Tool steel is overrated in folding knife.

S

shqxk

Joined
Mar 26, 2012
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I’m speaking as a people who live in high humidity area. Corrosion resistance is one of the most important property for folding knife as its always useful without actual using the knife.
And to taking a knife apart to clean the area around the pivot etc. is not something I want to do every once in a week.

Right now there are variety of high performance stainless steel that excel in almost every category.
Such as S90V for extreme edge retention.
NitroV for toughness and ease of sharpening.
Magnacut or S45VN that doing great in almost every aspect etc.
So I never see the actual benefit of using steel like 15V or Cruwear in folding knife except people just want to collect or try different kind of steels or for novelty purpose.
 
I'll take Cruwear over any of those. It's just my personal preference. I'm a contractor who works in sweaty jeans most of the year where we have summers with 85+% humidity. I've never had an issue with Cruwear, especially the coated stuff. I keep the edge stropped and it's all good. If it gets to the point where the pivot gets fouled up, I'll take a couple torque wrenches and take it apart to clean my investment. Cruwear, for me, behaves like an old school carbon steel that holds an edge much better. I see carrying a knife in it no differently than the plain carbon steel traditional slip joints my grandfather carried for much of his 92 years.

I'm actually thinking about picking up a Military 2 in Cruwear in the near future to go along with my Adamas Family. I really dig the steel.
 
I have enjoyed carrying different tool steels and I live in Florida. I have carried M4, CruWear, D2, etc. in my pocket through the height of swaawwwmpbawwwwss (TM) season in the summer with no issue for years and years, so what I'm sorry, what?
 
I don't know about all tool steels, but I live in a country with a lot of water and I have bad experiences with 1095 steel. I still have one or two knives in 1095, but they require diligent maintenance and I am not always able to do that. When it comes to the performance of a steel it's mostly about heat treat. That said, I feel the knives I have in modern supersteels like magnacut and M390 and even 14C28N outperform 1095 (except when it comes to stuff like ergonomics and blade shape etc.) With all the taxes and import duties where I live, there is not always much of a difference in price between 1095 and Magnacut, so I try to avoid 1095.

That said, steels that are just shy of officially being stainless like D2 and 3V do fine here.

I'll only take my 1095 knives out if I am sure I can clean them up afterwards. That is not always the case.
 
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