The plague of S30V and S35VN

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Armadew said:
Years ago:

"VG10 is amazing! More knives need to be in VG10!"

A little Later:

VG10 is everywhere... "S30V is amazing! More knives should be in S30V!"

A little later:

S30V is everywhere... "S35VN is amazing! More knives should be in S35VN!"

Now:

S35VN is everywhere..."M390 is amazing! blahblahblah repeat repeat.

To me they are all still great.
Click to expand...

That's the evolution of tech for ya. Same concept can be applied to cars, iPhones, etc.
 
Currently sitting on my desk is an Enzo PK70 Scandi grind in...

*da da daaaaaah*

...S30v.

qduZx3s.jpg


It cuts stuff. Lots of stuff. Everyday. Requires very little maintenance and it is very, very sharp. There are some very weird posts on this thread, but I don’t see the point in engaging. S30v is great for pocket knives. I don’t care if it was invented for sewage processing plants or if it magically appeared one day on a misty mountain top, I really could not care less. It works.
 
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Gaston444 said:
I never said they were not. I said the CPM process was not developed for knives. Formulas within that process that are meant for knives doesn't change the fact that the whole process was not.

You would know that if you could read my post correctly.

Gaston
Click to expand...
Oh, I read your post correctly enough. You don't state "facts" correctly. I suppose that S30V/S35VN don't carry the proper 'vibrational resonance' that you prefer.

Jim
 
Poached from Sypderco's site.

At a very simplified level, making steel is like baking a cake. You follow a precise recipe to achieve the type of cake (steel) that you desire. You begin with flour (iron) and from there you add various ingredients (elements). These additional ingredients will determine what type of cake (steel) you end up with. Once you have added all of the additional ingredients (elements) you are left with a batter that is ready to bake (heat treat). Baking (heat treating) is just as much a part of the "recipe" as the ingredients (elements). If not done properly, several properties can suffer. Once baked, you have a new – completely different – finished product. Your cake will forever be a cake, it can never go back to being batter. Of course, steel can be re-melted to a molten state, but that simply is the beginning of becoming a new type of steel.

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon; just as bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Historically, steels have been prepared by mixing the molten materials. Alloying elements are melted and dissolved into molten iron to make a steel. The molten steel is cast into an ingot, which is then rolled out (while it is still hot) and shaped much like you would roll out cookie dough. As the steel begins to slowly cool below the critical temperature, things start to happen inside the steel. At these elevated temperatures, alloying elements are able to move around in the steel, or diff use. Different elements diff use at different rates, (typically the larger the atom, the slower it diff uses). If the alloying contents are too high for some elements to assimilate with, the excess will separate or segregate out of the steel and form inclusions or possibly combine with another element to form large undesirable carbides. These diffusional processes are also controlled by the austenite grain size of the steel – grains are little packets of specifically oriented crystals. Grain boundaries act as barriers to diffusion, the smaller the grains, the more boundaries, and the slower the steel. This limits the performance capabilities of the steel both in corrosion resistance and in wear resistant carbide formation.

More recently, Powder Metallurgy has become the chosen method of preparation. The difference in the processing of a powdered metal allows for steel chemistries not possible with traditional steelmaking practices. The process starts out the same as wrought steels – alloying elements are added and dissolved into molten iron. Then comes the main difference. The molten steel is atomized (misted into microscopic droplets) into liquid nitrogen where the steel is instantly frozen, leaving no time for diffusional processes. The chemistry of the resulting powder is identical to that in the molten vat. Additionally, there are no inclusions or large carbides that form. The austenite grain size is the size of the powder at the very largest, which is small. The powder is then cleaned and sorted by size and then the remaining ideal powder is sintered in a hot isostatic press to solidify the steel. Sintering is heating the steel to a temperature just below its melting point, and then pressing it together at high pressures to solidify or remove the voids between powder spheres. This allows for drastic changes in the steel chemistry namely in carbon and vanadium. A larger volume of the highly wear resistant vanadium carbides form upon heat-treating. Since Vanadium has a greater propensity to interact with carbon and form carbides than it does with Chromium, most of the excess carbon is utilized in the formation of vanadium carbides. These leave the Chromium free to help keep the steel corrosion resistant. The result is a premium steel product with properties of exceptional wear-resistance and good corrosion-resistance.

https://www.spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/steel-elements/

For the TLDR crowd the old way was like making a pizza in a dark room. You'd grab what you could find chuck in in a very hot oven and see what comes out. Sometimes a nice pie, other times it had potato peelings and sardines.

Now with the PM process they can make the result exactly what they want. If a customer wants anchovies and pineapple then that's what they get. And when the next guy just wants pepperoni that's what he gets. No extra fish winds up in his dinner.

The folks protesting this don't like fish on their pie which is fine for them. But they're going beyond that by constantly repeating the same false information to press no one to accept anchovies.

That's the problem twofold. First they don't want anyone else to have something they don't like. Second they're not using the truth to sway the other members.
 
gadgetgeek said:
Biggest single thing that has changed my knife use, was going from stones only to strop finishing with green. I use the lee valley stuff, but whatever works.
Click to expand...

I have never been in to the Lee Valley store in Ottawa, but may have to take a trip in as they have a few items that apparently no one else has. Maybe they sell knives too....
 
Yes, they do sell some knives. Opinel, Laguioles, Douk Douk and lots of sharpening stones too!
 
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colin.p said:
I have never been in to the Lee Valley store in Ottawa, but may have to take a trip in as they have a few items that apparently no one else has. Maybe they sell knives too....
Click to expand...
The ones out West have some Grohmann Belt Knives, some Douk Douks, some Laguioles, some Swiss Army and UK issue folders, Japanese friction folders, and some other traditional/shop tool/carving/whittling types of blades.
 
Gaston keeps saying that we check edges by slicing paper and that we don't check for burs by dragging the edge across our nail. I do not believe that to be true. He then goes on to say that he learned to do it here on this forum which contradicts his assertion that we are not doing it.

Coming onto a knife forum and telling knife geeks that they don't know how to check for a rolled edge or a bur is a bold claim to make. Also, making a claim that only you believe to be true and saying that you are correct because others just don't know how to see what you are seeing is a poor way to validate your opinion.
 
Gaston444 said:
Try to think about this logically...

I attack all the CPM steels, that I know of first hand, as not good for knife use: These four that I know of extended my skepticism to the entire process... Is that hard to understand?

I noticed all four, that I know of, bend their apex with the same astonishing ease while chopping, even at thick angles, in a way that is immediate and typical, and unlike all other steels I ever tried (cheaper steels do this at thinner angles, but not at angles as high as the 20 dps CPMs will do: This makes CPMs indeed the bottom of the barrel as far as micro-folding goes). What difference does it make if some CPMs were formulated for knife use?

Saying some CPMs were "formulated" for knife use amounts to a weird, completely non-pertinent authority argument...

Ok, maybe it means that, among the morass that are CPM steels for knives, those "formulated for knives" are a little more knife-like in performance... That way you can say "the experts" did do their job. But it has nothing to do with what I say, or the underlying apex stability problem, which is blindingly obvious if you do ten chops at 20 dps into any kind of dead wood, even if just as a micro-bevel. All you have to do is stop slicing paper to test your edge, and instead rub your nail on the apex, away from the cutting edge. It will instantly jump out at you: Not complicated, and I even learned the nail trick on Bladesforums...

Gaston
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bhyde said:
You better start providing some proof of your claims to these magazine articles. Currently, you just swing in, drop a deuce on the carpet and walk out the front door and never return after dropping said deuce.
For what it's worth, there are a great many materials that find tangential uses after they are developed. CPM's being one of them. Saying that they were developed for industrial use and not realizing that there are a great many things that CUT in an industrial setting is ludicrous.

Tick tock- better find those articles...
Click to expand...

Looks like he didn't find the articles...Maybe it will all be over soon.
 
Danke42 said:
Poached from Sypderco's site.

At a very simplified level, making steel is like baking a cake. You follow a precise recipe to achieve the type of cake (steel) that you desire. You begin with flour (iron) and from there you add various ingredients (elements). These additional ingredients will determine what type of cake (steel) you end up with. Once you have added all of the additional ingredients (elements) you are left with a batter that is ready to bake (heat treat). Baking (heat treating) is just as much a part of the "recipe" as the ingredients (elements). If not done properly, several properties can suffer. Once baked, you have a new – completely different – finished product. Your cake will forever be a cake, it can never go back to being batter. Of course, steel can be re-melted to a molten state, but that simply is the beginning of becoming a new type of steel.

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon; just as bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Historically, steels have been prepared by mixing the molten materials. Alloying elements are melted and dissolved into molten iron to make a steel. The molten steel is cast into an ingot, which is then rolled out (while it is still hot) and shaped much like you would roll out cookie dough. As the steel begins to slowly cool below the critical temperature, things start to happen inside the steel. At these elevated temperatures, alloying elements are able to move around in the steel, or diff use. Different elements diff use at different rates, (typically the larger the atom, the slower it diff uses). If the alloying contents are too high for some elements to assimilate with, the excess will separate or segregate out of the steel and form inclusions or possibly combine with another element to form large undesirable carbides. These diffusional processes are also controlled by the austenite grain size of the steel – grains are little packets of specifically oriented crystals. Grain boundaries act as barriers to diffusion, the smaller the grains, the more boundaries, and the slower the steel. This limits the performance capabilities of the steel both in corrosion resistance and in wear resistant carbide formation.

More recently, Powder Metallurgy has become the chosen method of preparation. The difference in the processing of a powdered metal allows for steel chemistries not possible with traditional steelmaking practices. The process starts out the same as wrought steels – alloying elements are added and dissolved into molten iron. Then comes the main difference. The molten steel is atomized (misted into microscopic droplets) into liquid nitrogen where the steel is instantly frozen, leaving no time for diffusional processes. The chemistry of the resulting powder is identical to that in the molten vat. Additionally, there are no inclusions or large carbides that form. The austenite grain size is the size of the powder at the very largest, which is small. The powder is then cleaned and sorted by size and then the remaining ideal powder is sintered in a hot isostatic press to solidify the steel. Sintering is heating the steel to a temperature just below its melting point, and then pressing it together at high pressures to solidify or remove the voids between powder spheres. This allows for drastic changes in the steel chemistry namely in carbon and vanadium. A larger volume of the highly wear resistant vanadium carbides form upon heat-treating. Since Vanadium has a greater propensity to interact with carbon and form carbides than it does with Chromium, most of the excess carbon is utilized in the formation of vanadium carbides. These leave the Chromium free to help keep the steel corrosion resistant. The result is a premium steel product with properties of exceptional wear-resistance and good corrosion-resistance.

https://www.spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/steel-elements/

For the TLDR crowd the old way was like making a pizza in a dark room. You'd grab what you could find chuck in in a very hot oven and see what comes out. Sometimes a nice pie, other times it had potato peelings and sardines.

Now with the PM process they can make the result exactly what they want. If a customer wants anchovies and pineapple then that's what they get. And when the next guy just wants pepperoni that's what he gets. No extra fish winds up in his dinner.

The folks protesting this don't like fish on their pie which is fine for them. But they're going beyond that by constantly repeating the same false information to press no one to accept anchovies.

That's the problem twofold. First they don't want anyone else to have something they don't like. Second they're not using the truth to sway the other members.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the great information. For us novices regarding the metallurgy of knife blades, this gives some useful perspective and understanding.
 
jimmyd1982 said:
Aren't you the same guy that said you only ever actually used your knives 5 times in your life, and that you use x-acto blades (without a handle) for all of your cutting tasks?
Click to expand...

Courage is facing off with a bear in the woods and taking the time to remove the handle from your exacto blade just to psych him out as if to say this won't be a big job.
 
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