Victorinox blade steels?

[Smaug]

Is it my imagination or is the older Swiss Army Knives better steel?

I don't know, but I DID notice that Wengers seemed to hold an edge longer than the Vics.

My one old SAK, my '76 Soldier is too valuable to test it out on. It's certainly less POLISHED than they are now, and more pointy, as well. Makes me think they didn't always try to look out for people who used them for prying...

 

[Smaug]

...Bottom line, I always have the SAK with me and it cuts everything I ask it to.

Yeah, once or twice. That, or you're not asking much of it, hehehe.

^ Teasing a bit. It took me a long time to realize how soft it is, as I didn't have any reference. Then, one day, I bought a Gen 1 Endura and it seemed to NEVER dull. (and that's only AUS8, which is considered barely acceptable these days) I found myself going to sharpen it at the same intervals I would sharpen my SAK, and finding it sharp still. It made me think: "Gee, maybe there IS something to this high-end folder thing..."

I went back and forth between: "I GOTTA have tools. Need a SAK, not just a knife." and "Geez, I like the tools, but this thing is dull after one decent use." (stripping heavy gauge wire)

Only at work now (office job, occasionally in an electrical lab) will I carry a SAK as my only blade. That's the crux of it. They're for occasional light use. Cutting fruit and sandwiches and cheese, not anything abrasive.

 

[Smaug]

At one point in my life, I went for 10 years with only one knife: a Victorinox Spartan. It served me well. Sure, the main blade required resharpening more often than a 'supersteel', but it's a breeze to resharpen.

Way back when, Schrade had straight carbon steel blades that were a couple points lower on the hardness scale than Victorinox's 56 RC (on the knife blades). I'm not glamorizing Victorinox's steel; but it's served me well for decades. I also carry other knives for other purposes.

Jim

You sure about that last part? I thought 1095 is harder than Vic stainless. It seemed to hold an edge longer for me, and be just as easy to re-sharpen. (with the penalty being that it stains and rusts so easily, a fellow has to look after it a bit)

Ditto on the having a Vic SAK as the only knife for years and years.

Whoever comes out with a SAK-type knife with decent blade steel is going to take the world by STORM.

I could be wrong, I vaguely recall their 80s era Mauser having a harder steel on the main blade. and a proper point, too...

 

[Valenciamanu]

El acero victorinox nunca es demasiado pequeño para mí. Fácil de afilar y muy resistente a la oxidación. Yo prefiero cualquier Víctorinox a cualquier cuchillo hecho en china por compañías de otros países para una gran cantidad de acero de vanguardia que llevan. El acero Victorinox, a pesar de ser simple, está muy bien tratado térmicamente.

 

[Armadew]

El acero victorinox nunca es demasiado pequeño para mí. Fácil de afilar y muy resistente a la oxidación. Yo prefiero cualquier Víctorinox a cualquier cuchillo hecho en china por compañías de otros países para una gran cantidad de acero de vanguardia que llevan. El acero Victorinox, a pesar de ser simple, está muy bien tratado térmicamente.

Convenido

 

[pinnah]

This is primarily about blade grinds and very secondarily about heat treatment by knife manufacturers.

A thin full flat find blade will cut adequately for most people for most uses even if it is as dull as a butter knife. This is why countless millions of people get through their days with kitchen drawers full of utterly dull paring knives. Traditional slip joints with thin full flat grinds have used this basic insight for 100s of years. In this respect, the grind of an SAK is much more important than the steel.

With respect to the steel and more importantly, the heat treat, I consider Victorinox's Inox to be in the same basic class of steels as 420HC and 12C27. These steels can be used in fine blanking machines to produce blades in mass quantity and with a decent heat treatment can far outperform junky "surgical" steels like 420J2 and can get close to the performance of 1095.

IMO, there is a definite threshold in terms of hardness where these steels go from "OK" to "quite good" and that is at the 58Rc level. Buck (420HC) and Opinel (12C27) take theirs to 58Rc while Victorinox and Case (420HC) keep theirs in the 56Rc level. At the lower RC levels, I find the blades need a wider edge apex to prevent edge roll and they have a tendency to burr easily and to keep a wire edge when honing. At 58RC, I find the blades can take a thinner edge and hone more cleanly.

I see all upside and no downside in having these steels run at 58RC.

I note that Buck and Opinel (and we can toss Mora in here too) are both known for knives with larger blades and that Victorinox and Case are known for knives with small blades. Speculation on my part... I wonder if it is harder to heat treat smaller blades to get 58RC from these steels in a cost effective manner?

I think Victorionox and Case (and we can toss Gerber and Leatherman in here too) would benefit from running their steels in this class at 58RC.

 

[sodak]

SAK's are probably the most useful knives ever invented, IMO. Every time someone starts an "If you could only have one" thread, my answer is always a SAK.

I generally like harder steels because I hate chasing a burr when sharpening, but my SAKs don't form a burr too badly, it seems that they found the sweet spot. As many others have commented, even if they start dulling, they cut very well due to geometry. Plus, they never even get a second look when I use them around town or traveling.

One thing that Vic does right as well is their unbelievable repeatable quality. Every SAK works well, and almost always feels exactly like every other SAK. Given the numbers they produce, that is just incredible.

 

[pinnah]

I went back and forth between: "I GOTTA have tools. Need a SAK, not just a knife." and "Geez, I like the tools, but this thing is dull after one decent use." (stripping heavy gauge wire)

My solution to this problem is to carry a key ring sized multi tool in my pocket as a companion to a larger, full sized single blade folder of choice. This gives me the better ergos and cutting performance of a single bladed folder, plus the ability to swap out my folder of choice based on whim all while guaranteeing that I have a basic set of tools for the day/day stuff I bump into.

I prefer the Leatherman Micra for this but tools like the Gerber Dime and Leatherman Squirt PS4 also make sense.

 

[22-rimfire]

Admittedly, I seldom strip wire with my SAK. But I have. Maybe I'm just too gentle as I have always been more concerned about cutting through the wire and having to re-do the wire stripping to use it. I know that SAKs get dull, but generally not after one use. I carry another knife with me in most cases. But the "other knife" seldom gets used unless I just choose to use it rather than reaching for my SAK out of habit.

I also have found keeping a Leatherman Ps4 Squirt on my key chain to be extremely useful, but seldom cut anything with it. It's their for the pliers mostly and I do cut thin wire with it.

 

[marchone]

A 4-inch folder, a full size Leatherman and an SAK of some sort will get you through most anything indoors or out.

 

[jdk1]

Soooo does that mean its a decent steel? Sorry Im not one for metallurgy

They've been made and carried for 128 years and used extensively in war and on U.S. Space missions.

 

[marchone]

deleted

 

[jackknife]

Yeah, once or twice. That, or you're not asking much of it, hehehe.

^ Teasing a bit. It took me a long time to realize how soft it is, as I didn't have any reference. Then, one day, I bought a Gen 1 Endura and it seemed to NEVER dull. (and that's only AUS8, which is considered barely acceptable these days) I found myself going to sharpen it at the same intervals I would sharpen my SAK, and finding it sharp still. It made me think: "Gee, maybe there IS something to this high-end folder thing..."

I went back and forth between: "I GOTTA have tools. Need a SAK, not just a knife." and "Geez, I like the tools, but this thing is dull after one decent use." (stripping heavy gauge wire)

Only at work now (office job, occasionally in an electrical lab) will I carry a SAK as my only blade. That's the crux of it. They're for occasional light use. Cutting fruit and sandwiches and cheese, not anything abrasive.

As they always say, YMMV.

I've been using these things for just about 50 years now. I that time I've never had a SAK go dull on me while on the job. That includes some of what I'd call heavy duty use outside the normal use of a SAK. Like my sister in laws sofa.

She ordered a sofa off the internet. A big sofa. Like a 4 people sitting comfortable sofa. She had to be at work, so being the retired nice guy I am, I waited at her house for the delivery. The big white truck arrived and a couple guys dropped it on the living room floor and told me they 'don't do unboxing." The only tool I had on my that day was my small Vic tinker. All 84mm's of it. I had forgot my Stanley 99 and my Buck 301 stockman. So I started cutting. The damm thing came in the biggest cocoon of double wall cardboard I'd ever run into. And wrapped with a few miles of packing tape. It took a while to cut carefully through it all and get the sofa out into the light of day, but the tinker did it. Then there was the inner layer of cardboard cocoon. Then I had huge pieces of the double wall stuff that was too big to go into the recycle bin. More cutting.

At one point the knife was really bogging down and I looked to see if it needed to be sharpened. But what I saw was glue and grit stuck to the blade. A little Purrel Hand sanitizer and a paper towel cleaned the cardboard glue off and it went back to cutting like at the start of the job. From drop off to finish slicing cardboard to fit in the recycle bin was 2 hours of cutting. At the end of it, it was still sharp, But a little in need of a touch up and in about a minute and a half on the little Eze-Lap model L with the cut down handle I keep in my wallet, it was shaving sharp again.

I've camped with SAK's, worked with SAK's, and used them in all kinds of situations. I've shipped a SAK ahead to myself when flying to Key West for fishing and partying vacations and cut everything from squid bait to limes for the vodka tonics after. Never had a problem with going dull. Had them loose the initial razor edge buy that got fixed in a minute on the bottom of a coffee mug. And there is the other great point about a SAK; touch up in the field.

I see people on this forum bragging about their super steel knife, and then I see all kinds of posts about how do I sharpen this knife. Most people just don't have a clue when it comes to putting an edge back on their cult worship item. But a SAK issn't meant for the fan boys, it's meant for the people who are out someplace really doing something instead of playing in their moms back yard. Thor Heyerdahl once wrote that a SAK was one of his prized pieces of gear. This from a man who crossed the Pacific on a balsa wood raft for the Con Tiki expedition, and crossed the Atlantic in a reed boat in the Ra Expediton. Sir Edmond Hillery carried one to the top of Mt. Everest. Peter Hathaway Capstick, author of many books about hunting in Africa and a bonafide white hunter in the old days in Kenya loved his Victorinox made SAK and wrote about it one of his books. General Chuck Yeager has carried a Victorinox executive as his backpacking knife in his two week trips into the Sierra Nevada mountains after the California Golden trout that he became a fanatic hunter of. All these people had one thing in common, they very very often were in the middle of nowhere, and did not have a full sharpening set up with them. A SAK can be touched upon the bottom a coffee mug, smooth stone out of a creek or river, the top of a boot, or the back of a belt. And done so very quickly.

The Victorinox SAK is the Toyota Corolla of the knife world. You don't buy it to run the Pikes Peak hill climb or the Grand Prix of Monaco. You buy it to just get a job done, no matter if that job is commuting to work for the next ten years or 125,000 miles or taking the kids to soccer practice. It doesn't cost a lot, has known quality and reliability, and they just flat out work and keep on working. A Porsche or Maserati isn't needed to run down the street for groceries.

But to exaggerate and say SAK's go dull after one or two uses is pure bullhocky. I've seen people who say this and when I look at their knives, they have done a botched up job of sharpening in the past and put way to steep an angle on the edge. I've seen more jobs of poor owner done sharpening screwing up of edges and then they blame the tool. If the thing goes dull after one use, the last amateur hour shaping job you did is more to blame.

Somehow 99% of the rest of the world thinks SAK's are great. Poor misinformed masses.

 

[22-rimfire]

... I've been using these things for just about 50 years now. I that time I've never had a SAK go dull on me while on the job. That includes some of what I'd call heavy duty use outside the normal use of a SAK. Like my sister in laws sofa.

I see people on this forum bragging about their super steel knife, and then I see all kinds of posts about how do I sharpen this knife. Most people just don't have a clue when it comes to putting an edge back on their cult worship item.

The Victorinox SAK is the Toyota Corolla of the knife world.

But to exaggerate and say SAK's go dull after one or two uses is pure bullhocky.

Great post on SAK love.... The Buck 301 may be a bit on the large size for you these days. The Tinker worked with unpacking the sofa. That was quite the job. My 111mm Adventurer would have done well with the sofa job. SAKs just work.

I suspect you're correct that a SAK that goes dull very quickly is probably an improperly sharpened SAK. The Corolla analogy fits. I own one. SAKs are meant to be used. I guess most knives are, but most people these days wouldn't get too excited about a $22 Tinker's cost being problematic.

The one thing about SAKs that always gets me (size).... I keep saying 93mm for the Tinker or Pioneer. But it's actually 91mm according to the DLT website. They organize by size which is really convenient. The Classic is 58mm and the Small Tinker is 84mm.

 

[19-3ben]

The Victorinox SAK is the Toyota Corolla of the knife world. You don't buy it to run the Pikes Peak hill climb or the Grand Prix of Monaco. You buy it to just get a job done, no matter if that job is commuting to work for the next ten years or 125,000 miles or taking the kids to soccer practice.

I don't know. The Corolla, while being an excellent small sedan, is more limited. I realize it's a totally subjective thing, but I actually think of the Subaru Outback as being the SAK comparison for cars. It drives like a car, but not as well as a sports car (or even a sports sedan), can go off road but not as well as a Jeep, gets good gas mileage but not like a smaller more efficient car, can carry a lot of cargo but not like a dedicated pickup or large SUV.

It's a jack of all trades and surprisingly good at each of them but certainly not master at any. But with that said, it's good enough at each of those things to get you through 95% of what you could need on a regular basis, much like the SAK which will never be as good of a knife as a BM grip, and never as good of a screw driver as a Rigid 18v driver, etc... but the intersection of quality and versatility is going to see you through almost every conceivable need on a day to day basis, and why it has spent 5-6 days per week in my pocket for the last year.

 

[22-rimfire]

Car analogies are all about personal preference. The Subaru Outback has a very good reputation as do some of the other small SUVs. Honda Civic, another...Ford Focus.... however it is not as good a car as the Honda, Subaru or Toyota.... They have more repair issues.

 

[19-3ben]

Car analogies are all about personal preference. The Subaru Outback has a very good reputation as do some of the other small SUVs. Honda Civic, another...Ford Focus.... however it is not as good a car as the Honda, Subaru or Toyota.... They have more repair issues.

100% agreed. It was more about versatility.

 

[22-rimfire]

100% agreed. It was more about versatility.

And SAKs are versatile. I like Tinkers, but I also like having a smaller blade available like on the Electrician. That is generally why I prefer two-bladed traditionals even though many here seem to prefer the one blade as they are thinner in the pocket. I need to assess what tools I actually use on my SAKs.

 

[James Y]

You sure about that last part? I thought 1095 is harder than Vic stainless. It seemed to hold an edge longer for me, and be just as easy to re-sharpen. (with the penalty being that it stains and rusts so easily, a fellow has to look after it a bit)

Ditto on the having a Vic SAK as the only knife for years and years.

Whoever comes out with a SAK-type knife with decent blade steel is going to take the world by STORM.

I could be wrong, I vaguely recall their 80s era Mauser having a harder steel on the main blade. and a proper point, too...

I remember many years ago reading that Schrade used to harden their carbon steel blades to around 54 RC. In my personal use back in the '70s, I found Schrade's carbon steel to be comparable to Vic's, but that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't hardened to a lower point.

In general uses, I've found that Victorinox knife blades tend to take and hold a better edge in use than Wenger blades. YMMV.

As far as that Spartan being my only knife for at least a decade, yes, it's true. That was when I went to live in Taiwan, as well as awhile after returning Stateside. I had gotten out of the whole 'knife hobby' thing for several years during that period (mid-'80s to late-'90s), because I was pursuing other interests, and that was the only knife I took with me. Back when I left the States, there were no 'super steels', other than maybe 154CM or 440C, which so many on the forums think are useless. And anyway, back then I didn't even know or care about steel names, other than carbon and stainless. And back then, when you could still carry a small pocketknife on an airplane, I carried that SAK (in my pocket) to trips to Hong Kong and South Korea, and in stopovers in Japan's Narita Airport, with not a second look from airport security anywhere.

In the world, out of the people that DO carry pocketknives, a whole lot of them (I would say most) carry only one knife. I dare say that people like forum members who carry multiples (which I admit to doing myself now) are in the small minority. When you have only one knife, you learn to make do with what you have. That Spartan served me well. Did I sometimes wish I'd had something with more features? Sometimes. But the other tools on the Spartan served me better than if I'd only had a multi-blade like a stockman or 2-blade pen knife, for example.

Jim

 

[vwb563]

SAK's are probably the most useful knives ever invented, IMO. Every time someone starts an "If you could only have one" thread, my answer is always a SAK.

Same for me. If I were limited to only carrying 1 knife it would be a SAK. Right now as I type this I have a Vic Executive in my left pocket which I always carry everywhere everyday no matter what kind of larger knife that I may have clipped in my other pocket. I may go days without using the larger knife but the little Executive gets used multiple times per day either filing down a broken fingernail or using the scissors to cut or clip something. The tweezers are very useful as is the toothpick. If I encounter a small cutting chor I use the Executive's blade rathar than using and dulling the larger "clip on" knife's blade. To me the little SAK is indispensable.