Steels that have gotten a bad rap???

Kentucky

Kentucky

Joined
Dec 13, 2008
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Ive thought about this a while..Ive noticed that there are several steels that have gotten a bad reputation undeservingly....The first is obviously 440C..Cheap japanese crap labled "440" has killed 440C's reputation...52100, it seems about half the people out there thinks that no one can heat treat it correctly:confused: Ive honestly been asked " but I thought no one could heat treat it right? thats why no one uses it?" Differing methods aside thats bull:cool:
Some of the simpler carbon steels(other than 1095) have gotten that stigma "begginers steel"...Which shouldent be a stigma because it just means easier to heat treat but for some odd reason some people associate "Begginers steel" with "inferior steel only fit for begginers"..
I only mention this because well more than once Ive been told "I dont like xxxx steel" just to find out they have never tried only read about it..
Have you noticed any of this?
 
You raise good points. I no longer use 440C because the new stuff is dirty, and CPM-154 is just plain better. But you're right, much of its bad rep is undeserved. As for the "beginner steel" thing, I bet you're talking about 1084; I've used it and like it just fine, even though its inexpensive (not "cheap") and I don't care how easy it is to HT (Peters takes care of that for me). Regardless it makes a really good knife.

I bet 5160 would fall in that "beginner" category too, probably because folks associate with old rusty leaf springs. I haven't used it but I see no reason why new 5160 wouldn't be a good choice.

Being a stock-removal guy, I'm free to use any steel I dang well please, as long as I can get it in a suitable size (and I usually can). I love some of the "super steels" just as much as the "plain old boring" ones like O1 and 1084. Someone here once said, "I'm not so much of a steel snob as a steel slut!" :D
 
i have always for some reason got 440c sharper than any steel i worked with. People dont like it because it got a bad reputaion. I think its one of the best steel and use it on many of my own knives
 
Another one I often see shunned is Aus 8 because of similar reasons to 440C. Aus 6 and Aus4 are not great knife steels but get used quite a bit in tacticool looking blades that many major companies produce. I personally like Aus 8 and find it holds up well.


-Xander
 
I don't make knives, so I'm coming from a user perspective.
I have two knives in 5160, from Ontario, and they just don't hold an edge. I also have a Bruce Culberson Bolok in 5160, it's a day and night difference. I can chop hardwoods with no chipping or edge rolling, yet it stays sharp. Freakin magic!
Point is, some folks could get the wrong impression about 5160 from one bad example, and never buy it again. My Uncle said that old truck leaf springs make the "best" knives. He has no direct experience with that, it's just what he's heard. He could have heard the opposite, and believed it just as well.
I think other times, guys judge a steel based on one blade, when really they are judging it's heat treat and it's edge geometry. Recently I've found myself misjudging a new machete I got in 1075, when really I'm being critical of the very thin edge. It's taking some damage, where another machete of mine wouldn't. It's an unfair comparison, the edges are quite different, so are the steels. I'm not a big fan of Condor's knives in 1075, just from my two examples. It may be a good steel, if treated differently.
I hated a Cold Steel machete that was 1050, I could never get it sharp as I wanted, and it wouldn't stay sharp either. Is 1050 a bad steel, or is it just a bad example of that steel, too soft, poor execution of HT, or what? Would it do better in other applications, I don't know. But that's when buyers start making assumptions about the steel, instead of the maker, the HT, the execution of edge grind. Based on my experiece, I wouldn't persue a CS machete at all, and would skeptical of 1050 for a knife or machete. Get burned once, I'm reluctant to go back?
 
A lot depends on the heat treatment. Some makers heat treat their own blades without knowing how. When the steel doesn't hold an edge they blame the steel.
 
d2 also gets a poor rep from some. Never heard a complaint about dozier knives. If i can use a knife for a couple days w/out sharpening great. If it gets dull cutting a potato well not so good. We are much better off tool wise then 2000 years ago and they survived.
 
Good post right here :thumbup:
foxx said:
I don't make knives, so I'm coming from a user perspective.
I have two knives in 5160, from Ontario, and they just don't hold an edge. I also have a Bruce Culberson Bolok in 5160, it's a day and night difference. I can chop hardwoods with no chipping or edge rolling, yet it stays sharp. Freakin magic!
Point is, some folks could get the wrong impression about 5160 from one bad example, and never buy it again. My Uncle said that old truck leaf springs make the "best" knives. He has no direct experience with that, it's just what he's heard. He could have heard the opposite, and believed it just as well.
I think other times, guys judge a steel based on one blade, when really they are judging it's heat treat and it's edge geometry. Recently I've found myself misjudging a new machete I got in 1075, when really I'm being critical of the very thin edge. It's taking some damage, where another machete of mine wouldn't. It's an unfair comparison, the edges are quite different, so are the steels. I'm not a big fan of Condor's knives in 1075, just from my two examples. It may be a good steel, if treated differently.
I hated a Cold Steel machete that was 1050, I could never get it sharp as I wanted, and it wouldn't stay sharp either. Is 1050 a bad steel, or is it just a bad example of that steel, too soft, poor execution of HT, or what? Would it do better in other applications, I don't know. But that's when buyers start making assumptions about the steel, instead of the maker, the HT, the execution of edge grind. Based on my experiece, I wouldn't persue a CS machete at all, and would skeptical of 1050 for a knife or machete. Get burned once, I'm reluctant to go back?
Click to expand...
 
Some steels, like commonly available forms of 5160 and 1095, got bad reps with knife makers because of quality control issues.
 
This may be OT but Albion Armory (sword makers) at one point stopped disclosing what alloy (s) they use for their blades, due to customers making exactly these kind of judgements. Give them a HRC number and a test video and they're happy. Tell them what kind of steel it is and all of a sudden everyone's an expert.
 
Some folk reported chipping issues, particularly microchipping with early batches of S35VN, but I haven't heard about chipping recently and haven't seen it in the few knives I've made. I imagine difficult to confirm rumors aren't supporting it as a great steel.
 
Definitely :thumbup:


foxx said:
I don't make knives, so I'm coming from a user perspective.
I have two knives in 5160, from Ontario, and they just don't hold an edge. I also have a Bruce Culberson Bolok in 5160, it's a day and night difference. I can chop hardwoods with no chipping or edge rolling, yet it stays sharp. Freakin magic!
Point is, some folks could get the wrong impression about 5160 from one bad example, and never buy it again. My Uncle said that old truck leaf springs make the "best" knives. He has no direct experience with that, it's just what he's heard. He could have heard the opposite, and believed it just as well.
I think other times, guys judge a steel based on one blade, when really they are judging it's heat treat and it's edge geometry. Recently I've found myself misjudging a new machete I got in 1075, when really I'm being critical of the very thin edge. It's taking some damage, where another machete of mine wouldn't. It's an unfair comparison, the edges are quite different, so are the steels. I'm not a big fan of Condor's knives in 1075, just from my two examples. It may be a good steel, if treated differently.
I hated a Cold Steel machete that was 1050, I could never get it sharp as I wanted, and it wouldn't stay sharp either. Is 1050 a bad steel, or is it just a bad example of that steel, too soft, poor execution of HT, or what? Would it do better in other applications, I don't know. But that's when buyers start making assumptions about the steel, instead of the maker, the HT, the execution of edge grind. Based on my experiece, I wouldn't persue a CS machete at all, and would skeptical of 1050 for a knife or machete. Get burned once, I'm reluctant to go back?
Click to expand...
 
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