What's your favorite steel?

For what? I have a Cold Steel folder in CTS-XHP that performed very well for me, but I wouldn't want that steel on an ax head. My Becker BK 9 is made of 0170-6C, and it performs beautifully for processing firewood, you can beat on it all day, bend it in unnatural angle, and it always come back unscathed; but I would never take that blade scuba diving.

Then is the fact that I have a few Spyderco's using different flavor of steel, and exception made to the one's using H1 I can't see a difference between them, they all function very well in normal use. As to my Benchmade, the one that perform the best is using 154 cm, over and above S30V and N680, a supposedly inferior steel by modern standard, a fact that I attribute to a better grind geometry.

The worst, by far(it had to be exceedingly bad for me to notice), in my collection is a ZT in S35VN, but I suspect faulty heat treat in that case.

So in my case no favorite, but a steel that is appropriate for the intended use of the tool, by a manufacturer that heat treat them properly.
 
Lately my favorite all around good user steel has been N690 and RWL34. They take an edge that is just out of this world, and it's kind of a slick edge like it doesn't take very high a grit to make it super smooth. It's very easy to maintain, it's strops well, and if I get a little damage, it's very easy to fix.
 
Horses for courses.

Outdoors knife - 3V for a convex, fixed blade. A diamond loaded strop is all it needs.

EDC folder - Maxamet, S90V, Rex45, M390, K390, XHP, M4, Spy27. Preferably hollow grind. A job for DMT plates, except Spy27 can be just stropped.

Backyard and waterfront beaters - LC200N and H1 spyderedge (MUST be serrated). Corners of ceramic stones to resharpen.

Large chopper - convex blade in 420HC (cheaper and more available than 3V)

Kitchen - 3V, BD1N.
 
Larrin said:
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I think everyone focuses on steel WAY too much!

It's the least important of the three.
Geometry, and Heat Treatment are more important, in My opinion.....

Take This example, this was yesterday....bright beautiful day outside.....

This is Cruwear, arguably one of the best knife steels available. I'm fortunate to have had this blade heat-treated by one of the Best in the the country. Optimizing it for a hard, slicing knife.
62-63hrc. Proper tempering, Cryo, etc., etc....







Geometry......My Geometry.
About .010" bte.
Around 12 degrees per side, secondary bevels.
This was Sharp, if it were a kitchen knife.
You could feel it slowly, gently enter your thumb, and you didn't mind....that kind of sharp.

Well...... Application. I'm going to add a Fourth to what's important..... Application is also more important than steel choice.
You don't batton very thin, very hard knives into hard pine knots.

I break my knives,
so You don't/shouldn't have to..... :/
 
3V / Delta 3V, M4, Cru-Wear, and MagnaCut are the ones I gravitate toward most these days...for the balance of edge holding and toughness.

There are several other worthies, but those are what I usually reach for.
 
I’m fond of Spyderco’s XHP.
In my feeble hands it takes a crazy sharp edge fairly easily and holds it for a long time.

I‘m hot on Magnacut right now, but only have one knife with it so my experience is limited.
 
I think a better question is how hard should a blade be tempered at. Some see a higher rockwell number as a badge of honor, the higher the better. Well, I surmise to you that anything above 60 is impractical for knife use; it will be a b**** to sharpen, and it will be brittle, no matter what new fangled steel you're using. A broken blade is a useless blade. While at the other end of the spectrum, 55 and below won't hold an edge for very long as it will most likely roll as soon as it encounter anything modestly hard.
I prefer my blades in the 58 to 60 range, not too hard to sharpen, will hold it for a good while and they will take some flex before breaking.
 
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