Steels that your opinions changed on?

Lapedog said:
440c. Thought it was de la lame but now I realize it isn’t a bad steel at all. Jay Fisher’s endorsement of it caused me to reconsider and take another look at it.

I have liked aus8 and 8cr13mov, so why didn’t I like 440c? Probably because I was listening to people who were bashing it and that was colouring my opinion negatively. In truth it isn’t a bad steel at all.

As for s30v I quite liked it at first but after having it chip out on a few knives I have grown to dislike it. It seems alot of what makes s30v good or bad depends on the heat treatment.

Now that we have s35vn which I consider to be better than s30v it is hard to be excited for s30v.
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A good commentary on how I feel about S30v as well, honestly.
 
Stainless steels, particularly the high carbide stuff. Although they're still not up to snuff with what I use (for my use), they've come a long way in the last 15 years or so, and have considerably closed the gap. They've gone through a lot of growing pains with heat treatment during this period, and have got better.
I think a lot of negativity with s30v and its like, is difficulty in getting a clean finished, durable edge. The right sharpening media and technique takes care of that.

@Jake_Lucas My Para3 Rex45 is a much harder version of my hap40 endura, delica, dragonfly, and manbug. It's what I was expecting the Japanese hap40 sprints to be, but they weren't. Hap40 HT still turned out ok as a tough, easy to sharpen, and decent edge holding steel, but lacked a little strength (due to hardness). So far (without full testing), rex45 is much closer to what I imagined, and might be exactly what I've been waiting on for ~35 years. Time will tell.
 
Quiet said:
A good commentary on how I feel about S30v as well, honestly.
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I find s35vn feels somewhere between s30v and 154cm. Especially when sharpening. I love 154cm so that made me really love s35vn.

I don’t know if its the Niobium because out of the s30v-s125v family s35vn is the only one I really love. Though admittedly I haven’t tried s60 or s125
 
Even though I keep buying all these primo steel knives, in the back of my head I know I should just stick with good old, plain old, hard working steels like 440C, 9Cr18MoV, 14C28N and my personal favorite VG-10. They're like upper-middle class white-collar workers.

They're easy enough to sharpen or hone, they hold an edge long enough to get from use to use plenty of times to forget when you last had to sharpen.

But, who knows, time will tell.
 
Lapedog said:
I find s35vn feels somewhere between s30v and 154cm. Especially when sharpening. I love 154cm so that made me really love s35vn.

I don’t know if its the Niobium because out of the s30v-s125v family s35vn is the only one I really love. Though admittedly I haven’t tried s60 or s125
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I actually find S35VN to be the easiest super steel to sharpen, surprisingly so considering it isn't the lowest edge retention super steel. First major reprofile I did on S35VN was on my Ferrum Forge Falcon, bringing it from the rather obtuse factory edge (mine was a particularly bad example, it was over 40° inclusive) to about 30° inclusive, and I set aside over 2 hours to do it. I was done in about 45 minutes, full grit progression from XXC to EEF on my DMT Aligner. I still regard S35VN as the steel that I get the sharpest the most easily. To me it feels almost like sharpening AUS-8. Only other steel to surprise me at how easy it was to sharpen like this was CPM-154.
 
Earl1 said:
For me it is 8cr13mov. I had never used before but with the all the negative about it i simply avoided it. Then I bought a kershaw cryo. The blade on that knife held a really good edge for awhile and was super easy to put a razor edge on it.
S30v is another. I've had 2 knives with s30v and wasn't impressed with either. Not worth the pain to sharpen vs edge holding ability. It's interesting to see everyone's thoughts on this kinda stuff
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This. After getting steels like cruwear and zdp189, I know what su0ersteels are capable of. I have no problem keeping my 8cr13mov razor sharp with a few swipes at any given time. Are there better steels? Yeah, but 8cr13mov is acceptable and crazy affordable.

Oh, and I hate s30v. Worst burrs ever. Stones need to be perfectly fresh or it wont deburr for me.
 
For me, it was 1095. I considered it "machete steel" and was only interested in a knife with this steel if it was essentially used for chopping. Things changed and I began to appreciate 1095. Quite frankly, it is not machete steel as I prefer Condor's 1075.
 
154cm seemed like a ok steel so I upgraded to to S30V. Now I appreciate 154cm much more.
 
dkb45 said:
I used to almost detest S30V. Wouldn't hold a keen edge for more than a sneeze worth of cutting, not even the hair popping 600 grit edge would stay. Found out diamond stones and strops were the solution. Since I've started using those, S30V went from one of my least favorite steels to something I respect the hell out of, I can see why it's the go to starter super steel.

I've also had an opinion go the other way. M390 and kin, started out with it being described as Elmax but higher edge retention, and I already loved Elmax. With light use, it seemed great, and performed a lot like S30V but was easier to sharpen, and still held an edge longer with heavy use. Then I started using all diamonds, and S30V started to shine, but M390 stayed exactly the same. Keen edge lost almost immediately, working edge held for a good while, but there's an immediate loss of ease of cutting. I don't hate the steel now, but I don't hold it in the same regard as all the other super steels, I really just prefer less tendency to working edges and a linear dulling scale.
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Your experiences are exactly as mine are. I use to not like S30V until I learned to use the proper sharpening techniques. Tried M390 thinking it would be the most awesome steel but like your experience I found it lost its hair shaving edge rather quickly with an immediate loss of cutting ease. I much prefer S30V over M390 nowadays.
 
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I've never changed my opinion on a particular steel but D2 changed my opinion on steels in general.
Before this forum I thought 1095 was a super steel. This forum has sent me down a rabbit hole. :p
 
Carbon steels. You're either Flitzing it all the time or give in and let patina set in. Don't get me wrong patina on an old knife, built up over years and decades is appropriate and characterful, but on a new or recent knife it leaves me cold. And then there's rust....
 
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