Sandvik Family of Steels

[p_atrick]

I don't know much about the history of Spyderco, but was there ever a time when they used steels from Sandvik?

[apollo]

Not that i know of steels from europe are not very common in spydies if there were knives in a sandvik steel there would be few i guess.

[snapshot2017]

My very first pocket type knife was the Kershaw Blackout it uses Sandvic 14c28n and this knife has been a standard for Kershaw for many years, and it's been a great useful knife and is easy to sharpen.

[Larrin]

Sandvik made a push into the US knife market when they were ramping up with Kershaw 10-12 years ago and it was during that period when they developed 14C28N for enhanced corrosion resistance.

[JacksonKnives]

[edit: beaten by a poster far more knowledgable than I.]

It's more about regional availability and supply chains than a deliberate choice for specific mills.

Italy-made Spyderco knives tend to use Bohler steels, but Spyderco typically uses Carpenter or Crucible in the US and Taiwan, and Hitachi in Japan.

I think KAI has always sourced directly from Sandvik for their steels, since they custom-smelted the 14c28n. (At least, when they first started using it.) Spyderco is dealing closely with Crucible and Carpenter in the US, and the range of steels available is impressive.

Sal sourced CTS-BD1 from Carpenter to achieve similar results to the popular Sandvik steels. (See the compositions here.) You can find it in the Manix 2 Lightweight and UK Pen Knife from the USA factory, and the Alcyone from the China factory, and the Cat from the Taichung factory. If you click "products" on the catalog page and select a category, you can sort by steel type.

[vivi]

BD1 is pretty similar to 12C27 in a lot of ways. Both take incredible edges for me. I'm happy seeing Spyderco use these types of steels in any capacity, and will continue seeking out models that use them.

[JD Spydo]

Years ago I had a Frost-Mora fixed blade that was given me that I've since traded. The friend I got it from said that it had a Sandvik Stainless blade. For the price I didn't think it could be beat at the time and I sort of still feel that way about those Swedish knives. Years ago I had a guy who was in the explosives trade who was also a very well respected engineer tell me in the late 90s that the Swedes definitely made good steel.

I've also owned other products throughout the years made by Sandvik and I considered all of them to be decent to very good quality. Their saw chain for chain saws was above average. Also I had one of their bow-saws once and I still think they make the best of those types of tools.

Now whether or not I would want to see Spyderco use Sandvik steel in one of their premium folders I'm just not sure. Because as of now I haven't seen evidence of any steel company that puts out better blade steels than Crucible, Carpenter or Bohler based on my personal uses of them and also based on what I've heard all of you testify as well.

But on one of the hard use models I certainly wouldn't object either. Maybe see how it would do on a full Spyderedge Catcherman for instance. Because we need that one to come back for sure and Sandvik steel would probably be fine for some model like that.

[p_atrick]

Thanks for the info everyone. I wasn't advocating for Spyderco to starting using these steels; there are already a handful of steels that perform on par with whatever Sandvik would offer. Is Sandvik the largest purveyor of steel that Spyderco has not used?

[steelcity16]

Im very interested to try BD1. Going to grab a Manix LW in this when the right deal comes along.

[JacksonKnives]

Is Sandvik the largest purveyor of steel that Spyderco has not used?

I'd guess that they're the best-known. Spyderco really has tried just about everything, and if there weren't equivalent steels readily available we'd probably have seen popular steel from Sandvik by now.

Very few alloys are really proprietary; patents cover some things, but even "exotic" steels like 10V have been around since the 70s and everyone has a version of it. Larrin's recent post on powder metallurgy was pretty eye-opening (for me) about the degree to which a lot of recent "experiments" in knife steel are based on metallurgy that's been around for a long time.

Takefu's Hitachi's Aogami Super/Super Blue is an interesting example of this; they're a supplier with a great reputation for clean, trouble-free steel in a few grades that are ideal for high-end Japanese cutlery, so they've developed a customer base and are meeting a need.
The composition is very similar to AISI F2, a tool steel that's been around for ages. It's a very difficult steel to get, though, since nearly nobody is actively looking for this kind of steel over here. Someone could try to bring it back, but it'd have to be a right-time-right-place kind of meeting of interests to actually find it in a production run.

[supracor]

.

not to do the smart a$$, but Superblue is Hitachi's

I think that Daido make something like F2, but who remembers the name?

[JacksonKnives]

Ack! You got me.

[The Mastiff]

F3 and F8 are more unicorns it would be nice to try. I've looked for a few years and the best I can get is " I remember running across some in the 70's " but no traces of them since. I really like the carbon tungsten alloys I've tried in knives and while I like Superblue I'd like to try some higher tungsten steels without all the moly and vanadium that comes with the high speed steels. The "T" series is probably too much tungsten ( and other carbide formers ). Maxamet is close to one of the "T" series so that gives an indication of the amount of carbides in those.

Joe