Vanadium carbide steels?

R

running bird

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Sep 29, 2015
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I was wondering if anyone knows of any steels with a higher vanadium content?

A few friends of mine who are chemists we're telling me about how they learned how vanadium is superior to tungsten carbides when they were in college. I'm not sure exactly how much better vanadium is than tungsten in steels but thought it would be interesting to see if there is a notacble difference when used in a knife.

I use 80crv2 a lot for my knives and I know that has some vanadium in it, and I know it helps reduce grain growth during heat treatment. Does vanadium also have the same affect on a steels performance that tungsten has regarding hardness of the steel?

I have some blue steel #2 set aside for some knives and was wondering if anyone knew of any steels closer blue steel in construction just with vanadium instead of tungsten. I want to try and my a few knives out of both steels and see if their is any noticeable difference between the tungsten and vanadium . The 80crv2 I have has vanadium but it also has many other alloying elements where as blue steel just has some chromium on top of the tungsten and carbon. So I feel it wouldn't be right to compare those two steels.

Or if anyone as tried this before could they explain it a little better to me. Or if there are any tests out there about this could someone link an article so I can read about it.

Thanks,
Kevin
 
The O1 sold by Starrett and some (but not all) others has some of the manganese replaced with vanadium.
S35VN is a stainless with a fair bit of vanadium. It performs very well, but is very hard on tools to work with, vanadium steels generally are.
A11 (crucibles A11 is called cpm10v) is a very high vanadium tool steel. I have a bar of it on my materials rack, but I haven't used it yet so I can't comment on personal experience. Although everything I've heard and read says it makes a very good blade, and is very hard on your abrasives.

There are many others, but these are the only ones I've really looked into and had in my shop.
 
D2 and vascowear (cruwear, zwear, ect) are two other classic vanadium tool steels I hadn't mentioned
 
I use CPM-S35VN a lot. It is great steel for kitchen knives - 3% vanadium.

The "V" steels all have vanadium - 3V is 3%, 10V is 10%

CPM-S30V has about 4%
 
Wow thanks for the help. I never realized the V in 3v etc was for vanadium.

I was looking for more of a lower alloyed steel but this is all still helpful. Thanks
 
Cruforge V is the V steel you can easily forge and heat treat in a forge if either of those matter to you. Good carbon content as well. I've done one knife in it with another piece to go. It takes more effort and abrasives to finish than your truly simple steels, not sure how it compares to 80crv2 because I've not used that. It took a good edge and seems to be holding it well.
 
W2 has vanadium too, but 0.2%. Not enough to form carbides, but keeps the grain refined. W2 is probably the best performing simple steel out there. It has a very narrow heat treat window though.
 
Surprisingly, M390 and Elmax despite having vanadium in them, do not form any significant amount of vanadium carbides. They do form complex chrome carbides that contain vanadium but are not as hard as VC. Both alloys are easier to finish than steels with more VC.

Hoss
 
Warren, a number of us appear to see increases in wear resistance with W2 over say 1084 or 1095. We say that .20 V cannot form carbides, but I seems recall that .20 V takes up about the same volume as .50 W, which is about what O1 has. of course, O1 also has .30 V and .5 chromium. ;)
 
Tungsten Carbide is 72 Rockwell C. Vanadium Carbide is 82. Conventional smelting only allows 2-3% Vanadium alloys. Particle metallurgy allows up to 15% Vanadium in steel. More Vanadium at the higher Rockwell is a no brainer for wear resistance.
 
jdm61 said:
Warren, a number of us appear to see increases in wear resistance with W2 over say 1084 or 1095. We say that .20 V cannot form carbides, but I seems recall that .20 V takes up about the same volume as .50 W, which is about what O1 has. of course, O1 also has .30 V and .5 chromium. ;)
Click to expand...

This has always confused me. Others with more metallurgical knowledge say no carbides, and that this has been proven, but W2 way outperforms 1095 and the two are pretty similar excepting the vanadium. I would love an explanation beyond grain refinement.

Btw, I would love to buy one piece of your DHIII W2 to try....:rolleyes:
 
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jdm61 said:
Warren, a number of us appear to see increases in wear resistance with W2 over say 1084 or 1095. We say that .20 V cannot form carbides, but I seems recall that .20 V takes up about the same volume as .50 W, which is about what O1 has. of course, O1 also has .30 V and .5 chromium. ;)
Click to expand...

Yes Tungsten is very heavy so what may look like alot of tungsten by weight is actually not as much as you might think. Many steels include just a little bit of vanadium in order to improve grain structure, but not enough to form carbides which contribute to wear resistance in a significant way.

I found this video very interesting. It explains (very simply) how a carbide former like niobium acts at the grain boundaries in steel.

Fast forward to 3:00 in the video and the explanation begins soon after that.

Steels like M4 seem to have quite abit of tungsten and vanadium.
 
We know that niobium is a great "toughening" agent kind of like tiny amounts of scandium are when alloyed with aluminum.. But what does it contribute to the pretty amazing by all accounts abrasion resistance of niolox? As for those small amounts of V, yeah we know. No carbides, but our fingers seem to tell us different all things being equal compared to "plain carbon steels" at similar hardness.
Lapedog said:
Yes Tungsten is very heavy so what may look like alot of tungsten by weight is actually not as much as you might think. Many steels include just a little bit of vanadium in order to improve grain structure, but not enough to form carbides which contribute to wear resistance in a significant way.

I found this video very interesting. It explains (very simply) how a carbide former like niobium acts at the grain boundaries in steel.

Fast forward to 3:00 in the video and the explanation begins soon after that.

Steels like M4 seem to have quite abit of tungsten and vanadium.
Click to expand...
 
CruForgeV will make you curse the day that you were introduced to sandpaper. ;)
 
Lapedog said:
Yes Tungsten is very heavy so what may look like alot of tungsten by weight is actually not as much as you might think. Many steels include just a little bit of vanadium in order to improve grain structure, but not enough to form carbides which contribute to wear resistance in a significant way.

I found this video very interesting. It explains (very simply) how a carbide former like niobium acts at the grain boundaries in steel.

Fast forward to 3:00 in the video and the explanation begins soon after that.

Steels like M4 seem to have quite abit of tungsten and vanadium.
Click to expand...

Interesting video. Makes sense with toughness/strength, but not wear resistance, unless preventing microchipping is the result. Hmmmmm.......
 
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