super steel best uses

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Apr 15, 2014
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Sorry im new to this, any and all help would be great .

My 1st question is out of the super steels which one will come to the sharpest hair splitting Razor edge and out last the rest ?

2ed Would you call this edge retention ? or Wear resistance ?

I have read m390 is the king of cardboard and CPM-3V is the best for cutting trees down . What would you say is the best for a Razor edge ?

Im a printer and I cut paper a lot . I EDC a PM2 in S30V and a AK47 in aus 8 . Love both of them . Some days I have a hard time picking one over the other . I can get both to a hair popping edge and work on them daily to keep them there .

Thanks for your help
 
I would look into getting one of the Spyderco Manix 2's in S110V. :)

You will have to put in a preorder as they sell out fast, but they are regular production.

Knifeworks is a good place to preorder from.
 
How are you sharpening? What sort of grit does your sharpening end with?

Beyond those questions the blade thickness/grind type would be the place to start. A super thin "bad" steel edge could temporarily outperform a super thick super steel if you're specifically asking about a razor sharp and thin microscopic edge on a given media like paper.

A thin hollow or full flat ground 600grit would work well in ANY super steel format. I've seen abnormally good results, however, from a 2,000grit polished edge at about 15-16* per side on Elmax steel. D2 also whittled paper juliennes for months with that same edge treatment.

If I wanted to start from somewhere in your shoes, I'd also go with an s110v Manix. From there, a wicked edge or similar sharpener and some time could yield you some impressive results.
 
I have been looking at the Spyderco Manix 2's in S110V ! What do u think about the handles scales ? i love the feel of my PM2 scales .

sharpening---- I keep my blades up so i dont go past a 600 grit diamond to the strop with green rue (i think it is .5 micron) back to a 1000 ceramic stone and back to strop with green rue . all by hand
 
My Manix will be in tommorow so I'll let you know.


Just a heads up, some of the steels you're mentioning will take forever with green compound including s110v which may just laugh at it.
 
Sorry im new to this, any and all help would be great .

My 1st question is out of the super steels which one will come to the sharpest hair splitting Razor edge and out last the rest ?

2ed Would you call this edge retention ? or Wear resistance ?

Knives blunt through:

- Chipping
- Rolling
- Corrosion

High carbide content steels tend to blunt through chipping or micro-chipping at optimal hardness and good heat treat.

Low carbide steels tend to roll at optimal hardness and good heat treat.

However, things that greatly affect steel performance:

- Geometry of the blade
- How you sharpen them
- Your knowledge on the steels structure (to bring the best out of its alloy content etc)

The finer the structure of a knife steel the finer edge one can achieve.

Knife Edge Diagram PDF

Click Here

Done by R. Landes, a metallurgist and knife maker.

Experiments on knife sharpening:

Click here

Done by metallurgist J.D Verhoeven.

Note the edges are 0.5 Micron. If any structure of a knife steel is bigger then that and one cannot sharpen it or it chips out then you wont be able to get a quality razor edge. That is why razors still use steels that are fine in structure. Bohler developed AEB-L for Gillette to my knowledge.

I have read m390 is the king of cardboard and CPM-3V is the best for cutting trees down . What would you say is the best for a Razor edge ?

If what you want is a Razor edge you can look into AEB-L/13C26/14C28N/12C27. AEB-L and 13C26 are razor blade steels and will do fine in larger knives as well. Unfortunately, these steels have a bad rep due to manufacturers not heat treating them to their optimal performance.

Have a look at this maker for an example to see how well AEB-L can perform when done correctly:

[video=youtube;krZJUj70r1c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krZJUj70r1c[/video]

Im a printer and I cut paper a lot . I EDC a PM2 in S30V and a AK47 in aus 8 . Love both of them . Some days I have a hard time picking one over the other . I can get both to a hair popping edge and work on them daily to keep them there .

Thanks for your help

To understand a bit more about different steels and properties here are a few good resources.

Choosing the right knife steel

Different types of knife steel

Important knife steel factors

Technical glossary for knife steel

Knife steel FAQ

Crucible Selection of Tool & Die Steels
 
Thanks you Marthinus for all the info .

Thanks to everyone for the help .

Looks like I have some more learning before I pick a new knife super steel .

Sunyata - please let me know about the handles scales, and how do you finish your blades if not using green compound ???
 
I've sharpened my s110v manix twice already using lansky diamond system, polished with the ultra fine spyderco stone, and finished with green compound no problem. My zdp189 stretch slices better though because of the thinner blade.
 
S110V, 10V, and other high alloy/high vanadium steels perform best with coarser edges. High polish, very refined edges are better performing on more fine grained steels like 52100, Aogami/Shirogami, 1095, etc.. My 0.02$. I do sharpen later group with 5 different whetstones gradually progressing from 700->1000->3000->5000->10000 and then 0,5mic->0.30mic->0,25mic followed by stropping on plain leather. Used ot do the same for S110V and other alloys like it, but eventually experience showed it was a waste of metal and performance for S110V, S125V, etc...
Ankerson can chime in, well he's done that many times already.
 
Thanks you Marthinus for all the info .

Thanks to everyone for the help .

Looks like I have some more learning before I pick a new knife super steel .

Sunyata - please let me know about the handles scales, and how do you finish your blades if not using green compound ???



Love it. I bought this knife as it looks like an awesome cutting knife. The scales aren't pretty but they provide awesome grip along with the shape. Not as grippy as my contego but you arent dropping this knife.


So as soon as I got it, I cut up some random things then reprofiled on my DMT stones. 600-> 1200 then stropped on leather with DMT dia-pastes on it. 6, 3, 1 microns. I didn't go to a mirror finish because I'm going to be carving things up.


Hair popping sharp, slices papertowels, reciepts and credit card offers still in the envelope and my woman's translucent gift paper without noticing it. Time for abuse to begin.
 
S110V, 10V, and other high alloy/high vanadium steels perform best with coarser edges. High polish, very refined edges are better performing on more fine grained steels like 52100, Aogami/Shirogami, 1095, etc.. My 0.02$. I do sharpen later group with 5 different whetstones gradually progressing from 700->1000->3000->5000->10000 and then 0,5mic->0.30mic->0,25mic followed by stropping on plain leather. Used ot do the same for S110V and other alloys like it, but eventually experience showed it was a waste of metal and performance for S110V, S125V, etc...
Ankerson can chime in, well he's done that many times already.

Yeah, it's pretty much a waste of time to go through all of that with the high alloy steels IMO..

Something in the 400-600 grit range is much better.
 
S110V, 10V, and other high alloy/high vanadium steels perform best with coarser edges. High polish, very refined edges are better performing on more fine grained steels like 52100, Aogami/Shirogami, 1095, etc.. My 0.02$. I do sharpen later group with 5 different whetstones gradually progressing from 700->1000->3000->5000->10000 and then 0,5mic->0.30mic->0,25mic followed by stropping on plain leather. Used ot do the same for S110V and other alloys like it, but eventually experience showed it was a waste of metal and performance for S110V, S125V, etc...
Ankerson can chime in, well he's done that many times already.

I take it that you don't shave with your S110V knives? Why not?

My thoughts: those high-carbide steels offer high wear-resistance... which isn't really needed for a lot of tasks that call for a highly refined edge. However, shaving can be quite abrasive to a fine edge. You could put a fine edge on a high-wear steel and keep it shaving comfortably longer between touch ups, or you could touch up a low-wear steel more often ... or you could just keep shaving regardless of the discomfort :p

It seems to me that for cutting lots of paper you want:
1) thin geometry
2) high wear resistance
3) high hardness to achieve that lasting fine edge.

The Cold Steel Aus8 is ~56-57Rc. Spyderco S30V is ~60Rc.
 
Sunyata - please let me know about the handles scales, and how do you finish your blades if not using green compound ???

I've tried using green compound on my S110V blade before, it's not something I recommend. Some diamond compound would be my recommendation for those high wear resistance blades.

You could also give something else a try and test out an Opinel for about $10 if you are decent at maintaining your blades, they are easy to touch up on green compound. They have superb blade geometry and make great slicers and even better once you reprofile them. If your slicing through a lot of material at once or through thicker material this may have an easier time than the thicker blades even when this dulls up a bit. Though if you only cut up one or two papers at a time repeatably throughout the day blade geometry may not have as much of a play as the steel. Though this is all a guess as to whether or not something like that would help as I am not too familiar with what you are doing, but from my experience an Opinel outperformed my S110V mule team at cardboard duty by a large margin even when it was somewhat dull. Your millage may vary for your task at hand as I am not familiar with it, but for $10 at what an Opinel costs I have no issue steering you that direction if you slice up a lot of material at one a time. If you find that works better for you can narrow down what you want in terms of knives to something similar to it in blade geometry with a better steel than focusing on the blade steel.
 
Blade swop

If I wonted to get a S110V blade for my PM2. Change it out with my S30V .
Where would I order a new blade ?
Can I order different blades for the PM2 ??
 
So far they don't have S110V for the PM2 to my knowledge we just got in the S110V for the manix 2, and before that there was the spyderco forum knife which was the native I want to say and the mule team. Those are the only ones they put out in S110V. I think the manix 2 is heat treated to a higher hardness than the other 2 as well.

Though for high wear resistant steels they have zdp-189 in production on quite a few knives, take a look at their offcial website and look under blade steels. How well that steel compares to s110v I don't know. I haven't even put S110V through it's paces despite owning 2 of the mule teams, once I slightly dulled one down the mystical properties of it being a "super steel" disappeared and reality sunk in that it was just another blade steel and nothing special and my opinel and almost every other knife I owned suited my needs far better so the box it's sitting in is collecting dust. (Don't mistake me, it's a good knife it just doesn't suit my needs.)

Forgot to mention if keeping the stupidly sharp edges are important to you there is another option, multi-blades knives that are found in the more traditional slip joints. For patterns a Muskrat comes to mind as it has 2 identical blades in a slim package, as well as stockman's which 3 different blades typically a main blade/spey/wharncliff, trapper which typically has a main/spey, etc. You typically won't find any super steels in these knives and at best something more in line what you are using already in terms of steels but this offers you another route to go down if you are interested in it.
 
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I take it that you don't shave with your S110V knives? Why not?

My thoughts: those high-carbide steels offer high wear-resistance... which isn't really needed for a lot of tasks that call for a highly refined edge. However, shaving can be quite abrasive to a fine edge. You could put a fine edge on a high-wear steel and keep it shaving comfortably longer between touch ups, or you could touch up a low-wear steel more often ... or you could just keep shaving regardless of the discomfort :p

It seems to me that for cutting lots of paper you want:
1) thin geometry
2) high wear resistance
3) high hardness to achieve that lasting fine edge.

The Cold Steel Aus8 is ~56-57Rc. Spyderco S30V is ~60Rc.

The CS folders at least seem higher/harder than that.
 
I think if you are constantly cutting materials and find you are frequently sharpening S30V, then M390, S90V, S110V, Vanax, CPM-M4, SuperBlue, ZDP-189 and other steels in those respective classes will probably give you a nice benefit that justifies whatever premium price. One particular one may suit you best, but in general I think going to a steel with higher wear resistance could benefit your usage. These high wear-resistant steels perform super-exceptionally well when cutting abrasive objects (ex: cardboard, which is very hard on edges and quickly dulls many good steels).

I'm personally finding that as I use M390 that I am comfortable taking the angle down very low and that, despite the angle being low, the edge still resists deformation significantly better than a steel like S30V (nothing against S30V as it is a great steel). At that super low angle, the knife is more effective at cutting, and cuts super cleanly. The tendency of any larger volume of cardboard to dull most blades is contrasted by M390 which functions like the Energizer Bunny in that cardboard is no match for it. CPM-S90V and CPM-S110V also give real-world performance in which their serious wear resistance translates to actual usage of extended time between sharpening and the ability to grind a very thin edge and have that edge last. I also find I can maintain M390 pretty well (but it does take me longer to sharpen than other knives because ceramic stones don't remove metal nearly as fast) and that M390 has spectacular corrosion resistance, which to me is very important on a folder.

CPM-3V seems to be really a beat-on-it sort of steel. It's primary feature is that it has unusually crazy toughness and it makes 3V a good candidate for larger fixed blades and knives that will see things like shock, impact, prying, flexing, etc. (many things one would ideally not want to do to any knife if avoidable). In terms of how well 3V can hold an edge, it's by no means a slouch but edge holding isn't it's golden ticket selling point and so for a knife frequently used for cutting that is not involving tasks in which extreme toughness is needed, some of the above steels could be a better choice.




Going off of your first post, I am guessing you prefer to have a knife with that 'scary sharp razor edge', and that you sharpen once that scary sharp is lost and the edge is then a 'very-sharp-but-not-quite-scary-sharp' edge? If so, I think you will really like M390 (and other steels with similar performance). Where as S30V seems to go from the scary sharp-->very-sharp-but-not-quite-scary-sharp pretty quickly, I find that M390 retains it for a very long time, even after cutting numerous and many objects. While I am still learning the sharpening and my preferences, this is a feature of M390 I am really starting to like as it is reducing the frequency touchups by quite a bit.
 
I think if you are constantly cutting materials and find you are frequently sharpening S30V, then M390, S90V, S110V, Vanax, CPM-M4, SuperBlue, ZDP-189 and other steels in those respective classes will probably give you a nice benefit that justifies whatever premium price. One particular one may suit you best, but in general I think going to a steel with higher wear resistance could benefit your usage. These high wear-resistant steels perform super-exceptionally well when cutting abrasive objects (ex: cardboard, which is very hard on edges and quickly dulls many good steels).

I'm personally finding that as I use M390 that I am comfortable taking the angle down very low and that, despite the angle being low, the edge still resists deformation significantly better than a steel like S30V (nothing against S30V as it is a great steel). At that super low angle, the knife is more effective at cutting, and cuts super cleanly. The tendency of any larger volume of cardboard to dull most blades is contrasted by M390 which functions like the Energizer Bunny in that cardboard is no match for it. CPM-S90V and CPM-S110V also give real-world performance in which their serious wear resistance translates to actual usage of extended time between sharpening and the ability to grind a very thin edge and have that edge last. I also find I can maintain M390 pretty well (but it does take me longer to sharpen than other knives because ceramic stones don't remove metal nearly as fast) and that M390 has spectacular corrosion resistance, which to me is very important on a folder.

CPM-3V seems to be really a beat-on-it sort of steel. It's primary feature is that it has unusually crazy toughness and it makes 3V a good candidate for larger fixed blades and knives that will see things like shock, impact, prying, flexing, etc. (many things one would ideally not want to do to any knife if avoidable). In terms of how well 3V can hold an edge, it's by no means a slouch but edge holding isn't it's golden ticket selling point and so for a knife frequently used for cutting that is not involving tasks in which extreme toughness is needed, some of the above steels could be a better choice.




Going off of your first post, I am guessing you prefer to have a knife with that 'scary sharp razor edge', and that you sharpen once that scary sharp is lost and the edge is then a 'very-sharp-but-not-quite-scary-sharp' edge? If so, I think you will really like M390 (and other steels with similar performance). Where as S30V seems to go from the scary sharp-->very-sharp-but-not-quite-scary-sharp pretty quickly, I find that M390 retains it for a very long time, even after cutting numerous and many objects. While I am still learning the sharpening and my preferences, this is a feature of M390 I am really starting to like as it is reducing the frequency touchups by quite a bit.

I like this post. M390 or CPM-M4 would be a good next step.
 
Thinks for all the great info . Ill be at the blade show in june 6-8 in ATL Ga. !!! I hope to be playing with and picking out my next ECD long lasting BLADE !!
 
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