Here at the beginning of 2019 I decided to write up a retrospective of Knife Steel Nerds so far. A lot of things happened in 2018. First of all, the Knife Steel Nerds website was started, with the first article being posted February 27, 2018. That first article was about a modified 3V steel developed and patented by Crucible but never sold as far as I know. Links to the website were not shared with anyone until March 8th, however.
The Audience
Things have been a whirlwind ever since with writing weekly articles, sharing them, and interacting with those interested enough to comment on the articles. Sharing articles has been one of the unexpected challenges, as it takes a surprising amount of time to post links on various forums and groups. Self-promotion is a bit foreign to me but at the same time I am writing up this information with the hope that someone reads it so I am trying to strike a balance. Fortunately the response to sharing the articles has been positive and good discussions have taken place on different forums, Facebook, and Reddit. Several of those discussions have led to corrections to articles, ideas for other articles, and additions with new information I didn’t find during my search.
I have received many more e-mails from knifemakers and knife enthusiasts than I ever did before, now that the website is in full swing. Even people within my city of Pittsburgh have contacted me. Developing these relationships is one of the most rewarding parts of starting Knife Steel Nerds. I have been asked many questions but also been offered help from many people, with suggestions, materials, testing specimens, and other offers. There are many generous people within the knife community.
Originally I envisioned Knife Steel Nerds as being targeted primarily at knifemakers. However, many knife enthusiasts have also read the articles and responded positively. There are many more enthusiasts than there are makers but the types of articles that each group enjoys is often different. However, I also have found that I am not good at predicting which articles will be popular with either group. I mostly write the next article that interests me and see where it falls.
Patreon
I started a Knife Steel Nerds Patreon in April and that has greatly exceeded my expectations. I do not take money for personal use but there were a handful of people that had offered money to help with testing, etc. so Patreon seemed like the best way of accepting donations. I set some goals on Patreon, but we blew past all of them within a few weeks. This has allowed the expansion of the amount of testing that is planned. With Patreon funds I have purchased a knife edge impact tester, a sharpness tester, and a heat treating furnace. In the future, funds will continue to be used on testing so that we can answer more knife performance-related questions such as what controls knife edge toughness, the effect of different heat treatments on toughness and edge retention, and other fun experiments. We also have some discussions among the Patreon members which is nice.
Some Stats
There were just over 50,000 visitors to Knife Steel Nerds and 135,000 page views. The average article received 1978 views and the median was 1347 views. Not bad for a blog written for nerds. The most popular article was “How I Became a Knife Steel Metallurgist” which was shared on Hacker News and received many views. Many people connected with my story and my passion for metallurgy, even when they themselves don’t have any interest in the subject. I think that a lot of people can relate to having an interesting in a niche topic and the enjoyment that comes from pursuing it.
The majority of Knife Steel Nerds readers are from the USA (60%) which is probably expected but there are readers from every country I have heard of and several I hadn’t. If restricted to countries that had at least 10 visitors to Knife Steel Nerds, over 80 countries visited the website. It is very exciting to see such a diversity of visitors to the website.
Toughness Testing
The main testing that we have completed for the website so far has been toughness testing. There are many knife steels for which there isn’t any toughness information available at all. The companies that do their own toughness testing do not provide it for every steel and the different companies’ toughness tests cannot be compared to each other. We also needed a toughness test to be able to compare different heat treatment and processing parameters to optimize toughness. The common toughness tests done by Crucible use a 10 mm thick specimen and Bohler and Uddeholm use a 7 mm thick specimen, which is far thicker material than generally used in knives. Fortunately, thinner specimens are possible according to the ASTM standard for charpy toughness testing. We started using a simple 1/4-size unnotched charpy specimen and have gotten very good results from it. Of note, my father and I did a study on CruForgeV where we looked at different forging temperatures and heat treatments to look at the effects on toughness. Warren Krywko and I did a relatively extensive study on heat treatments of Z-Wear (the same as CPM Cru Wear) which had a lot of interesting conclusions. More toughness tests are in progress to better fill out a more complete comparison between different steels and heat treatments. Here is a snapshot of the testing so far:
CATRA Testing
Another area I am proud of this year are the contributions to understanding of CATRA testing for slicing edge retention. My father and I did a small CATRA test several years ago that I reported on looking at the “Damascus cutting effect.” Probably more significant was the analysis and reporting of CATRA testing by others. One study was commissioned by Wister Hill and another large dataset was from a major knife company.
Maximizing Edge Retention – What CATRA Reveals about the Optimum Edge
Which Steel Has the Best Edge Retention? Part 1
Which Steel Has the Best Edge Retention? Part 2
In both cases I knew about the testing that had been performed and I asked if I could have a shot at analyzing it. Neither dataset had been presented to the public and I wasn’t sure what I would find. The datasets were quite large and had many variables to analyze. I learned a lot of things about how the CATRA test works and which variables most greatly affect slicing edge retention. More information on what CATRA testing measures was presented in those articles than in any source available up until their publication. And I think that some very significant findings were presented on what controls slicing edge retention. We found an equation that can predict relative slicing edge retention based on edge angle, rockwell hardness, and the volume fraction of each carbide type. While we knew that vanadium carbides were good at improving slicing edge retention, how much those carbides contribute is now much better understood.
The Future
I am currently looking into ways of increasing interactivity and discussion within the group because the naming of Knife Steel Nerds (plural) was intentional. I am not just the Knife Steel Nerd providing information, but we are a community of Knife Steel Nerds. Therefore, if you ever have a question or a comment, make sure you send me a message or leave a comment on an article. I have a list of well over 50 articles to write in the future which fall in a few major categories: 1) reviews and interviews, 2) reports of testing, and 3) explanations of engineering and metallurgy concepts. These will be similar to articles which have been published thus far. On the one hand, the weekly article cadence has been a struggle to keep up with, but on the other hand there are a lot of articles I want to get to and it seems like I will never write them all. There will hopefully be a major ramp-up in reporting of toughness testing and knife edge toughness testing. I also did a small sharpness-corrosion study which will hopefully be reported soon. So far it looks like 2019 will be at least as good as last year so stay tuned to Knife Steel Nerds.
