UDDEHOLM VANADIS® 4 steel

Think I read that Dan Keffeler used Vanadis 4 Extra to build the knife he used to win the 2014 Blade cutting champion competiton.
 
Out of the gso5 in cmp3v by survive! Knives or the Knife Research Enki Fixed Blade in Vanadis 4 Extra steel what knife would you choose? My intended use will be going bush with it and using it as my primary knife while building shelter, food prep, fire prep
Click to expand...

I'd say they are both excellent steels and not that far off in performance depending on the heat treats given. Both are tough and wear resistant with 3V a bit tougher, 4V/Vandis 4E a little better wear resistance. Close enough to where I would get the knife that suited me grip, shape, grind, etc. There should be some over lap in performance and whichever knife fits your needs ( and hands) better is the one I'd choose.

Joe
 
I have developed relationship with my local BU office and just ordered a .2x1.75x12" piece of V4X and cant wait to try it. A few youtubers are saying V4X is going to replace m4 and other steels in the chopper comp world, but those are just a couple guys. One guy though had many knives in V4X and said they were across the board more resilient in testing. I ordered mine Friday so have to wait till Monday to get it. I have finished one AWESOME esee style combat and have a skeletonized short tanto utility knife and a symmetrical boot knife dagger blanked out in the D2 from BU that is a above and beyond expectations in the steel, you can feel that micro saw tooth feel on the edge but I love that and it is absolutely freaking sharp as hell, perfect for bush combat aggressive use when tempered down, no Rc test but differentially hardened it since its .25" tang, tapered spine but .25" blade at the top thickest, .25" down from spine then a tall flat grind. Made black denim micarta for that and bought some "duck clothe?" Feels like canvas and its a beautiful cross between coyote tan and od green, like if they had a baby. Gonna use that for the V4X. The thickness on the V4X is not typical, the water jet needs a 1" thickness minimum apparently, but the guy is going to saw cut the .5" x1.75x12" piece in half for me, rough cut which is fine doing stock removal obviously. The whole piece would have been 100$+/- which is over my budget on this order and cutting it the long way would have been a super headache so I guess a convinced them to help me out plus they like me... :) but I wouldn't expect this to be a normal occurrence unless BU gets a serious amount of requests, which would be great, V4X is promising to be a great steel. I'll let you know what I think anyway.
 
And yes, im definitely going back for the other half in a few days, I'm not that stupid, lol, got it ordered on hold till I scrape the knife making funds onto the card again. Aint poverty a peach? ;) :) :/
 
https://youtu.be/hidVYRZhFeQ
Here is a REALLY nice piece of V4x, I got my 12"x1.75"x.25" piece and have most of the blanking done, first thing I noticed even just in hand is the slick feel of it, the moly I presume, and it has that 440 gummy grinding but not as much, it starts flying through colors if you grind longer then a few seconds in a single spot, at least twice as fast as the d2 would heat up. Another video on the vanadis shows the edge under 300x magnification after sharpen then the guy does some cutting tests, very scientific like, but anyway, the edge was very fine looked like it would go as smooth as whatever you wanted to finish with. Look forward to getting to the sharpening stage on this piece, gonna be a 7" junglass essentially and I fixed up my forge(heat treat) bricks with some cement sealing, constricting and directing touches and tweaked the burner to pull more air and its running mint, quick test hard on a file knife laying around that hadnt quite get finished 100%, figured why just waste gas testing and drying, might as well see how the steel likes it. Took under 3 minutes to demagnetize the 3.5"x 1"x .18" blade. All I can whine about now is a proper belt grinder and the space to use it! Makes you count yer blessin's to say that though.
 
And there wasn't another half, actually, guess he ended up cutting it from a bigger piece, but we did a lot of talking and they got it figured how im trying to try out different steel and the sizes im looking for so they're going to keep an eye out for randoms that fit the bill so might be anything (blade worthy) I pick up next. Kinda cool.
 
I am looking forward to working with some higher end steels. That being said, when I do, I am going to be sending them out for HT to get more from it then what a backyard can offer.

Keep us posted with your own thread and quote your posts from here so you don't have to rewrite them.
 
Here's the piece of 1/4" V4X I got from bohler finished as a monster 7" , 12" overall. I made my own electro etch and came up with a logo. I call it The Burmese, on account of the size and the duck clothe and black denim micarta looking how it came out. I have a 5" version that's similar but has a black serrated all black denim micarta I call The Racer, snake themed as you can tell, and it's a quick action fighting where this is more workhorse.
20170113_142042_zpsojuc2ktc.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
Last edited:
And here's the Racer, it's D2 little brother.
[URL=http://s1369.photobucket.com/user/RifledDN
A/media/20170115_004103_zps14cnqu1e.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag233/RifledDNA/20170115_004103_zps14cnqu1e.jpg[/URL][/IMG]
 
Here's another beast of a knife made of 4E, from the same channel that had the mirror polished hamon I shared above, this one is a little bit bigger... ;) https://youtu.be/4PobmahQM_I
This channel is such knife porn! But here it is, another vanadis masterpiece. = https://youtu.be/oAhUx6U9qmI

And here is a video titled "testing vanadis 4 extra edge capabilities" and I believe this is the guy talking about V4X replacing other steels as choice in chop off competition cutting https://youtu.be/92zQ4CfeHqE
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top