steels?

mytowrig

mytowrig

Platinum Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2008
Messages
68
does anybody know of a comprehensive list of the different types of steels (and other materials, i.e. ceramics, teflon, titanium, etc) used for knife blades along with hardnesses, pros/cons, edge retentions, and all that fun stuff? i've always been into knives, but this is the first time researching and looking into nicer knives now that i have a job where i can afford to, and all these blade materials and comparisons and whatnot can be overwhelming!!! if there is no such list out there, maybe someone can make one and turn it into a sticky? that might help a lot of other newbies and 'lurkers' come out of the woodwork....

memo: if this has already been done, i apologize, i wasn't able to find anything like what i am looking for
 
sodak said:
I'll second this one, lots of good information here.
Click to expand...

One of the first thing I saw checking Cutlery Science was the claim that 420HC steel on one knife beats the edge holding of S30V on another.

yeah, no thanks. If you want a page filled with personal opinions, it's a great resource.

If you want unbiased, realistic reviews and comparisons of blade steels, I suggest you Google "Blade Steels," read a couple of the tables and associated information, and cross-reference any extraordinary claims.
 
hmm.. this is the reason i wanted to ask here. a lot of searches showed lots of contradicting and biased "result" and opinions. maybe a few of the hardened and experienced members here can start a compilation of real world experience from across the board? as in everyone adds their own comparisons and then somewhere down the line we can get an "end all, definitive" list with hardnesses, brand discrepancies, and the like? and then after all that, throw that sticky on there? or am i just dreaming now?:D
 
I've found some of the tables to be contradictory and some leave out quite a bit.
 
exactly what i found! lets make a BF list from not just one persons 'tests'! these lists should be compiled from across the board from real life users!
 
mytowrig said:
hmm.. this is the reason i wanted to ask here. a lot of searches showed lots of contradicting and biased "result" and opinions. maybe a few of the hardened and experienced members here can start a compilation of real world experience from across the board? as in everyone adds their own comparisons and then somewhere down the line we can get an "end all, definitive" list with hardnesses, brand discrepancies, and the like? and then after all that, throw that sticky on there? or am i just dreaming now?:D
Click to expand...

The most hyped steel is the 'best' one.:rolleyes:

On second thought, maybe Cliff CAN help you out. He pretty much does what you just described.
http://www.cutleryscience.com/reviews/blade_materials.html

Be sure to test your knives like Cliff does. Report back to us whether or not he lied about anything.
 
enderwiggin said:
One of the first thing I saw checking Cutlery Science was the claim that 420HC steel on one knife beats the edge holding of S30V on another.
I dont think the claim was that it beat it, but that it was not significantly better than S30V. After reading the test, its not that unreasonable. The S30V blade was listed as much as 3 points softer in hardness. The interesting thing to see from the comparison is that S30V should completely out class 420HC, but seems able to just barely stay ahead. Also, there were links to posts from other forum members here that found the same thing.

But, back to topic. There are so many variables that one list wont cover them all. My biggest gripe about the ones found by googling is that some of the elements main contributions to knives are not even mentioned. For example, only one listed nickel as increasing toughness, none mentioned it for silicon, and one didnt even list chromium as increasing hardenability.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
In the world of Steel-Overload, just these two steels are all "I" need: A-2 and INFI. Titanium, not a steel, is my logical anti-rust knife blade. It's All good though.
 
mytowrig said:
exactly what i found! lets make a BF list from not just one persons 'tests'! these lists should be compiled from across the board from real life users!
Click to expand...

That wouldn't help much, there is not enough of a consensus, or this list would have long been compiled. There is also too much variability from maker to maker. Your best bet it to read around in this forum (expecially in the toolshed and to form your own opinion). On the 420 HC: it depends very much on who treated it and how. The potential of a steel isn't necessarily correlated with the performance that you are getting as an end user. And if you don't use the steel in a specific way or at specific geometries, you may never notice any difference. This is why this is a difficult topic. Spyderco has proposed and started the mule runs to make a knife available in a simple useable and affordable design to allow the ELU (end line user) to try different steels for themselves.
 
If you wanted a chart showing composition, this can be found or put together. And I've seen charts showing ranges of values for some material properties.

The problem with knife characteristics is that even the most basic definitions are not defined. Edge retention is not a complicated idea, but there is not any standard definition, and other than CATRA, there is no standardized test. In past threads the posters could not even agree that a edge retention comparison of steels should even have the various steels at the same blade/edge geometry and edge finish (grit), or the same sharpness for the test baseline! There is not even any agreed upon definition here of sharpness (even though almost any technical or industrial definition will define it as edge width), because some call how well a knife will slice as sharpness. Not to mention the oft quoted and undefined "property" of edge stability, so often quoted as the magic elixer of knife steel superiority (that was the property that made 420HC superior to S30V according to some).

Do a search on FFD2 or edge retention (using google for the bladeforums.com site) and take a few hours to read past threads. Make sure you have a couple days to read these!

If I recall, that contention about 420HC vs S30V started with a thin edged 420HC knife, and a thick edged S30V knife. Hardly a good basis for an even comparison of steels, IMO...
 
mytowrig said:
hmm.. this is the reason i wanted to ask here. a lot of searches showed lots of contradicting and biased "result" and opinions. maybe a few of the hardened and experienced members here can start a compilation of real world experience from across the board? as in everyone adds their own comparisons and then somewhere down the line we can get an "end all, definitive" list with hardnesses, brand discrepancies, and the like? and then after all that, throw that sticky on there? or am i just dreaming now?:D
Click to expand...

In theory, this is a great idea, however, as you can see, this is a very contentious issue. Often, what is seen by reading a chart or by metallurgic analysis doesn't always correspond to real world performance. Plus, no 2 people will agree on "real world". Getting people to agree on what the tests should be, as was mentioned above, is pretty much mission impossible.

It is often said that the 3 important parts of knife performance is steel, heat treat, and geometry. You would need to have knives that were identical in 2 of the 3 to be able to test the 3rd. In reality, this is a HUGE problem that will not be solved without making several dozen knives with identical geometry and heat treats but different steels, then different heat treats and the same steel, then different heat treats (optimal for that steel) and different steels.

Practically speaking, nobody has that much spare time or money.

Then, you'd have to define what category determines what is "best". Edge holding, toughness, strength, rust resistance, etc.... Let us know how it all turns out!!! :D ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top