Thanks to Bill Smutz, Alex Topfer, Florian Bachler, Brunhard, Art, Rod H, Sach, Jinny Koh, Jon Duda, Cory Henderson, and UPKnife for becoming Knife Steeel Nerds Patreon supporters! And Michael Fitzgerald, Tim Marais, and Head VI for increasing their contributions. All of the experiments shown below are possible thanks to supporters.
Thanks to Mike Poutiatine, TWJC, Robert Hugh, Head VI, and Snackin for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! I was able to purchase a forge to do these experiments with thanks to the contributions of supporters.
Thanks to Jake Smith, Erik Mittag-Leffler, Ashley Wagner, David W. Debora Richards, gspam1, James Straub, Tim Ottawa, Flynn Sharp Knives, David Millington, Joseph Baier, Alex Roy, and Noah for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! These experiments are very expensive and time consuming so your support is always appreciated.
Thanks to JimHSoars, Gregory Gallant, Dan, Paul Hutchings, Stephen Ostdiek, and Maxi for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!
YouTube
The following information is also available as a YouTube video for those that prefer watching to reading. The video might be more fun though there are more details and more discussion in the article.
Thanks to Maxi, Michael Fitzgerald, Samy Tammam, Russ Ramski, and Scott Guthrie for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! We are almost to 300 supporters! Wow!
New T-Shirts!
After requests from any kind fans we now have t-shirts available, including an awesome one with the MagnaCut logo on front and knife grinding man on the back. Note it is available in a few different styles and colors. Click this link if you want one.
Thanks to Kevin Colwell, Prentice Goodwin, HallMade Knives, and Saint Apocryphal for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! And Fixall for increasing his contribution amount.
Background of Austempering and Bainite
Thanks to Tim Marais, Daniel DeRosia, Jess Hoffman, David Rogers, Mo, John Macklis, and R. Thomas Buffenbarger for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!
History of CPM-15V
CPM-15V is essentially a higher vanadium extension of CPM-10V developed by Crucible steel in the late 1970s. I wrote about the history of CPM-10V in this article so I won’t copy-paste all of that here. Prior to powder metallurgy technology it was known that adding higher vanadium would lead to greater wear resistance due to the very high hardness of vanadium carbide. However, once the vanadium content exceeded 4-5% the carbides would be large enough that the steel would fail in forging, and toughness would also be reduced. So the highest wear resistance steel for many years was T15 high speed steel with ~5% vanadium. With CPM-10V they saw what the limit was for vanadium additions and found that once they reached about 11% vanadium the carbide size would be increased because the vanadium carbides would form in the liquid steel before the steel could be gas atomized into powder. Read about the powder metallurgy process in this article. The more vanadium that is added the higher the temperature where the vanadium carbides form. When the formation temperature is higher than the temperature of the liquid steel then they form prior to atomization giving the large carbides in the 11% vanadium PM steel below (labeled CPM 11V):
Thanks to Knife Thoughts, Nicholas Rossi, Jason D. Stone, and Ken McCurdy for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!
Update 1/5/2024: I neglected to mention in the original writeup of this article that the Z-Max was retested along with the new Maxamet and Rex 121 tests. The total cardstock cut was updated from 909 in the original testing to 948 mm.
Thanks to George Walton, Josh Perdue, Bill Fitzgerald, and Donovan Phillips for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!
Podcasts
I appeared on two podcasts this past week, Knife Perspective and Mark of the Maker. Knife Perspective I had been on before so we mostly focused on MagnaCut and other topics. Mark of the Maker was a full interview asking about my background before discussing my book, website, and CPM MagnaCut. So listen to one or the other or both depending on what you’re in the mood for.
Thanks to Dakian Delomast, 四季 浪月, joseph j fonzi, Nicholas Baird, Nick Dombrowski, Douglas Custom Knives, ElementalBreakdown, Daniel Manns, Drew Certain, and Michael Shuey for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! And Jeff Schafer for increasing his contribution.
