mora's. Now it is somehow promoted as an optimal cutting grind.

I don't know how you can say that and even stay serious. On a $5 blade sure, just like when you pay $5 for a machete you expect stamped stock. You can't expect tapers for $5, consider yourself lucky it is steel. However if I give a custom maker $300 for a parang and he hands me back stamped stock with a half a cm grind then I am going to ask for $295 back.

-Cliff

 

[kel_aa]

I am going to ask for $295 back

How about "Great! When can I expect the other 59 pieces?"