plus-one to what Charr said...
The chemistry really isn't that "new" or weird... I suspect the increased performance is due in no small part to the very clean, very precise manufacturing process.
It's excellent steel for everything from combat knives to chef's knives. I have mine HT'ed by Peters. At 58Rc both the toughness and wear-resistance are
surprisingly good for a high-alloy steel at moderate hardness, and the corrosion resistance certainly does not disappoint. I had my most recent batch run at 60Rc... testing so far is impressive. :thumbup:
Get the chemistry/HT info on Elmax
here.
Great info link man. Read through it once before but I always forget my good sources when I need them it seems
I've had great experienc with Elmax at 60Rc, and even some pretty impressive performance at 62Rc from someone who wanted to test it there. It did start to get pretty difficult to sharpen, and had some weird feelling on the strop at 62Rc though. It really did not like taking a polish at that point either, but really still performed very well. Held an edge very nicely too, while having better toughness than I honestly expected.
Only got to mess wround with that one for about 2 weeks though, so I really didn't get as much done with it as I would've liked.
I think Elmax is probably the best you can get in terms of toughness in stainless steel right now. I do wonder if there will be a nitrogen version steel that works on the same emphasis on toughness and retaining good overall performance, but for now there isn't anything that works as an analog to Elmax that really competes or out-performs it.
I will say that Vanax is supposed to be very tough, but not may people have really had the chance to put that to the test (and I don't think it can compete with Elmax anyway), and it holds an edge well, but not as well as Elmax from what little I have seen. Vanax's real claim to fame is that it is virtually impossible to rust but still has much better performance than H1 as a knife steel and is easy to sharpen, with a very high level of machinability to boot.
I have seen one knife maker try to acid-wash Vanax and Z-FiNit. You basically couldn't tell the difference between the acid-washed blades and the ones that hadn't been touched after several tries in the acid. I would love to see Vanax in a diving or high-moisture fixed blade. Would be very interesting.
Anyway, I think the 2 best steels so far for all-around choice are probably 4V and Elmax, depending on if the OP wants stainless qualities or would rather have better wear-resistance in the steel. 3V is a good follow-up, but would likely need to be custom so that the heat treatment can be dialed in to where it needs to be, and Infi is only available on a few knives, which are very limited in quantity and all will have essentially an identical heat treat so you can't have any control over that.
Just what I've seen so far.
