LC200N or BD1N

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vivi
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#21

Post by vivi »

I've never had any issues with S30V. I would not let the use of a well performing, balanced steel deter me from purchasing a knife.

I just carried my Manix XL for a few days. Before I put it in my pocket I touched it up on my medium benchstone. After prepping some food, breaking down some boxes, opening some packages at work, carving some tent pegs, more food prep and whittling sticks for cooking sausages....it still shaves with ease and shows no corrosion.

Not sure why I'm supposed to be unhappy with S30V, but I'm not. I've tried 204P, 20CV, M4, S110V etc., and S30V still meets my needs.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#22

Post by Bodog »

BornIn1500 wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 9:10 pm
Bodog wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 5:17 pm
Just look at what spyderco has done with S110V and tell me you'd still prefer S30V.
Interesting. Back on Apr 28, 2015 you commented in a thread called "S30v vs s110v" and said you found s110v to perform like s30v. I mean, you didn't like either of them, but you didn't think s110v was better.
Bodog wrote:
Tue Apr 28, 2015 4:08 am
I have to say that in general I'm not a huge fan of S30V. I've had several knives from several companies in the steel. I usually reprofile them to a modest 15 to 18 dps. They have all chipped out pretty easily. I'm not talking about microchipping. Chips big enough to fairly easily see with my naked eyes. I only have minimal experience with S110V but I had the same problem with it.

...........S110V hasn't been much better IME.

.............S30V and S110V haven't done it for me.

//forum.spyderco.com/viewto ... 0&start=20

So I guess I don't understand what changed in the last 3 1/2 years for you to think s110v is better now.
Honestly, not much, but it doesn't take a genius to see the fact that spyderco nailing S110V in low cost models indicates what can be done. Still don't care a lot for S110V but i don't fault those who do like it. As for edc baseline, i can see several advantages of S110V over S30V, just like i can see advantages of BD1 over S30V. This isn't a thread meant to really bash S30V as a steep, it's meant to foster discussion that other steels may be better for the normal steel used to present a new design. I think some other candidates would also be great depending on the model. Much more interesting to change it up sometimes. I'd love that new knife just discussed in the spyderbyte but not in S30V, I'd think some other steels would have been great.

PS, after rereading your link it's kind of surprising to me just how much i feel the same way now after these years, though steels like M4 have pushed PSF27 down a couple of notches and it's kind of hard to get ahold of it in a production model. Thanks for that.
Last edited by Bodog on Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#23

Post by awa54 »

I've only read reviews and some low grade technical info, but if CTS-BD1N is all that it sounds like it could be, then I'd probably like it better than CPM S30V, as I feel like *great* edges on S30V are a bit more effort than with S35VN or certainly M390 family steels.

I really have no grudge against S30V though and if a knife I like is only made in S30V I'd buy it without hesitation.

For me the ultra-high carbide steels are less of an ideal compromise than middle of the road alloys, though not by much from a cutting things perspective... But sharpening stuff like S90V and ZDP is still more challenging of technique and equipment than I think a "catch all" steel should be, and the extra expense of using something like M390 or Elmax would almost certainly damage sales if it was the default steel.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#24

Post by Bodog »

awa54 wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:04 pm
I've only read reviews and some low grade technical info, but if CTS-BD1N is all that it sounds like it could be, then I'd probably like it better than CPM S30V, as I feel like *great* edges on S30V are a bit more effort than with S35VN or certainly M390 family steels.

I really have no grudge against S30V though and if a knife I like is only made in S30V I'd buy it without hesitation.

For me the ultra-high carbide steels are less of an ideal compromise than middle of the road alloys, though not by much from a cutting things perspective... But sharpening stuff like S90V and ZDP is still more challenging of technique and equipment than I think a "catch all" steel should be, and the extra expense of using something like M390 or Elmax would almost certainly damage sales if it was the default steel.
So what would you personally like to see? This isn't a bash S30V thread. It's just a thread talking about what steel you'd like to see these new designs coming with that would appeal to a broad spectrum of people, S30V is included in that. Your preference is your preference, friendly talk is all. I could have worded the main post differently, i guess. I'd think LC200N or BD1N just to change things up a bit. I'd have bought a couple designs had they been in a different steel than S30V.

I'd already have a shaman in my pocket if it had come with something different than S30V, the Alistair Phillips design looks really good but again, i can't get over the S30V obstacle. I kind of wonder if there are a lot of others that feel the same.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#25

Post by Tucson Tom »

I find it interesting that nobody in this thread is pushing the high carbide content steels like S110V, S90V and so on. More "well balanced" steels like 20CV or BD1N are being advocated, and I think this is healthy. Even S30V fits into that well balanced category in my mind, though I think it is easier to sharpen 20CV to a nice edge than it is S30V, and for that reason alone I give it my thumbs up.

I am actually an admirer of 154CM (aka RWL34 and such). It is an underappreciated steel, but I certainly wouldn't advocate it as something to replace S30V as per this discussion.

Yeah, the Shaman in S30V -- all I can say is that I am glad I grabbed a backlock Manix in S30V rather than waiting for exotic steels. I hope this does not happen to the Shaman. If there is ever a break in the action that allows my knife budget to recover, a Shaman in S30V might be a thing.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#26

Post by awa54 »

As I said, without any real experience with BD1N or LC200N I'm hesitant to reject a proven performer like S30V... I *do* prefer S35VN over S30V, but again not by enough to reject S30V as the baseline for Spyderco's US and Taiwanese product lines. Same with VG10 really, I think there is a bit of buyer fatigue with both S30V and VG10, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that both steels are competent performers in their own right. If by some miracle Spyderco was able to negotiate a price on M390/20CV/204P or Elmax that allowed prices to stay unchanged while putting one of those alloys in as the base steel I'd be 100% behind it, but a $20-$50 bump In prices across the board to make the switch would probably be financial suicide for our favorite knife maker.

In short, I don't see value in switching steels to XHP, S35VN, BD1N or LC200N just so that there is something new to grab our attention... we get plenty of Sprints and exclusives to scratch that itch.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#27

Post by vivi »

awa54 wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 6:42 am
Same with VG10 really, I think there is a bit of buyer fatigue with both S30V and VG10, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that both steels are competent performers in their own right.
I think you're spot on.

A lot of folks like to try different steels with their purchases. Can't blame em, it's interesting. At the end of the day though, a knife in plain old VG10 or S30V is still going to perform just fine for most people. They get sharp, they're hard to rust, and they'll stay sharp through the day (if not week / month) for 99%+ of people.

If your priorities are experimenting with different steels to try to gauge their performance, I can see the irritation, but if you're looking for a competent pocket knife, these steels have you covered.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#28

Post by Eli Chaps »

Bloke wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:37 pm
If someone put three identical knives with three different blade steels all sharpened to the same level of sharpness with no way of identifying what was what on a table and gave you say 150' linear feet of cardboard to cut. I'd bet my home 99.9% of the self proclaimed steel boffins wouldn't be able to distinguish any level of performance and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. ;)
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#29

Post by awa54 »

Bodog, do you have experience with CTS-BD1N in anything aside from the UKPK (only blade from Spyderco using that steel so far right?), or kitchen cutlery?

I've read reviews that claim BD1N has above average to excellent edge retention in kitchen applications, but that is also when run near its highest potential hardness (64HRC IIRC), which Spyderco is likely to fall short of ,in the interest of retaining an extra degree of toughness over an all-out hardness HT.

Just to clarify: I have no problem with CTS-BD1 as a "basic" offering, but in my experience it's no better than VG10 in any aspect except ease of attaining a polished edge (and maybe not as good at edge retention?), so I would definitely NOT support a switch to plain vanilla BD1 without the nitrogen.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#30

Post by Rutger »

The DLT 20CV PM2 was only 6 bucks more than a regular S30V PM2. If they would use/buy 20CV in larger quantities that price gap could be closed i think. And in my opinion the steel is totally worth the $6 extra. Maybe they can't change it on all regular production models that easy. But i think all their special models/collaborations could use something different than S30V to spice it up.

And i wonder if there is even enough production capacity for LC200N to switch over. Which foundry is making this?
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#31

Post by Doc Dan »

Bloke wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:37 pm
If someone put three identical knives with three different blade steels all sharpened to the same level of sharpness with no way of identifying what was what on a table and gave you say 150' linear feet of cardboard to cut. I'd bet my home 99.9% of the self proclaimed steel boffins wouldn't be able to distinguish any level of performance and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. ;)
You may be right. A lot of this about S30V is fad. It is no longer fashionable because it has become so ubiquitous. It is still a very good proper knife steel when done right, and better than a lot of "better" steels for most things.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#32

Post by awa54 »

Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 9:38 am
The DLT 20CV PM2 was only 6 bucks more than a regular S30V PM2. If they would use/buy 20CV in larger quantities that price gap could be closed i think. And in my opinion the steel is totally worth the $6 extra. Maybe they can't change it on all regular production models that easy. But i think all their special models/collaborations could use something different than S30V to spice it up.

And i wonder if there is even enough production capacity for LC200N to switch over. Which foundry is making this?

I do agree that something like this might not be a bad idea, how many of us would have snapped up an Orouboros at release if it had been XHP or BD1N?

Which leads to the question; how much input do designers have on the steel used in a collaboration produced by Spyderco?
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#33

Post by Tucson Tom »

awa54 wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 6:42 am
If by some miracle Spyderco was able to negotiate a price on M390/20CV/204P or Elmax that allowed prices to stay unchanged while putting one of those alloys in as the base steel I'd be 100% behind it, but a $20-$50 bump In prices across the board to make the switch would probably be financial suicide for our favorite knife maker.
And there is the missing piece in the puzzle. I/we have no information about what the costs of these different steels are. What would it cost Spyderco to switch from S30V to 20CV on a per knife basis? Who knows? I sure don't.

And another "true fact" (TM) has been mentioned. Namely that most buyers aren't steel fanatics. I showed my Rex45 PM2 to a couple of guys who are fairly well informed and all they noticed was the color of the scales. When I told them it was in Rex45, they just blinked at me like frogs in a hailstorm. Beyond that, as has been said, even us steel nerds would have difficulty telling one steel from another if the type of steel wasn't printed on the knife.

Having said all that though, I suspect Spyderco does consider bumping up the base steel notch now and then, and if costs were comparable for S30V and 20CV, that would seem like a good direction for them. However, they may have 500 tons of S30V stashed in a warehouse in Golden and who knows how many years it will take them to work through all of that.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#34

Post by p_atrick »

Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 9:38 am
And in my opinion the steel is totally worth the $6 extra.
I think that is a fair trade to make. I've never used 20CP, so I don't have much of a reference point. How does it sharpen? Is the SharpMaker still a good option to use with 20CP? I can't help but wonder if Spyderco bumped up their baseline steel, would the medium rods be sufficient to get a good edge on their knife in a reasonable amount of time. I realize that "reasonable" is highly subjective.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#35

Post by SF Native »

Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 9:38 am
The DLT 20CV PM2 was only 6 bucks more than a regular S30V PM2. If they would use/buy 20CV in larger quantities that price gap could be closed i think. And in my opinion the steel is totally worth the $6 extra. Maybe they can't change it on all regular production models that easy. But i think all their special models/collaborations could use something different than S30V to spice it up.
We have no idea if these other steels are scaleable. It could be that spyderco makes more dollars on the s30v models and less on the sprints. Don’t know. If that’s the case, s30v is subsidizing you fancy rex45 or 4v sprint.

Personally I like s110v and would pay extra for it. To me, it is the best steel currently available. But I’m not a typical buyer and I have the sharpening tools to handle it. I don’t think lc200n has the balanced qualities of s30v. Don’t have bd1n yet. And so far, I’m not as impressed with 20cv/m390/ 204p as many others are. I just don’t see the big advantage.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#36

Post by awa54 »

p_atrick wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 10:18 am
I've never used 20CP, so I don't have much of a reference point. How does it sharpen? Is the SharpMaker still a good option to use with 20CP? I can't help but wonder if Spyderco bumped up their baseline steel, would the medium rods be sufficient to get a good edge on their knife in a reasonable amount of time. I realize that "reasonable" is highly subjective.

M390/CTS-204P/CPM 20CV are all identical on paper (though some may feel that different technology used in the PM process and subtle tweaks in the formula lead to different characteristics) and in my experience (own all three now) M390-ish steels offer a fantastic blend of abilities: they have been tested to have excellent corrosion resistance (certainly more than I have ever needed), are easily profiled and polished with modern abrasive hones (never tried water stones, or Arkansas so I can't comment there), take either coarse or polished edges with equal excellence and have adequate toughness for those of us who don't pry, cut metal or baton on a regular basis.

Since I like polished edges where I can rely on them to last, I've done my M390-ish knives to a 1µ finish. This means that more time is spent sharpening, since there are a few more grits to go through, but the steel doesn't make a hard to deal with burr and to me feels more like sharpening a low-alloy HC steel than any other high-carbide stainless I have met. By comparison S110V and S90V are harder to get to a satisfying *polished* edge on and in my use retain that level of sharpness for a significantly shorter time than M390, so they get a 400 grit micro-bevel on the sharpmaker as a final edge, this does mean that they are less work to sharpen, but IMO S90V is still actually harder to get "right" than M390 or S110V. YMMV

The only reason I don't own more knives in M390-ish steels is that so far the models I favor have only been available as Sprint runs and exclusives.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#37

Post by Extra330SC »

Eli Chaps wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 7:52 am
Bloke wrote:
Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:37 pm
If someone put three identical knives with three different blade steels all sharpened to the same level of sharpness with no way of identifying what was what on a table and gave you say 150' linear feet of cardboard to cut. I'd bet my home 99.9% of the self proclaimed steel boffins wouldn't be able to distinguish any level of performance and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. ;)
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#38

Post by Rutger »

Tucson Tom wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 9:59 am
However, they may have 500 tons of S30V stashed in a warehouse in Golden and who knows how many years it will take them to work through all of that.
Most companies these days don't keep large stocks of materials. They work Just In Time (JIT) and only keep enough in stock to keep the plant running. Having a warehouse full with materials = dead money. I do however think they have long term contracts to buy materials so they can get a good price and are certain they won't run out of supply. This however means that you can't just change stuff over night. This all is of course highly sensitive corporate information that they won't tell us. Maybe in time they could switch some around in Crucibles catalog?
Crucible is partnered with Latrobe for CPM 20CV.
SF Native wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 11:02 am
We have no idea if these other steels are scaleable. It could be that spyderco makes more dollars on the s30v models and less on the sprints. Don’t know. If that’s the case, s30v is subsidizing you fancy rex45 or 4v sprint.

Personally I like s110v and would pay extra for it. To me, it is the best steel currently available. But I’m not a typical buyer and I have the sharpening tools to handle it. I don’t think lc200n has the balanced qualities of s30v. Don’t have bd1n yet. And so far, I’m not as impressed with 20cv/m390/ 204p as many others are. I just don’t see the big advantage.
We don't know what price Spyderco pays for their materials. But when you check distributor steel prices for small knife makers you can see that the differences aren't huge. But i'm no knife maker so i can't judge them cause there is more to it than just material cost. I'm sure if Spyderco could switch to a better steel with minimal costs they would.

LC200N is easy to sharpen and keeps an edge at least as long as S30V (if not longer) while being super stainless. Why don't you like it over S30V?
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#39

Post by SF Native »

Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:07 pm
LC200N is easy to sharpen and keeps an edge at least as long as S30V (if not longer) while being super stainless. Why don't you like it over S30V?
My experience is that lc200n (mule) is good but will not last as long as s30v. It doesn’t even last as long as vg10. It’s close though. Way better than h1 on edge retention. It does sharpen nice though and would make a great edc. Would love a slip joint in this steel, ukpk maybe.
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Re: LC200N or BD1N

#40

Post by Rutger »

SF Native wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:16 pm
Rutger wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:07 pm
LC200N is easy to sharpen and keeps an edge at least as long as S30V (if not longer) while being super stainless. Why don't you like it over S30V?
My experience is that lc200n (mule) is good but will not last as long as s30v. It doesn’t even last as long as vg10. It’s close though. Way better than h1 on edge retention. It does sharpen nice though and would make a great edc. Would love a slip joint in this steel, ukpk maybe.
Maybe the mule had a different heat treatment than production knives do now?
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