The Composition of Infi and What it Means

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Great write-up, Larrin.
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Yes !
X2

I don't have these steels and probably won't though I have a butt load of A2.
I was getting a bit frustrated with the other thread. With no one in particular; just that things were getting pretty vague. I always thought when a company produces a batch of tool steel it was no big deal to find out pretty much exactly what is in it.

This thread is fascinating and much appreciated. :thumbsup:
 
thebrain said:
So I re-read this thread with fresh and awake eyes and I understand the ideas presented. Now what does it mean that INFI might be A8mod so far as I can tell it means nothing. I like that people are interested but the true name of a thing changes nothing about said thing. If I found out Shinyedges real name was polishededges would he now be taller or smarter or somehow less? Besides heat treat is nearly everything in blade steel ,if you don't agree use annealed 3V and see how it holds up to 420j2 at 55rc .
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Are...are you saying @shinyedges is a clone?
 
Mecha said:
Such minute differences in the composition of an alloy can occur just in different batches alone. I could order 6al 4v titanium from several sources and have it come out 5.8al 4.1v, 6.12al 3.91v, ad infinitum, and it would still be called 6al 4v. Even testing a different spot on the same piece of bar stock could probably result in such minute variances, depending on how well-made the alloy was. The makers of the alloy are attempting to get it as close and even as possible within tolerances for its intended types of use.

6al 4v (called Grade 5), is exactly the same as 6al 4v ELI (called Grade 23), except that the ELI variant has had as much oxygen removed as possible, and we're talking just about a fraction of a percent here. It just has a different ASTM grade number because it's very clean pure so it can be approved for certain industries where it's required to be that free of oxygen. It's still all 6al 4v.

If I made a bunch of machetes with a super good secret heat treatment out of it and called it Mechatanium XXXtreme Mod, and somebody zapped it with an alloy gun and it came up 5.9al 4.09v, then it would accurately be called 6al4v. The place I bought it from would have labeled it 6al 4v, and sold it as such. I could have it custom made, and it would STILL be 6al 4v.
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so hopefully our next Larrin article is gonna be on titanium.......:)
 
Larrin said:
Guest post? You mean I could do nothing and an article would be written for my website?
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Ya, it might be a fun addition to cover the basic facts, just as an alloy family that sometimes pops up as niche knives, and that is still pretty mysterious out there in the greater interwebs.

It would be written with metallurgical explanations, of course. :D
 
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The Mastiff said:
I like Busse knives too but do you think Infi doesn't act like steel? I can see it to a point as it abrades the steel from where it was sharpened but this is hyperbole and not some new or unusual super technology. It's a knife edge and works like other knife edges.
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Thank you. :thumbsup:

I did notice it (A8 Mod or INFI) wasn't in the Ankerson rope cutting tests. The blades are probably outside his limits for thickness or some such.
It is a shame because he used a scale to measure downward force while cutting and stopped when It got past a certain point (15 LB ?). I wonder what downward force was at when they "ran out of rope" ?

I would like to point out because I mentioned it in another thread and got flamed for talking "Performance Cutting" (what ever the hell that means) :
  • A Manix in S110V at 0.030 inch behind the edge made 720 cuts
  • The same knife reground to 0.005 behind the edge made 1120 cuts.
THAT is what I'm talking about.

My gosh what would a chopper that I assume is even thicker behind the edge do ?
More ? Unlikely in any steel me thinks.

PS : I think it is blazingly obvious I am not belittling choppers or INFI or even remotely suggesting thin edges for these fabulous work horse knives.
Maybe they in A8 Mod or INFI aren't the end all be all when it comes to cutting rope with a light touch is all I am saying.
 
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I'm in agreement with you Wowbagger. It really helps no one if we start telling stories about steel that is inaccurate and unrealistic. It might only get a laugh from the old guys with experience but if it shapes the ideas of new and just learning readers it becomes a problem for them. It's not as bad as it was years ago though and it isn't exclusive to fans of one knife brand but we still need to politely note bad info when it happens for the record.

I'll always recall one now banned guy that somehow "learned" that he should take a high carbon powder stainless chopper knife and run it thin and at 20-30 degrees inclusive and use it on green knotty hardwood that was hard frozen ( Canada) and this guy somehow thought the edge damage he saw from his efforts meant it was bad steel or a bad heat treat.

We all tend to speak glowingly about the stuff we like but we should also keep things realistic .

Joe
 
I was asking myself the following question: chopper knives are usually thick knives so how easy (or tough) would it be to snap a D2 chopper in half?
Probably very difficult even if it is a low toughness steel
 
Well, I should really be going to bed for tomorrow's work, but I just read this whole thread.
It seemed clear and informative enough, with just about the amount of personal remarks I would have expected. ;)

So since this thread has been sort of controversial due to (mostly) unknown steel, I will provide (again) a thread with known steel, where the knife is the focus:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/behold-the-mega-smatchet.1537764/

And in honour of INFI marketing genius, I will christen the steel in my knife as being "Stabtanium", rather than "free leaf spring I got from some guy in my brother's back yard." :D
 
stabman said:
Well, I should really be going to bed for tomorrow's work, but I just read this whole thread.
It seemed clear and informative enough, with just about the amount of personal remarks I would have expected. ;)

So since this thread has been sort of controversial due to (mostly) unknown steel, I will provide (again) a thread with known steel, where the knife is the focus:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/behold-the-mega-smatchet.1537764/

And in honour of INFI marketing genius, I will christen the steel in my knife as being "Stabtanium", rather than "free leaf spring I got from some guy in my brother's back yard." :D
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Absolute marketing genius.
In on first run lol.
Gonna be legendary
 
You can think of steel designation as a shooting target, each steel mill as a gun, and each run of steel as a bullet. How well designed, maintained, and operated the mill (gun) is and how well they source and analyze their raw materials (like the powder in the charge) will affect the outcome of the final product (where the bullet hits the target.) Even the best company isn't going to be firing through the same hole in the bullseye every single shot, but thanks to modern methodologies, they're able to get so close that it kind of doesn't make much practical difference. Just look at the progression of steel tech over the past two centuries and the changes in how steel has been graded. It's gotten WAY more specific in composition, while back in the day you'd be lucky to find shear steel with good consistency from batch to batch from the same producer. There's a reason why a lot of cultures historically looked at blacksmithing like some kind of magic.
 
Thanks for this post, 42blades. It explains a lot...
 
I was paraphrasing what I posted about the test with the Basic 9. For accuracy, I went back and looked up what Mike Turber said:

"How many cuts did we get?
2,771!
And we only stopped there because we ran out of rope!

After the 2,000th cut I was still able to shave my arm! At the 2,500 mark it lost the ability to shave but still sliced through paper really well. Lori took several pics of me shaving my arm and I will post those soon as well as the pics of the test.

Folks this is the most amazing thing I have ever scene when it comes to knives. During the test I wondered if the knife was actually just getting buffed by the rope. We even had hit the screws on the board at least 6 or so times. I was truly impressed and this has wet my appetite for a more complete test of the Basic line as soon a they ship."
 
AntDog said:
I was paraphrasing what I posted about the test with the Basic 9. For accuracy, I went back and looked up what Mike Turber said:

"How many cuts did we get?
2,771!
And we only stopped there because we ran out of rope!

After the 2,000th cut I was still able to shave my arm! At the 2,500 mark it lost the ability to shave but still sliced through paper really well. Lori took several pics of me shaving my arm and I will post those soon as well as the pics of the test.

Folks this is the most amazing thing I have ever scene when it comes to knives. During the test I wondered if the knife was actually just getting buffed by the rope. We even had hit the screws on the board at least 6 or so times. I was truly impressed and this has wet my appetite for a more complete test of the Basic line as soon a they ship."
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This is the kind of rhetoric that leads some to question if INFI is really just a bunch of hype. Especially as what cutting I've seen with INFI doesn't at all conform to that level of performance.
 
AntDog said:
I was paraphrasing what I posted about the test with the Basic 9. For accuracy, I went back and looked up what Mike Turber said:

"How many cuts did we get?
2,771!
And we only stopped there because we ran out of rope!

After the 2,000th cut I was still able to shave my arm! At the 2,500 mark it lost the ability to shave but still sliced through paper really well. Lori took several pics of me shaving my arm and I will post those soon as well as the pics of the test.

Folks this is the most amazing thing I have ever scene when it comes to knives. During the test I wondered if the knife was actually just getting buffed by the rope. We even had hit the screws on the board at least 6 or so times. I was truly impressed and this has wet my appetite for a more complete test of the Basic line as soon a they ship."
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Unfortunately, this doesn't tell us anything really. The tests were done around 2000 with modified INFI, whatever that is. No information was available even at the time of how the knife was sharpened, how much force was used, etc. If I remember correctly they used 2" of the blade to do the cut and used 1" manila rope (could be wrong), but that is about all... bottom line, stuff like this is maybe interesting to read about, but is pretty useless from a scientific stand point. This is also why there are strict specifications for blades used in charpy and similar testing and why material with known attributes is being cut using a machine that cuts the same way every time.
 
marrenmiller said:
This is the kind of rhetoric that leads some to question if INFI is really just a bunch of hype. Especially as what cutting I've seen with INFI doesn't at all conform to that level of performance.
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It's a direct quote, so I didn't have much to do with it other than posting it here.

Maybe Mike Turber was incorrect about what he saw Jerry Busse do. Others who witnessed at least part of the test were Les De Asis, Kit Carson, Rob Simonich, Bob Taylor, and I believe Kevin (Spark) watched the entire test with Mike.
 
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