Austenitizing, Quenching, Tempering, Toughness

How to Heat Treat 8670

Larrin

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. read more

Annealing, Austenitizing, Forging, Heat Treating and Processing, Quenching, Tempering

How to Use a Steel Datasheet to Develop a Heat Treatment

Larrin

Thanks to David Reem, Colton, camilo, Brendan Gildea, Vince Koacz, Monery Custom Cutlery, Curt E, Shannon Sanders, Brazilian Blades, Rory Kelly, Brunhard, Zachary Chumley, Noel, Adam Nolte, Gundam lupus, and Jan Huch for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! I still don’t know when it will be time for the announcement of my new steel so until then you can get all of the data on its properties exclusively on Patreon. read more

History - Articles - Books, Steel and Knife Properties

CruForgeV – The Unfortunate Events that Killed a Forging Knife Steel

Larrin

New Steel and New Patreon Supporters

On Patreon we now have a full set of experiments on the new knife steel I designed for Crucible and Niagara Specialty Metals. The results are extremely promising. Those results are only available on Patreon until it is time to do the formal announcement. Thanks to Chester Dussault, Bob Burland, Matt Masuda, Scott Decker, Philip Dempsey, David Heleander, ConvencienceShout, Chris Pregent, Egan, Morgan Noonan, Michal Galovič, Kumar Muthusamy, Eric Divine, Simon Moeskjær Balle, and Ben Horridge for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!  read more

Edge Stability, Steel and Knife Properties, Toughness

What Causes Razor Blades To Dull

Larrin

Thanks to Mike Strickland, Joe Dickens, Carson Reid Davis, Kenneth, Jordan Danz, Wade Smith, Jeremy Kline, and Ryan Guldbrandsen for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters! I have posted initial results of experiments testing my new powder metallurgy knife steel. So come join Patreon if you want to see how the steel is doing before everyone else. read more

Steel and Knife Properties

2020 in Review: Knife Steel Edition

Larrin

2020 had a lot going on, of course. But a lot of good came in the area of knife steel. Let’s go through some of the highlights.

New Steels

The big announcement in terms of new steels was the Spyderco-exclusive CPM SPY27. This steel was announced in January of this year, and I offered early analysis based on the released composition here: CPM SPY27 Analysis. That wasn’t the end of my SPY27 coverage, however, as I was able to get a bar from Spyderco and Niagara Specialty Metals and perform a range of experiments on it, including hardness, corrosion resistance, toughness, and microstructure evaluation. Read the results of my experiments here: SPY27 Testing. read more

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

Vanadis 8 – Better than CPM-10V

Larrin

Thanks to Will and Justin Mann for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!

My book Knife Engineering is available for Christmas and Hanukkah presents.

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