Spyderco Forums

IMO, S90V is the best EDC stainless steel on the market.

It's such a simple recipe. Simple, yet beautiful in a way.

2.3% Carbon
14% Chromium
9% Vanadium
1% Molybdenum

S90V manages to achieve upper echelon wear resistance at relatively low hardness.

It has enough toughness and enough corrosion resistance to make it a well balanced edc steel that emphasizes wear resistance.

I don't know what exactly explains this, but it sharpens like a tool steel. Sharpens like a dream.

Maybe the sub 60 hrc, and the very fine, evenly distributed vanadium carbides?

All I know is it's one of my favorite steels along with CruWear and K390, and I'd love to see it used more often.

Keep the m390/204p/20cv, give me s90v all day.


S90V Native 5 Hair Whittling https://imgur.com/a/W6HO9bU

That's some really impressive sharpening, I can get Aogami Super Blue to do that, and just about there with XHP, but I've never gotten S90V (or anything else) there, I definitely need more practice time with it... and I agree, s90v is great steel, I have 3 Spydies with it and love each and every one... Tip-o'-the-cap to ya getting it there and getting great footage to boot!

I agree. S90V is head and shoulders above M390 steels family and I don't understand why people are inclined to compare the two. S90V is tougher and more balanced. I wouldn't say it sharpens like a tool steel but it's not a PITA to do it though. It's one of my favorites stainless steels second close to SRS15 which is kinda stainless Cruwear. I remember Sal agreed that SRS15 is an awesome steel and I keep hoping and praying for a spydie in that steel.

I think M390 sharpens “like a tool steel” and s90v sharpens more like s30v than s110v. I like my s90v military... in fact it was a battle between that or the M390 pm2 today. Chose the pm2 only because I’m revisiting it after not liking the platform for years...

All that goes to say I love s90v, and I love it even more in the military platform.

Hey Baron, nice edge mate. :cool:

I'm a fan of high carbide steels like S90V and S110V primarily because of the edge retention they afford. That said they aren't the steels I'd take to a hair whittling competition.

I think S90V shines in knives like the Sprig, Southfork etc. that are put to task as in filleting fish and dressing game. Admittedly I haven't hunted in a while and I’ve banged on about this before, more than once, but I use my Sprig to fillet fish I target which I fillet “wing on” cutting through rib bones, some as thick as matchsticks and I can fillet thirty odd fish off one sharpening and as many again off a touch up. In comparison the average fillet knife bought from a Tackle Shop is lucky to fillet one side before it needs a touch up at very best. :eek:

So, fair to say I love S90V too, and for what it’s worth I sharpen it to slice as I have no need to push cut, usually nothing finer than 600grit. :)

:cool: Been a fan of S90V before it was a thing.

I have no real expertise to share but for me it is relatively easy to sharpen and for stainless it seems to hold a working edge forever. I can't get it to take as fine of an edge as most tool steels or ZDP though. That's impressive.

I love and EDC my S90V knives more than any other knives. Would be a great steel for a Street Beat!

5-by-5 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 19, 2020 3:39 pm

:cool: Been a fan of S90V before it was a thing.

Me too. Had "Kit" Carson build me this Model 4 in (then 420V) back in the 90's:



Also have a neck knife in the same steel received as a gift from Darrel Ralph a year or two later. I wear it daily.

HI Baron, i share the love with S90V, CPM S90V to be more exact. It was an up grade to CPM S60V and turned out to be one of the best CPM's ever offered. It had some learning curve problems at first. The first sample I got I couldn't get the hardness over about 57 rc and turned out I wasn't alone. The next sample was much better and seemed like rc60 was the sweet spot. Heat treat now is very nice. I also can agree with Bloke. I always appreciate his feed back on the Sprig processing fish. I still have some early fillets I made and also a 8 inch Chef ( I made one chef only for me and Frank Cox from CSM had the only other one) in the kitchen that just seems never to lose that aggressive edge. I can easily fillet a box of bottom fish and not have to touch it. When you have to sharpen I also agree that 400 or so grit on a diamond plate or even a SC medium gives the absolute best edge for fish or big game work. More later, Phil

I’m partial to tool steels (as they’re generally talked of here), but neither my Manix2 XL, my Native5, nor my Shaman has caused me to question S90V’s goodness. That Sal and Phil have spoken so highly of it is what drew me to it in the first place. Glad I listened.

What I am starting to understand (maybe believe is a better word) about steel, or about alloying elements, is that they aren't so straightforward. The relationship between the behavior of a steel and the amount of a given element aren't linear. Increasing the amount of an element doesn't necessarily correlate to an equal increase in the expected characteristic. What's really crucial is the ratios of the the different alloys, and how they interact with each other. Different ratios will result in different volumes of carbides, different types of carbides, different levels of certain elements in solution, different achievable hardnesses and grain structures, etc. Heat treat is equally important, but that's another discussion.

I think s90v is one of those steels where they found the perfect mixture, and the sum is greater than the parts.

No s110v love? On paper it trades a tiny bit of toughness for wear resistance (and is a regular Spyderco offering)

GarageBoy wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:23 pm

No s110v love? On paper it trades a tiny bit of toughness for wear resistance (and is a regular Spyderco offering)

Speaking completely from my limited experience, I do have a Blurple PM2, which I sorta put through my own rough use test (~2 years ago) against a PM2 in Rex45 and a Manix2 in S90V, and I found S110V to be the most brittle/prone to chip & difficult to sharpen. I just don't care for it, at all. I know the specs, I know people love it, it's just not my jam, I don't care for it, mad props to those who enjoy it and can get it wicked sharp.

:)

Cheers

John

I love my CPM s90V Southfork, to me it is a great design and a great steel for the design. S90V is a bit strange to sharpen but not overly difficult. I have not had a good experience with CPM S110V- too chippy but S90V is a steel I would use and look forward to.

GarageBoy wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:23 pm

No s110v love? On paper it trades a tiny bit of toughness for wear resistance (and is a regular Spyderco offering)

My first real Spyderco (Had a Byrd Raven 2 before that) was an s110v para 3. I loved it, and amusingly I taught myself how to sharpen on it, but I was very inexperienced at the time, pretty much ruined the blade, and haven't bought anything else in s110v since, so I'm not really an authority on it. I have sharpened it for fun a few times recently, and I didn't find it super difficult. It does take longer to grind, approaching Maxamet levels, but it doesn't deburr as easily as Maxamet.

I need to get some new s110v soon. Maybe a Military. I think it's incredible that Spyderco offers it in their line up. Pete at Cedric and Ada Outdoors on YouTube cut tested 24 mules, posted today, and s110v topped the list. He didn't have a Maxamet mule, but Maxamet put up slightly better numbers in other tests. Basically it is has the second highest wear resistance of any steel on the market, and it's stainless. I think it's plenty tough for regular edc use, but it isn't AS tough as some other steels with similar wear resistance, like say k390. And while the talk about how difficult it is to sharpen is overblown, it's not one of those steels that is fun to sharpen. Some steels just want to get sharp, s110v does not behave that way.

Idk, it's definitely an interesting steel, that doesn't deserve a lot of the hate that it gets.

That latest test was of just 10 Mules. S110V was indeed in the top four, following Maxamet, K390, and tying PMA11.

That’s an excellent result, and I’m glad to have an S110V Manic LW!

S110v is a functional steel for sure, and isn’t horrible to sharpen if you’re patient. I have two problems with s110v that lead me to prefer s90v or M390/20cv over it, though.

1) S110v is the most easily damaged steel from accidental impacts of any steel that I’ve used, to the point that a two foot drop off of a chair onto concrete when the knife was closed was enough to snap my blurple Manix in half. I replaced it with an s110v Manix LW that I use often, but I wouldn’t use it at work the way I use my other blades, including my s90v Manix XL.

2) S110v can take a hair whittling edge, no problem. However, I can’t get it to hold that level of sharpness past the first cut of anything even slightly abrasive. S110v seem to fall into a working edge immediately, regardless of finish. It’ll maintain paper-slicing sharpness easily and almost indefinitely (if impacts are avoided, of course), but wont even scrape shave after a couple cuts. I’m an edge junkie neurotic about my knives’ sharpness, so this is a problem for me

S90v doesn’t have these problems in my experience. I do like the edges I get from M390/20cv more, but I won’t hesitate to buy and use a knife in S90v.

I wonder if the chipping is due to s110v being run a few points higher

GarageBoy wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 28, 2020 4:36 pm

I wonder if the chipping is due to s110v being run a few points higher

Likely a combination of higher hardness and higher carbide volume. S110v has a bunch of niobium forming carbides on top of the vanadium, iirc.