blues wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2019 8:56 am
You guys have broken my will. (Well you and the upcoming pricing on the sprint Shaman...which makes me doubly glad I picked one up (as new) from the previous owner at $20 less than the BHQ price, and dyed blue no less!)
So, the order is in and now we shall see for ourselves what all the
hype hoopla is about.
Thanks for the shove. This was the last remaining piece I was wrestling with buying...now, I can rest.
The CPM M4 was my first love.
I still have more folders in M4 than any other steel. So I speak from experience with what I have shared.
That was one of the first super steels that REALLY impressed me at the time.
I had it with a Gayle Bradley Folder.
The combination of aggression and ease of high sharpeness really impressed me at the time and it showed itself being more stable than the stainless stuff I had tried like s30v at that point. There was also lots of industry data about having the sweet spot in strength and tougheness with wear resistance.
This led me to feeling dissatisfied that it was not being utilized in a puukko.
A puukko is not to be confused with a scandi or other marketing hype Bushcraft knives cashing in on the "puukko" name
A popular saying is that all Puukkos are knives but not all knives are Puukkos.
A Puukko is a finish knife that is a wood cutting knife first but used with many purposes to the rugged peoples and lifestyles in Finland it has extreme geometry and push cuts wood with great ease thanks to it's high grind and thin, thin geometry.
I was really interested in Bushcraft at the time and was disappointed with the steel selections not able to handle this geometry and saw that there was a gap not being utilized due to confusion about tougheness and wear resistance having more emphasis than stability and strength since there isn't a standard industrial materials test that manufacturers can use for data to express that.
I saw at the time,CPM M4 giving me the performance I desired of not having edges that either rolled too much or chipped too much.
Hence the CPM M4 Malanika collaboration was born, working with Danjiel in Croatia to provide Steel and HT into his gourgous puukko designs that were the closest to the original Finnish design but with more emphasis on the Tommi rhombic style and Danjiel had an eye for great details and craftsmanship.
I began to learn however that CPM M4 still wasn't what I was looking for. I would put my M4 puukko through extensive use. I feel sharpening my own knives had always allowed me to be literate in the performance and how to express it and I was still very hungry for MORE edge performance.
I became voracious in my continued reading and study.
I felt with my increased knowledge and experience that there could be more performance to be found.
Bladesports had always impressed me and was something that gave me confidence about M4 that it could handle the geometry in a puukko yet still be stable and have enough strength and durability for it's use.
In bladesports, these guys are pushing the geometry and hardness limits and the cutting events expose any weaknesses and the competitiors are penalized for rolls and chips. Hench why you don't see 3V and 5160 etc. The steels need to have Strength and Stability, the ability to support thin geometry and not roll or chip. That helped give me confidence at the time with my observations on M4 being the best choice but I was noticing changes in bladesports.
At the time, Bladesports was being shifted away from M4 towards newer steels thanks to Dan Keffeler and Nathan Carothers using Vanadis 4 Extra. What was facinating is that it was able to operate and much higher hardness yet still have more tougheness, durability and stability than M4, even if the M4 was softer. The Vanadis 4 Extra proved to be not widely available and thankfully it seems Crucible responded with an analog in the form of CPM 4V.
I remember I had a conversation with Jim Ankerson about it since I was concerned at the time about 4V not having as much carbide formers as M4 and assumed less edge retention.
I was pleased to hear from him at the time that there was no lose in edge retention from his rope cut testing which surprised me at the time.
Later come to find out that the alloy percentages aren't the percentages of carbides formed, we are not getting the really hard WC tungsten carbide but softer MC6 carbide where the "M" stands for "Metallic element" and can be either tungsten or molybdenum but is not as hard or as fine as the Vanadium Carbides, so it is better to drop the W and the Mo for a boost in tougheness and have the carbon go more directly to having Vanadium carbides. (Thanks Larrin)
So I put all this information into practice and the CPM 4V Malanika Puukko was born.
It could operate at a much higher hardness and still be incredibly stable,more durable and stronger than M4 while still having good edge retention.
What was interesting was that the edge character was not as aggressive as M4 but keener. Some will always prefer that sticky aggression with M4. Some will prefer the improved stability and strength with the 4v. Carbide size seems to be a significant player to that.
I found that with push cutting on wood the later was more important and that aggression was only important with lower grit edge finishes and draw cutting, especially with field dressing animals with hide and scales.
I was happy to see that the 4V has caught on in the puukko world and other makers now use it, also at high Hardness, It is nice to see that people appreciate the increased performance of an edge that is very strong and not prone to rolling , blunting or chipping for the given application.
My point here, especially with sharing that K390 has more strength, durability, stability and wear resistance than M4.
Is that people should not hold on to the names of things.
I feel that 4V and K390 do a lot of things better but it's difficult for people to let go of what they know. So I've had to show the truth of it.
People should seek to understand how the strengths and weaknesses of the steels fit together for the given application, not just blind enthusiasm for the names of them. That's the joy of it that seems hidden to most.
I know I come off as being hard on M4 and especially 3v and there are reasons that I totally would use one or the other over k390 and 4v. Just not if I'm trying to express pure cutting performance with strength, stability and geometry which I prize in a folder.
At the end of the day, the steels are all just different flavors and preferences are king.