Vanadium carbide steels?

[DavidHoback]

CPM Rex121 is the hardest of all blade steels. It contains a mix of 9.5% Vanadium, 10% Tungsten & 9% Cobalt. It will achieve an approx. Rockwell hardness of 71HRC. Pretty insane!

 

[Willie71]

CruForgeV will make you curse the day that you were introduced to sandpaper.

I haven't made a knife with cruforge-v yet. It can't be as bad as 3v or z-wear though.

Edit: fixed typo.

 

[jdm61]

I haven't made a knife with cruforge-v yet. It can't be as bad as 3c or z-wear though.

worse than 3v in my experience

 

[Matthew Gregory]

If not worse, certainly on par with.

 

[Lapedog]

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

The property of niobium explained in the video does not improve wear resistance. What does is the fact that niobium also forms with carbon to make niobium carbides, which are almost as hard as vanadium carbides if I remember correctly.

 

[lanternnate]

I bought a piece of cruforge v big enough to make a neck knife and a camp knife. Let's put it this way, the neck knife is made and after sanding that little guy, I have had very low motivation to make the camp knife

 

[Willie71]

If not worse, certainly on par with.

Ok then. It's 0.7% vanadium, compared to 3%. Interesting.

I find z-wear much harder on abrasives and harder to sand than 3v.

 

[jdm61]

Warren, some folks have talked about PM high alloy steels with a lot of vandium and not knowing exactly where all of that V ends up. Well we can tell you with a high degree of certainty where the V in CruForgeV settles. At the tips of your blistered fingers.

 

[kuraki]

Is a certain amount of wear actually the loss of carbides that are pulled out of the weaker matrix? So something like vanadium or niobium strengthening those grain boundaries helps retain carbides in the edge longer.

Just a thought.

 

[me2]

That kinda depends on the relative size of the carbides and abrasive wearing them.

 

[kuraki]

I mean in use. Sawing away on fur and meat and bone our whatever with a simple steel that makes free carbide but nothing to strengthen grain boundaries. In the thin edge do those carbides come out in use faster than in a very similar steel with a bit of vanadium strengthening grain boundaries.

That would be the 1095 vs W2 example.

 

[Willie71]

Warren, some folks have talked about PM high alloy steels with a lot of vandium and not knowing exactly where all of that V ends up. Well we can tell you with a high degree of certainty where the V in CruForgeV settles. At the tips of your blistered fingers.

This is where my mind went. 3v only has a bit more than .8% carbon, so there isn't a lot to form carbides with. Z-wear has over 1% carbon, with tungsten as well. The alloys have to "connect" with carbon to make carbides.

Cruforge-v has extra carbon and little else to work with, so the extra carbon is going to for, carbides.


Damn, back to the woodshed.....

 

[jdm61]

This is where my mind went. 3v only has a bit more than .8% carbon, so there isn't a lot to form carbides with. Z-wear has over 1% carbon, with tungsten as well. The alloys have to "connect" with carbon to make carbides.

Cruforge-v has extra carbon and little else to work with, so the extra carbon is going to for, carbides.


Damn, back to the woodshed.....

CFV also has .5% chromium, but I was told two stories,onethat the original recipe was pretty darn shallow hardening and the other was that he C helped the stuff roll more easily. It alohas 1084 manganese levels, so AAA type oil is probably the optimum quenchant. Either way, Mr V kicks Mr Cr in the nads and steals all of the carbon that Mr Fe hasn't already gobbled up. i have been chatting with Russ Andrews about an L6/CFV san mai. He said it works well and it would sure stretch may limited supply of CFV. I have like 50 of the 36 inch bars of the 1.25 x 1/4 and like 15 of the 2 x 1/4. A couple of guys bought TONS of the stuff before it went away. A couple of those batches are whereto current stock appears to be coming from. Anything other than round bar or the 1.1/25 and2 x /14 flat likely came from that last 5000 lbs ingot that Aldo was trying to chase down a few years back. It got bought by one of our other BFC brethren.

 

[Willie71]

CFV also has .5% chromium, but I was told two stories,onethat the original recipe was pretty darn shallow hardening and the other was that he C helped the stuff roll more easily. It alohas 1084 manganese levels, so AAA type oil is probably the optimum quenchant. Either way, Mr V kicks Mr Cr in the nads and steals all of the carbon that Mr Fe hasn't already gobbled up. i have been chatting with Russ Andrews about an L6/CFV san mai. He said it works well and it would sure stretch may limited supply of CFV. I have like 50 of the 36 inch bars of the 1.25 x 1/4 and like 15 of the 2 x 1/4. A couple of guys bought TONS of the stuff before it went away. A couple of those batches are whereto current stock appears to be coming from. Anything other than round bar or the 1.1/25 and2 x /14 flat likely came from that last 5000 lbs ingot that Aldo was trying to chase down a few years back. It got bought by one of our other BFC brethren.

I have about 6 24" sticks of CFV from Chuck at AKS. I plan to make Damascus or San Mai out of it.

 

[jdm61]

I have about 6 24" sticks of CFV from Chuck at AKS. I plan to make Damascus or San Mai out of it.

IIRC, Adam Desrosiers found that L6 works better with CFV than 15N20. It would suspect that CFV at 61 would match up well that second toughness peak of moly bearing L6 at 61. It looks like you could get there using the old standard 1500/400F recipe.

 

[Willie71]

I mean in use. Sawing away on fur and meat and bone our whatever with a simple steel that makes free carbide but nothing to strengthen grain boundaries. In the thin edge do those carbides come out in use faster than in a very similar steel with a bit of vanadium strengthening grain boundaries.

That would be the 1095 vs W2 example.

Probably. This is my guess.

 

[Willie71]

IIRC, Adam Desrosiers found that L6 works better with CFV than 15N20. It would suspect that CFV at 61 would match up well that second toughness peak of moly bearing L6 at 61. It looks like you could get there using the old standard 1500/400F recipe.

I have a limited supply of L6, but enough to do a few billets with.

I see guys doing O1 or 52100 with 15n20, but I always thought L6 would be a better match metalurgically. Same with CFV.

 

[jdm61]

I have a limited supply of L6, but enough to do a few billets with.

I see guys doing O1 or 52100 with 15n20, but I always thought L6 would be a better match metalurgically. Same with CFV.

15N20 strikes me as being a bit more forgiving than say W2, but it is always best to matchup the steels as best you can.

 

[Lapedog]

Is a certain amount of wear actually the loss of carbides that are pulled out of the weaker matrix? So something like vanadium or niobium strengthening those grain boundaries helps retain carbides in the edge longer.

Just a thought.

I am not sure what the concensus on "carbide tearout" is. Some people swear it is a complete rumor and either non existant or atleast has no effect major effect on wear. Obviously it must happen during sharpening, or how would l sharpen my knives on stones that aren't as hard as the carbides.

 

[shqxk]

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.

I believe that tiny amount of vanadium is already(need to be) in the form of carbide unless it wouldn't help at pinning grain boundaries at high temperature.