Would you be able to tell if a steel was mislabeled?

ac1d0v3r1d3 said:
I'd notice[...]between 440a and 440c for sure. Edge retention and brittleness are a dead giveaway.
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And which would you consider as which? 440A is often disparaged as a poor steel yet Kershaw used it for years without anyone griping (goes to show what a good heat treatment does!). 440C is practically the "litmus paper" cutlery stainless that all other stainless blade steels get compared to. I bet that you could heat treat either steel to perform almost identically to each other in 99% of typical knife tasks. The treatments for each steel would be different, but the results would be nearly identical.

I honestly think there's more of a difference between D2 and S30V than 440A and C.
 
I can tell classes of steel pretty easily, and usually can guess a hardness to whithin about 2 rc points. It's not difficult to tell there is a difference between O-1 and 440C. Or 440C and a high grade stainless powder steel. I seriously doubt I could tell S110V from S90V by just looking. I'm not sure about performance either unless I did some serious time cutting and sharpening. Even then could I tell RC 60 S90V from RC 59 S110V? I have doubts. D2 is really easy to spot. S30V is pretty easy, especially when sharpening mostly due to the large amount of knives I've used in that steel for years now. I don't really know how fine tuned my senses are though. Other than the obvious classes of steels it would be tough.
 
I would be able to tell differences to a reasonable degree through sharpening. In the case of 440A vs. 440C, the 440C will take longer to sharpen and will have a 'toothy' edge. I can tell S30V through it's resistance to wear and S90V by the length of time it takes to sharpen and the way my hones like to skate over it's surface. That said, the differences must be significant for me to tell them apart.
 
Typically I wonder about this with Chinese made knives sporting a 440C blade. I do wonder if it's not the serviceable Chinese steel that you can for example find on a Tenacious, but rebranded for marketing reasons.
 
A.P.F. said:
I would be able to tell differences to a reasonable degree through sharpening. In the case of 440A vs. 440C, the 440C will take longer to sharpen and will have a 'toothy' edge. I can tell S30V through it's resistance to wear and S90V by the length of time it takes to sharpen and the way my hones like to skate over it's surface. That said, the differences must be significant for me to tell them apart.
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The 440C in one of my TOPS fixed blades does not take a "toothy" edge. A difference in heat treatment methinks. :)
 
Typically I wonder about this with Chinese made knives sporting a 440C blade. I do wonder if it's not the serviceable Chinese steel that you can for example find on a Tenacious, but rebranded for marketing reasons.
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I'll guess that unless the knife company having the product manufactured imports their own steel it likely is one of two steels they seem to offer. The 8C ( various names) and 9C (various names like benchmade uses in some). They have steel mills that can produce steels for submarines and aerospace applications so I'm sure you can get most anything but what I see most in the stuff I find to read online are those two steel types.

As I stated it's just a guess. There's not a lot of difference in performance in most of the knives from different companies that import IMO.
 
The only thing that I notice and maybe I'm crazy here is that with VG10 it seems to have a different finish (?) on it.
I can't really explain it, but whenever I clean my Spyderco knives the way they shine up and the way the water
wipes off the blade is just different from the other knives. This could just be the way Spyderco finishes the blade
and not the steel. Anyone else notice this?
 
Given my preference for vanadium stainless steels, I think I'd be able to immediately tell the difference once the thing rusted on me when I cut some food. I've also found that S30V, Elmax, and M390 tends to roll rather than chip for me. If a steel isn't S90V, CTS-20CP, or S110V, I should be able to tell once I try to sharpen a chip out of it.
 
Of the blade steels I am most familiar with (VG10, 440c, AUS8a, s30v, 8cr13mov, 7cr17, 1095crovan/1095) I probably could tell them apart. When you get into super super steels I wouldn't be able to. Between sharpening, density, hardness, and tensile strength, I can usually tell. Good question on the heat treat, that may throw me off a bit.
 
I seriously doubt I'd notice anything wrong when using the knife or how fast it got dull but I think I might find something amiss when I went to sharpen it...if it was a very different steel. To me, some steels are almost silly easy to sharpen, like H1 and VG-10, while most others I find more difficult and time consuming. I might notice a difference, but I would probably ignore it and consider it a bad/different heat treat.

I think this brings up the very good question, "Do we put too much importance on the type of steel in the knife we buy?" even though I probably wouldn't be able to tell by using it, I really don't think that we do. I sweat alot at work and I learned along ago that I needed to regularly clean and oil my knives, not matter the steel, or see rust spots form. This stopped when I switched over to H1, now I don't need to reguarly clean and oil my work knife.

My zdp ladybug, I have yet to experience it being dull. I run it through the sharpening process when I am sharpening my other knives, but it has never been dull enough that it won't shave my arm hair. It's always shaving sharp (pre sharpening), or hair popping sharp (post sharpening).

I have a busse knife, Infi. Nope, never have pounded on it like some people have. I use it as a camp knife and for the way I have used it, pretty much any type of steel would probably have sufficed without me knowing any different. Still I like the piece of mind that comes from seeing how difficult it seems to be to destroy knives made of infi. I don't expect to ever have to hack through a car door, but I paid the money for the knowledge that I probably can.

Good question. Makes you think. I like that.

Grizz
 
sven56 said:
Taste test works best.
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Arrrr! U beat me 2it. I was gonna say - one lick, one sniff, ill tell u what steel AND Rockwell hardness :-)

Seriously though, my uses don't push the abilities of the steel. I cut stuff, most steels do that fairly well. Now sharpening.... oh yea! My buddy and I trade work, he fixes my PC while I sharpen his knives. I went to work on his S30V and we both started laughing at the sound it was making on my EP stones. He said they were saying "oh God what is that?! Stop!" I swear it sounded like nails on a chalk board. And D2, uh.... how long am I supposed to rub it on this stone again?!?! As compared to 154CM which is over and done with in a jif and it is makes air bleed when I wave it around.

Another thing I notice is how long it takes the uncoated edge to corrode. 5160 will go longer before rusting than 1095. So, yes and no would be my most honest answer.
 
Using it? Probably not- sharpening it? Possibly. Different steels have very different feels when gliding over the belts.
 
I think we should be asking if there is any way to test people.

Does any company produce the same knife in significantly different steels?

A test might be set up with Spyderco Sprint Runs I guess, but they are all generally clustered in the very high end.
It would be nice to have low grade, medium and high end steels for people to evaluate blind...
 
Wouldn't know right off the bat. Would have to use and sharpen it and even then, not so confident on the exact type.
 
I can tell a difference in performance, edge retention, and when I sharpen, but I couldn't name the steel, exactly. I do notice differences between certain steels, and I've seen big differences in HT, thus performance.
Ontario's 5160, like the Afghan or RD4, is okay. I don't think they take or hold a great edge, but they are mass produced and relativly inexpensive. Compared to those, the Bolok, from Bruce Culberson came shaving sharp, and held that edge through hours of hard use. A few passes on a crock stick and right back to shaving sharp.
Point is, like 42blades has said, the HT makes the difference in the steel's performance. If I didn't know better, I'd think Bruce made the Bolok from some super steel. Because my limited experience with that steel, I wasn't too impressed. Yet, I had read that when forged, 5160 can really perform.
 
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