Steels?

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Daverageguy

Joined
Nov 19, 2004
Messages
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Normally i hang over in W&C,cause...well nevermind.Could one of yall Engineering/knifemaker types explain some of the Diffrent Steels in use today? please,please don't turn this into a "My steel is better than yours cause i'm smart and your an idioit" thread,just honest straightforward plain talk. Gents and Ladies try to remain civil.Thanks Dave.:D
 
Thats a pretty complicated question. Perhaps you could narrow it down a little. Generally, as I see it, steels are trending toward CPM steels, or something similar. S30V, S60V (a personal favorite, and no longer made:( ), and some others are very high wear resistance, relatively high hardness stainless steels, that start as a powder and are compressed and heated into a solid piece. VG-10 is quite popular, also a stainless, and reputedly holds an edge very well. It is used quite a bit in folders, but I havent noticed it very much in fixed blades over ~4" in blade length. 440C is still around and a good mid grade stainless IMO. ATS-34 is another stainless that was popular for a long time, but seems to have fallen out of favor. 154 CM and CPM 154 are similar to ATS-34, but are more popular, at least in the US. There is a trend toward finer grained stainless, (which the non-CPM examples above are not, relatively speaking) such as Kershaw uses now. 12C27 is also a finer grained stainless that I have used and like for a long time.

Then there are the non-stainless steels in all their iterations. 1095 is still popular, and quite good IMO. The non-stainless tool steels (O1, A2, M2, CPM M4, L6) offer good performance in all areas except stain resistance. These seem to be getting more popular also. Right now my ideal folder is A2, hardened to ~64 HRc, in my AFCK Axis handle.

For much more detail, check the blade steels FAQ. Pesonally, I am leaning toward higher hardness tool steels and 10xx series, with very thin edges. This preference steers me toward the finer grained stainless steels, such as 12C27 and 13C26 at hardnesses of 60 or above, or some tool steels at hardnesses of 62 and up. Very few of these on the market, so I'm probably gonna have to do it myself, however ugly it gets.
 
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