Why does CPM-M4 dominate in national cutting competitions?

[nozh2002]

Which does NOT make your test the end all be all final word on quality of steels.

I applaud your efforts, but stand by my doubts of your test's complete accuracy, based on the fact that after retesting 1 of your knives, your test produced highly varying results.

Whats to say that retesting your favorite Dozier D2 blade won't offer equally varying results (perhaps it won't rate as highly the second time around?)

Well I explain everything already and if you just ignore this - what I can do. Only state that you ignore my explanation. Varying result in this case expected and usual.

It is not final word, but this is only test results available. I will welcome you also doing something useful, but you have nothing so far except "-Nah..", which is leading us nowhere.

Show me something real, until then - I can say - I have test results and you don't.

Thanks, Vassili.

 

[nozh2002]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSrlvqrZQKY


You asked, watch the video. there is your answer.
Yes, yes. Its only 5 min. but he is cutting a LOT harder
and a lot more wood than the light whittling I was doing that dulled and chipped my ZDP.

Yes, I know its not fair to compare ZDP with 1095.

I am personaly disappointed with the performance of my ZDP blade and
looking for answers. Bad heat treatment, poor whittiling skills, or maybe my expectations were too high for this "best" steel.

What do you thinK?

This is how man should answer. I have great respect to James007, he just went and make his point undeniable. Now it is my turn.

Thanks, Vassili.

 

[Jason B.]

You say its not the "final word" but you sure act like it is. I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into doing those tests I have done lots of test myself and know what a process it can be. The problem is that they were not all the same blade shape, thickness, grind or level of sharpenss. Too many variables to be a accurate representation of all those steels.

This thread is about M4 and cutting comp's not about ZDP or your cutting test or your feeling that ZDP is the best steel. If you feel these test prove something to you then thats fine but lets get back on topic and put the ego aside for now.

 

[nozh2002]

You say its not the "final word" but you sure act like it is. I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into doing those tests I have done lots of test myself and know what a process it can be. The problem is that they were not all the same blade shape, thickness, grind or level of sharpenss. Too many variables to be a accurate representation of all those steels.

This thread is about M4 and cutting comp's not about ZDP or your cutting test or your feeling that ZDP is the best steel. If you feel these test prove something to you then thats fine but lets get back on topic and put the ego aside for now.

Where results of your tests and description of them? Until you have it available - it is not testing, but playing around with knife. Now if you bother to read about my tests you are talking about so confident you may find that I take care about all those variables and have accurate representation.

Now if you all stop talking about my humble test and start talking about CPM M4 - we will came back to this topic. I just make a point on generalization which is wrong and we need to look how each steel perform in real life instead of make theoretical statement based on composition or whatever.

There is special thread in Knife Reviews - why don't you post there about you opinion on my testing? Also you may read from there what it is all about, so you will know what are you talking about.

Thanks, Vassili.

 

[H0B0J0]

Also you may read from there what it is all about, so you will know what are you talking about.

Vassili, have you ever met anyone on these forums, other than yourself of course, that in your opinion, DOES know what they are talking about?

Because I would surely like to talk to them.


Back to the topic, after reading about the competitions, in what way are the competitors "sponsored" ?

I read that Benchmade and Spyderco among others, sponsor competitors, but what do they do?

Give them money to advertise them? Free knives? Discounts? Free steel to work with? What are the perks of representing a production company in competition?

Perhaps M4 steel is provided at no cost, and that is why they are dominating the competitions

I can only speculate.

 

[Mike Carter Custom Knives]

Vassili, have you ever met anyone on these forums, other than yourself of course, that in your opinion, DOES know what they are talking about?

Because I would surely like to talk to them.


Back to the topic, after reading about the competitions, in what way are the competitors "sponsored" ?

I read that Benchmade and Spyderco among others, sponsor competitors, but what do they do?

Give them money to advertise them? Free knives? Discounts? Free steel to work with? What are the perks of representing a production company in competition?

Perhaps M4 steel is provided at no cost, and that is why they are dominating the competitions

I can only speculate.

I don't know exactly what deals the cutters make with their sponsor but I beleive the sponsors help out with some of the travel expenses, etc. A lot of the good cutters can't really compete for the championship because they simply can't travel around the country competing in the events.

Many of the cutting competitions are staged in conjunction with knife shows where a lot of the cutters are likely to be there anyway. There is no prize money. Just bragging rights, some trophy plaques and a custom championship belt buckle.

One of the top cutters is Scott Devanna who is a metalurgist for Crucible steel and I know that Warren Osborne and Gayle Bradley worked closely with Scott on developing steel and heat treatments. Gayle told me that they basically tried every type steel the Crucible had and kept coming back to M4. They would experiment with it and send it back to Crucible to be analyzed in their lab.

I would imagine that Crucible probably provided some free steel since they were getting something out of it too but from what I know of the competitors, if they knew of a better steel they would be using it free or not. These guys want to win.

In my opinion, the cutting contests represent more of a real world test of the knives than cutting a thousand pieces of string. The knives have to tough enough to stand up to heavy chopping, stay sharp enough to slice paper or a plastic drinking straw, and agile enough for water bottle or rope cuts.

 

[CL01]

Wow, this thread has gone all over the place. The OP's question about why M4 is dominating the cutting competitions has been talked about, but someone keeps trying to bring up ZDP-189.

What's interesting is that the ZDP blade that Vassili keeps talking about (Yuna Hard) is a laminated blade. I was of the opinion that laminated blades aren't allowed in cutting competitions. Is that true?

Also, while Mr. Carter has been very generous of his time with explaining cutting contests, as far as I know, no competitor has come on (Or no one has been able to find out) to say that ZDP-189 has or has not been tested for cutting competitions.

If laminates aren't allowed, then Vassili's opinions about his beloved Yuna Hard isn't as relevant (If they are allowed, then I guess it is). & we do NOT know if ZDP has been tested for cutting competitions, but "most" people believe it has been tested because people want to WIN. However, we can't say for sure, so Vassili insists that it hasn't been.

I was looking through the latest issue of Blade Magazine & I believe I read that most of the competitors at the cutting competition that was covered in the magazine are using M4. I believe the few others were using O-1. From what I know (Read & heard), no stainless steel (In recent yrs) have won any cutting competitions.

I find that interesting, however, I haven't "evaluated" that, so maybe my observation isn't any good.

 

[bearcut]

With the correct edge geometry, an INFI blade would be at the Top.

So why isn't anybody using it in these competitions? (And winning)

 

[H0B0J0]

So why isn't anybody using it in these competitions? (And winning)

Pretty sure Lycosa's post was aimed at the immediate preceding post by Noz stating his test results (in which INFI took 17th).

Don't think he meant the top of the competition circuit...just Vassili's retention tests.

 

[Lycosa]

HOB--- Thanks! That's what I meant. :thumbup:

 

[bearcut]

Pretty sure Lycosa's post was aimed at the immediate preceding post by Noz stating his test results (in which INFI took 17th).

Don't think he meant the top of the competition circuit...just Vassili's retention tests.

Got it.

 

[syltetoy]

I don't know exactly what deals the cutters make with their sponsor but I beleive the sponsors help out with some of the travel expenses, etc. A lot of the good cutters can't really compete for the championship because they simply can't travel around the country competing in the events.

Many of the cutting competitions are staged in conjunction with knife shows where a lot of the cutters are likely to be there anyway. There is no prize money. Just bragging rights, some trophy plaques and a custom championship belt buckle.

One of the top cutters is Scott Devanna who is a metalurgist for Crucible steel and I know that Warren Osborne and Gayle Bradley worked closely with Scott on developing steel and heat treatments. Gayle told me that they basically tried every type steel the Crucible had and kept coming back to M4. They would experiment with it and send it back to Crucible to be analyzed in their lab.

I would imagine that Crucible probably provided some free steel since they were getting something out of it too but from what I know of the competitors, if they knew of a better steel they would be using it free or not. These guys want to win.

In my opinion, the cutting contests represent more of a real world test of the knives than cutting a thousand pieces of string. The knives have to tough enough to stand up to heavy chopping, stay sharp enough to slice paper or a plastic drinking straw, and agile enough for water bottle or rope cuts.

That's what I would expect that the competitors, knife makers and steel sponsors would try many things to get the best performance and results.

Thank you Mike for your response and clarification. . .

 

[hardheart]

we do NOT know if ZDP has been tested for cutting competitions, but "most" people believe it has been tested because people want to WIN.

I really don't think anyone in this thread has said that they think ZDP-189 has been tested for a competition cutter. Really, who knows how many of the high alloy steels outside of Crucible's offerings were tested. The ABS members surely had several tons of low ally tool steels and 10XX lying around, and as mentioned, Crucible played a part in evaluating. Timken-LAtrobe seems to not care about the cutlery industry, nor a peep from Carpenter. Sandvik, Uddeholm, Hitachi, and Aichi are all foreign based.

Interesting that laminates would not be allowed, and I can't imagine why. Kevin Cashen competed with a pattern welded damascus blade, yet a laminate would give a homogenous edge composition, and several custom makers and large scale producers make laminated blades.

 

[Mike Carter Custom Knives]

I see nothing in the rules that would not allow laminates. I think any steel is allowed as long as it has been tested and certified prior to competition. You can see all of the knife specs on the BladesSports website at Knife Specs.

There was a recent thread about M4 in the Wilderness forum and one of the competition cutters, Donovan Philips, shared some of his experience. Maybe he can answer some of the questions that I can't.

I don't know what steels have been tried. Since many of the competitors are knifemakers, it makes sense to me that if they heard of some great super steel that they would check it out.

 

[Larrin]

I know Warren Osborne tested a lot of steels for competition cutters. He said that S30V would do well at first but would chip after extended use. This seems to put the "cut-off" for carbide volume somewhere around that 12% which CPM-M4 has. Also, the high chromium content in solution may reduce the toughness of S30V somewhat, or that the S30V wasn't heat treated optimally for the application. I've always wanted a good stainless steel in the 8-12% carbide volume range.

 

[PeterPHWS]

I agree that any type of steel can be used....damascus or laminates....and having spoken at length yesterday to Gayle Bradley there is a lot more to the performance aspect than just a given type of steel....just as there are knife makers who can make a given type of steel perform better than others using the same steel. It is just as important how the knife is made....things like cooling on grinding and the heat treatment used afterwards....and what Rc hardness the knives are taken to....people like Gayle are talking measuring a blade at .5 of a Rc Unit...so 61 Rc and 61.5 Rc and 62 Rc have all been tested and evaluated.

Also it is worth noting that the majority of competitiors are going for "cleaver" shaped knives which maximise the rules in terms of keeping weight forward and as much straight edge as possible....but to the majority of us this would not be pleasing on an aesthetics point of view...let's face it they look a bit ugly....and whilst the sport may bring about greater in depth knowledge on steels and edge geometry...not may will be "gushing" over the knives used.

I did'nt ask about ZDP though....and I suspect it has not been tried....but that is perhaps because of the available knowledge from the charts on each steels propriatory make up and strengths/suitability for what they want to do. I guess these guys know what to discount or count from the off.

My own thoughts though are that if the true advantage lies in the cleaver shape....would you commision a very expensive knife from one of the top Japanese makers who has the experience and availability of these other steels which come close to CPM M4....only to find that you were hit with a bill of £3000+ for a Cowry X comp knife that looked completely ugly? Ditto ZDP or any of the other metals famed for edge retention and strength like R2 or OU31....a 5 inch full tang knife by Hattori called the Mayabi costs over $2k....so a 10 inch blade with a full tang handle could easily be $4k...
that's a lot of money for a cleaver! I would rather spend that sort of money looking round for a good second hand original Japanese Katana....or some other comparably beautiful Knife Art....

 

[cotdt]

I've always wanted a good stainless steel in the 8-12% carbide volume range.

CPM 3V is semi-stainless and might be what you're looking for. It is super tough.

One thing to note is that the carbide percentage of a steel is actually lower than calculated, because the first few percentage points of certain alloying elements don't form carbides. Ie. chromium at lower percentages simply replace iron atoms to make the alloy stronger instead of more brittle. As you add more chromium you get large Cr23F6 carbide clumps, and as you add more you get free chromium for stainless properties.

Some smaller carbides might not neccessarily weaken edge stability. We don't really know. The edge stability of CPM-M4 is much better than predicted from its 12% carbide percentage.

 

[cotdt]

Also it is worth noting that the majority of competitiors are going for "cleaver" shaped knives which maximise the rules in terms of keeping weight forward and as much straight edge as possible....but to the majority of us this would not be pleasing on an aesthetics point of view...let's face it they look a bit ugly....and whilst the sport may bring about greater in depth knowledge on steels and edge geometry...not may will be "gushing" over the knives used.

A cleaver seems too heavy for what the competitors do. It's a 10"x2" inch blade so I would imagine that they are very thin or they would be too heavy. Competition knives should cut extremely well and I would buy one just to chop rolling golf balls in half.

 

[PeterPHWS]

Here is champion Shawn Scott's winning knife from theis year's World Championship. It was made by Steve Singer from M4.

[/QUOTE]

I would buy one of these to compete....but only pay a sensible price....a traditional blade shape would appeal to me much more.

 

[fujita yuji]

If I am to choose steel from Hitachi's products for this kind of competision,
I'll go for HAP-10, not ZDP.
HAP is a powder HSS family of Hitachi, has been used for industrial cutting tools
for these twenty years and HAP10 is known for it's resilience.

Besides, in hand-plane cutting competition of Japan, HAP40 has some significant presence.