Edge Retention, History - Articles - Books, Super Steels, Toughness

Vanadis 8 – Better than CPM-10V

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History of Vanadis 8

The history of Vanadis 8 goes back a lot further than just the steel itself, really we have to know the history of 10V to know all of the background that is relevant. You can read about CPM-10V in this article. CPM-10V is important because Vanadis 8 is intended as a replacement for CPM-10V, or at least for similar applications. CPM-10V was developed by Crucible in the late 70s, as the first powder metallurgy steel to utilize a microstructure made up of only vanadium carbide, as opposed to chromium and molybdenum/tungsten carbides. This gave 10V a combination of good toughness along with very high wear resistance from the ~10% vanadium and therefore ~17% vanadium carbide. read more

Corrosion Resistance, Edge Retention, Steel and Knife Properties, Super Steels, Toughness

CPM-S110V Steel – History and Properties

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Forging, Toughness

Toughness Improvement of High Carbon Tungsten Steel 1.2562

Thanks to all the new Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters that have joined since our big article on CATRA testing. The response has been phenomenal. We only need 4 more supporters to reach 200! Brandon Percival, Jason Stone, Fixall, John Schmidt, Adam Ringgenberg, Adam Webb, Shah Paul, Andy, Chad Shoopman, Dylan Giagni, Adam Nolte, John Scarborough, Datafox, Ben Secrist, Noah, Josh – REK, Robert Towe, NJO, Dd, Andrew Bounds, Nathan Gee, and hsc3. read more

Forging, Toughness

Ranking Toughness of Forging Knife Steels

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Low-Alloy Steel Testing

Over the past two years or so we have tested the toughness of many knife steels using a simple charpy impact test. You can read about the specifications of the test on this page. With the samples tested in this article I got a lot of help from Warren Krywko and Devin Thomas as well as donated steel from Alpha Knife Supply, Barmond Special Steels, and Achim Wirtz. This article focuses on the toughness testing performed on “low alloy” and carbon steels that are often used by forging bladesmiths. It is possible to forge high alloy steels, of course, though it does not appear to be very common even today. read more

Heat Treating and Processing, Nitrogen-alloyed, Toughness

Nitro-V – Its Properties and How to Heat Treat It

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Nitro-V Steel

Nitro-V is a stainless steel sold by New Jersey Steel Baron which was first released in 2017 [1]. The steel was designed and produced in collaboration with Buderus Steel as a version of Uddeholm AEB-L modified with nitrogen and vanadium. Another obvious comparison is with 14C28N which was designed as a version of 13C26 modified for improved corrosion resistance. 13C26 is nearly identical to AEB-L but produced by Sandvik. You can read more about the history of AEB-L, 13C26, and 14C28N in this article. read more

History - Articles - Books, Toughness

How to Heat Treat 26C3 Steel

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26C3 Steel

26C3 steel is produced by Uddeholmstrip (part of Voestalpine Precision Strip) as a razor and scalpel steel. This steel is also known as 1.2002 using the German designation. I don’t know much about the history of the steel but the marketing literature says, “voestalpine Precision Strip AB has long experience and were the pioneers of both the high carbon (UHB 26C3) and the martensitic stainless steel (UHB AEB-L) razor strip grades” [1]. In the 1927 patent for AEB-H [2], reference is made to “the purest Swedish carbon steel with ‘1.05% C and 0.4% Mn'” and in a 1970 patent for a razor blade steel there is a reference to UHB 26C (the 3 is not on the end) which has the same approximate composition as the current 26C3 [3]. So I think there was probably some evolution of the composition despite the claims of the marketing material. The composition of 26C3 is shown below: read more