Whelp. Time to order some more steel. So what's next?

Nathan the Machinist said:
... We obviously left a lot of frustrated demand there.

We have steel for a 10-inch chopper ...

Help me think, what else should we be looking at?
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I think there was more "frustrated demand" from the Boot Knife - everytime I tried to get one, I never made the cut. 😠

10-inch chopper: Medium Chopper - I had an MC but traded it for a Behemoth (which I really like), but I still miss the MC. 😢

I know you said the DEK3 was a PITA to make, but it is one of my all-time favorites (all brands, not just CPK). It's such an amazing knife that my only regret was ordering just one. 😍
 
SpyderPhreak said:
In my personal experience so far, I'd take AEB-L over MC for kitchen use. I'd also much rather have D3V over either if I had the option. Personal preference. I take good care of my good kitchen knives, they don't need to be that stainless. I have several that aren't, and once they develop a mild patina, they don't rust unless I were to severely neglect them (so I don't).

MC is not the miracle that it seems to be made out to be. Plenty of makers have had problems with it and won't use it again.
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D3V is definitely corrosion resistant enough for a chef knife. if we were talking about cutting citrus all day long I'd prefer the other two. Which properties of D3V make you prefer it over MC in a chef knife though? MC can get harder easier and still be tough enough and for a chef knife higher hardness, with more wear resistance and enough toughness is better since it allows you to have thinner geometry with more acute angles without blunting due to deformation. Either of these steels is tough enough for a chef knife, so chipping is not an issue. AEB-L would excel if ease of sharpening is a concern since it sharpens the easiest of the three, but outside of that I don't see any benefits over MC for kitchen use. I have extensive experience with AEB-L and MC in kitchen knives, I don't have experience with D3V in this role since to my knowledge non exist, but I have experience with 3V with low temper in a chef knife and it works very well, but MC is better for chef knives in my experience. Just curious if maybe I am missing something that D3V would bring to the table.
 
ace said:
D3V is definitely corrosion resistant enough for a chef knife. if we were talking about cutting citrus all day long I'd prefer the other two. Which properties of D3V make you prefer it over MC in a chef knife though? MC can get harder easier and still be tough enough and for a chef knife higher hardness, with more wear resistance and enough toughness is better since it allows you to have thinner geometry with more acute angles without blunting due to deformation. Either of these steels is tough enough for a chef knife, so chipping is not an issue. AEB-L would excel if ease of sharpening is a concern since it sharpens the easiest of the three, but outside of that I don't see any benefits over MC for kitchen use. I have extensive experience with AEB-L and MC in kitchen knives, I don't have experience with D3V in this role since to my knowledge non exist, but I have experience with 3V with low temper in a chef knife and it works very well, but MC is better for chef knives in my experience. Just curious if maybe I am missing something that D3V would bring to the table.
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Cost is a factor you did not consider. MC is not worth the extra money IMO. It is more than D3V, and significantly more expensive than AEB-L. D3V would be the clear winner for me with these 3 options.
 
SpyderPhreak said:
Cost is a factor you did not consider. MC is not worth the extra money IMO. It is more than D3V, and significantly more expensive than AEB-L. D3V would be the clear winner for me with these 3 options.
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Cost of the steel is a small portion of the cost of a knife. Most of the cost is labor, abrasives, heat treat, etc not the raw cost of the steel. I don’t know how much the difference between D3V and MC is, but that aside I thought there was something specific about D3V that made you consider it better than MC for kitchen knives. If it is just the cost then that’s fine too, just figured maybe there is some attribute of the steel itself I didn’t consider.
 
ace said:
Cost of the steel is a small portion of the cost of a knife. Most of the cost is labor, abrasives, heat treat, etc not the raw cost of the steel. I don’t know how much the difference between D3V and MC is, but that aside I thought there was something specific about D3V that made you consider it better than MC for kitchen knives. If it is just the cost then that’s fine too, just figured maybe there is some attribute of the steel itself I didn’t consider.
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I have plenty of customs. I wouldn’t say it’s a small portion of the cost. Maybe not the majority, but not small either.

I have not been impressed with the wear resistance of MC so far. Granted, I only have two examples, but they don’t seem to hold an edge like MC has been hyped to. I’d put it on par with good Elmax, and in the case of my Swamp Rat Galley Rat, the HT is done by Busse for both the MC and Elmax (ETA - even their recent AEB-L if I really think about it), so should be well-done HT and a pretty apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not up there with some of the better higher carbon super steels, or even D3V in my use. The MC hype really reminds me of S30V back in the day. Promised the world, but seems pretty “meh” in real world use. 🤷‍♂️
 
SpyderPhreak said:
I have plenty of customs. I wouldn’t say it’s a small portion of the cost. Maybe not the majority, but not small either.

I have not been impressed with the wear resistance of MC so far. Granted, I only have two examples, but they don’t seem to hold an edge like MC has been hyped to. I’d put it on par with good Elmax, and in the case of my Swamp Rat Galley Rat, the HT is done by Busse for both the MC and Elmax (ETA - even their recent AEB-L if I really think about it), so should be well-done HT and a pretty apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not up there with some of the better higher carbon super steels, or even D3V in my use. The MC hype really reminds me of S30V back in the day. Promised the world, but seems pretty “meh” in real world use. 🤷‍♂️
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Oh I see. MC is not supposed to be much more wear resistant than Elmax, I don’t know who claimed it was. It is in that range of steels wear resistance wise. Same class as s35vn, 4v, elmax, etc. Its claim to fame is that with that wear resistance it is still tougher than elmax and has great corrosion resistance so a very well balanced steel. It also gets harder easier than elmax, which is useful in kitchen knives where you want thin edges with acute angles. This is also the reason why aeb-l works well in kitchen knives, since it too stays tough at high hardness. Both give you high edge stability with added bonus that MC has more wear resistance and better corrosion resistance. So I think you have unrealistic expectations about MC, good elmax is the class where MC falls in wear resistance.
 
ace said:
Oh I see. MC is not supposed to be much more wear resistant than Elmax, I don’t know who claimed it was. It is in that range of steels wear resistance wise. Same class as s35vn, 4v, elmax, etc. Its claim to fame is that with that wear resistance it is still tougher than elmax and has great corrosion resistance so a very well balanced steel. It also gets harder easier than elmax, which is useful in kitchen knives where you want thin edges with acute angles. This is also the reason why aeb-l works well in kitchen knives, since it too stays tough at high hardness. Both give you high edge stability with added bonus that MC has more wear resistance and better corrosion resistance. So I think you have unrealistic expectations about MC, good elmax is the class where MC falls in wear resistance.
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I'm like elmax but it will corrode

I'm lucky enough to have magnacut knives for the kitchen from Richard338 Richard338 and I love them

They've held a great edge even hitting bone and I use them all the time!

I love them

I do wish I had a D3V kitchen knife to try though
 
ace said:
Oh I see. MC is not supposed to be much more wear resistant than Elmax, I don’t know who claimed it was. It is in that range of steels wear resistance wise. Same class as s35vn, 4v, elmax, etc. Its claim to fame is that with that wear resistance it is still tougher than elmax and has great corrosion resistance so a very well balanced steel. It also gets harder easier than elmax, which is useful in kitchen knives where you want thin edges with acute angles. This is also the reason why aeb-l works well in kitchen knives, since it too stays tough at high hardness. Both give you high edge stability with added bonus that MC has more wear resistance and better corrosion resistance. So I think you have unrealistic expectations about MC, good elmax is the class where MC falls in wear resistance.
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I just don’t think the added cost is necessary for kitchen use, exactly for the reasons you mentioned. About the only thing where it might save you is like yoko yoko mentions, if you accidentally hit bone too hard, the added toughness might save your edge if using MC vs. the others. It has more corrosion resistance too, so if you don’t take care of the knife, that could be something a person would want. As mentioned, I take good care of my nice kitchen knives, so that’s not something I need. Extra cost for nothing in my case. If cost were equal, then maybe I’d feel differently.

Agree Yoko, I still want a D3V kitchen knife!!!
 
ace said:
D3V is definitely corrosion resistant enough for a chef knife. if we were talking about cutting citrus all day long I'd prefer the other two. Which properties of D3V make you prefer it over MC in a chef knife though? MC can get harder easier and still be tough enough and for a chef knife higher hardness, with more wear resistance and enough toughness is better since it allows you to have thinner geometry with more acute angles without blunting due to deformation. Either of these steels is tough enough for a chef knife, so chipping is not an issue. AEB-L would excel if ease of sharpening is a concern since it sharpens the easiest of the three, but outside of that I don't see any benefits over MC for kitchen use. I have extensive experience with AEB-L and MC in kitchen knives, I don't have experience with D3V in this role since to my knowledge non exist, but I have experience with 3V with low temper in a chef knife and it works very well, but MC is better for chef knives in my experience. Just curious if maybe I am missing something that D3V would bring to the table.
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I agree that magna cut would be very good for a kitchen knife. Looking for an advantage of D3V, the only one I can think of is that it is significantly more ductile at a good working hardness for the application and you would not expect to see chipping at a narrow angle and instead would have a slightly rolled edge that could be corrected by steeling whereas magna cut would require resharpening.

Although I don't recommend steeling 3v either.

If you look at that last video of Ben running that K20, the edge angle on that sword was 15° per side. That's where Ben runs his race knife on that course and that's where that sword was sharpened to. If you look at the minimal amount of damage it took in the impact on the cinder block at that narrow edge, magna Cut would have had a significant blowout. This is relevant because 15 DPS is a pretty good angle for a hard high-end kitchen knife.
 
Abrasive wear resistance on a kitchen knife should be of minimal importance unless you're eating abrasive foods. Which you're probably not.

Edge retention would be of paramount concern, and sometimes a lower wear resistance steel can actually have better edge retention in some applications. This may or may not be one of them.
 
I think that Elmax doesn't have the good reputation that it deserves because a lot of makers didn't do a good job with it.

Magna cut is going to catch this even worse. It is a fantastic outstanding steel, but it is tempered so low that many, perhaps even most, makers and manufacturers are going to burn the edge sharpening it. And perhaps even grinding it to shape in the hardened state. And they will deny it deny it deny it and lie to themselves that heat at the edge when sharpening is a problem because they don't ever feel the blade even get particularly hot. Just remember that an instantaneous rise to a thousand degrees .005" up the edge (The part that actually cuts) will raise the temperature of the knife by one degree at your fingertips. (I did the math once) You'll never feel it. And so people deny it is a problem. There's going to be so many people doing a bad job of magna cut (grinding it to shape and also sharpening it) that I predict it is going to suffer some pretty bad blows to its reputation due to the incompetence of manufacturers.
 
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