The super steel rat race

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David Mary said:
Given this is seven pages, I will post after admittedly only looking at page one.



I think this is reasonable and an admirable stance.



Some people might say the same about stamp collecting, or coin collecting, etc. And while I am neither, I don't think it is ridiculous that someone else is one, or both, or all three.



Too hard or soft for what? Rhetorical to make the point that actually some steels, with the right heat treatment, are just about perfect for a given use.



That's true.



You've seen from this thread that many folks are very happy to use things like 420HC and 1095. Those steels are used in copious amounts to this day. I do not consider that "antiquated", and by that measure, MagnaCut will never be.



Innovation produces breakthroughs that can improve the world. It's a process worth paying for in any industry.




You're not wrong if you don't care about steel innovation, or acquiring specialty steels. If you think the process of innovation is objectively bad, on the other hand....



The inventor has alleged certain properties regarding it. Those properties manifest consistently in use and testing. That's proof.



🤨 🪰🪰✈️



Great looking knife though, and agreed, I would not want to grind S110V at that thinness. MagnaCut, on the other hand, can be ground quite thin. I don't have any in the shop at the moment to put to the caliper, but I reground my Tenacious in S35VN to where is reads 0 at the heel, and .02 mm (ie .008") at the tip. I have never had edge damage, but I admit I don't baton carriage bolts with it either.

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Exactly.



The second sentence is a direct byproduct of the first.



In this we are similar. I wear a carbon steel neck knife, even when its hot out and riding a bicycle hard. But evidently others in different climates and with different body chemistry will have different results than you or me. Nevertheless I am excited to claim a MagnaCut neck knife from my current run, so I have virtually rust-proof knife of my own again.



Quite so. Best balance yet achieved between the three cardinal blade properties as far as I can tell.
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DeadboxHero said:
If you use and sharpen your knife, you will see the differences in steels. The problem is some people just collect these things like trading cards and say that everything is hype when they still have the factory edge and no elbow grease on the handles.

The biggest difference is being able to sharpen when you want to, not because you have to.

Heat treatment can also widely change the sharpenability even with the same steel.
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DeadboxHero said:
Here's a fun little story.


I had a non-knife friend from work that only carried buck folding knives in 420HC.

It wasn't because he's a fan of the steel. He just doesn't care.

Well, I thought it'd be very curious to give him a a carbon tool steel knife. A CPM Rex 45 Spyderco military which measured at 67 HRC.

This is a steel that people would say would be way too brittle to be put into a bigger knife like a military.

He carried it everyday for over a year.

He has a piece of property and uses it for a wide range of tasks, not office use.

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In his experience, there was a drastic difference in edge retention. He said his buck in 420HC would have gone dull in the first month of use.

The Rex 45 lasted an entire year with the same use He was quite impressed and as you can see he didn't freak out because his non-stainless knife got a stain on it. Let em patina boys

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I did a bess test on the edge what I noticed is
that rather than the edge on a soft, low carbide steel being 1000g bess in the first month the edge stayed around 500g for a very long time rather than blunting completely smooth.




So, some of the problem I have with the knife community is that we have some folks pretending they're experts telling us different steels at high hardnesses are all hype when their knives look brand new, factory edge and they're just reading and regurgitating with other people say and not putting any time on the edge IMHO.
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Both of you, stop making sense.
 
I have not yet, and probably won't, read all eight pages (so far) of this thread.

I do feel that the search for better knife steels is a worthwhile endeavor. I have never bought a new knife just because it was offered in a newer steel formulation. When I do buy a new knife Though, I will look over just what the properties of its blad steel are. Back in the early 2K years, I was looking for high quality military knives for our son and several of his friends as they became involved in the war on terror in various ways.

I was a bit naieve about knifE steels twenty years ago and bought on reputation more than research informed judgement. Among the knives I got were a Randall Made #16-1 and several EK daggers. The Camillus Cuda Max was advertised as having D2 steel and the talk then was that it was a good steel. The Chris Reeve Green Beret I bought was touted with S30V.

Today none of these knives has what the steel nerds would call a "cutting edge" steel (yup, I said that). The EK daggers were made with a chrome Vanadium formulation dating from WW-II I think. I am told that Randall Made uses a 440 series of stainless steel dating from the fifties (?). The 2D camillus folding dagger was well respected at the time but has been superseded in corrosion resistance and cutting performance today. the same can has been said about the S30V that Reeve used in 2003 too.

The "rat Race"? I applaud the exploration of cutlery steels with superior quLITIES by the industry and knife aficionados today. If I ever am faced with equipping someone, I love with premium military grade combat qualified knives, I will know that they are made from superior steel.
 
How old was the Light saber that was given to Luke Skywalker?

How many thousand years did it take for the early humans to figure out the flint (chert actually) was good for making sharp edges? When did someone else figure out the obsidian also worked and actually made sharper edges?
 
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dogstar said:
I view this rat race as a train. You ride, get off at a stop, stay a while, then move on to a further stop, and so on.
I got off at Rostfrei and never got back on :cool:
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Well said, maybe the title should have been “super steel gravy train”
 
mitchnola said:
Only the very best steel of course! You know he’s got that magical touch. I hope you picked up a mk3 today!
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I've never seen one of his knives in person and don't know what steel he uses. It was an honest question.
 
We gotta fix that blue! You need some Les in ya life!

Most of his new stuff is in magnacut, but I just got a new esv in s45. His older stuff seems to be mostly cts xhp, I think one of them is 204p.
 
I am more concerned that the heat treat was done correctly and it maximizes the qualities of the steel more than I care about the steel itself.
 
mitchnola said:
We gotta fix that blue! You need some Les in ya life!

Most of his new stuff is in magnacut, but I just got a new esv in s45. His older stuff seems to be mostly cts xhp, I think one of them is 204p.
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One of these days, I suppose. I'd be more interested in the MagnaCut offerings than the others mentioned...shoot me a PM and tell me which models you recommend that I have a look at. This way we can leave this thread to argument and nuance. ☺️
 
I like collecting different steels. I don't go too crazy over the hype. It's more like chemistry was my favorite subject in high school.

My choices in knives is mainly ergonomics, how much my hand likes the knife. I like larger handles, so the Military, Police4, Manix2 XL, and the Native Chief are some knives I prefer collecting.

For me, it's a combination of the knife designs I like and being able to get the same knife in different steels.

I got by with an old Endura3 in ATS-55 EDC for around 15 years so I'm pretty sure the average person could get by just fine with Magnacut for casual use. That said, I'm happy things didn't stop there, because the Police4 in K390 is that old Endura bigger and better. And when the Police4 is available in Magnacut, I'll pick one up too, though it probably won't kick K390 out of my pocket. I'm waiting to see Larrin's next design.

5nJiVSc.jpg
 
Wild Willie said:
I also don't see many here wanting to go back to dial up and the commodore 64.

I do wish it didn't require a degree in electrical engineering to work on vehicles these days though.
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Haha that takes me back, the commodore 64!
 
dogstar said:
I view this rat race as a train. You ride, get off at a stop, stay a while, then move on to a further stop, and so on.
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I agree, and it's also somewhat like scratching an itch. I've chased after super steels in the past, then I got several knives in M4 and was happy with them. But knife people are fickle and eventually I was searching for Rex45 and K390. I don't know what the next target will be.
I don't think a knife enthusiast has to apologize for searching for the next super steel, that is part of what it means to be an enthusiast. I never kid myself that I can tell the difference between the K390 that I searched for and the Rex45 that I already had, but if I enjoy the search for the next best thing then that is enough.
 
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