Dr Larrin showed me this a while back and I have been too busy to share it but thought it was neat.
In the Crucible patent he showed me last year there where some experimental melts of steels known as 18v and 20v.
This was done a long time ago and they were just a part of a small batch of experimental melts for modeling the effects of Vanadium for PM tool steels.
There is no 18v or 20v currently available and it was never available either, it was only used for research.
I think what's exciting about it is that currently the in available steels the highest volume of vanadium monocarbides in available steels is 22-24% volume in the matrix (15v,Rex121) It would be interesting to try a steel at 30% vol of pure Vanadium monocarbide to explore the physical limit.
There may physical pitfalls to sharpening properties which may be adversely effected due to the extreme volume of stiff particles effecting the modulus of elasticity at the edge.
Perhaps the carbide sizes would be impossible to keep as fine as 10v/15v at that volume since the tempetures needed to get the carbides 18v and 20v to the right size in liquid would be too high to atomize from and not to mention the other difficulties in making it and rolling it which are beyond my understanding ( I don't make steel)
There was a neat snippet in Larrin's 10v article where he discussed how crucible ran into issues going beyond 10v with carbides being larger in 11v but they were able to eventually mitigate the issue some with atomizing the melt at a higher temperature.
https://www.google.com/search?q=10v&oq= ... e&ie=UTF-8
We are very blessed to have such an extensive library of articles from a Metallurgist :D
Perhaps 15v and Rex121 are the limits in maxing out the pure vanadium carbide volumes although there are steels that have +30% vol. of carbides in the matrix yet none of them have pure vanadium carbide, its always a mix to make up the difference to 30% it would be neat to explore but cost would be extreme and perhaps just to find out that its inherently too stiff and too clumpy and brittle.
If only things didn't cost $100,000s just to answer a little curiosity :D.
Although with that kind of money would just be better to give it to Dr Larrin to design a better steel than 18v and 20v with a similar effect for crucible to make.
15v with a finely tuned HT will do for now, especially since I know it works.