sal wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 4:37 pm
I should probably add some info to the thread:
We worked with Larrin and Shawn to optimize the heat treat on MagnaCut. We nailed that down some time ago. The delay with the Native MagnaCut model was in tank testing materials that could work with MagnaCut as a salt (no galvanic reaction to materials) We did quite a bit of tank testing and we finally have that nailed down as well.
Gail is testing a MagnaCut Native now, and they should be shipping soon.
We worked with Shawn to optimize the heat treat for 15V. He said there was a significant difference in the performance of 15V with his HT as opposed to "regular" HT. We did extensive testing on Shawn's version and CATRA tests proved out his statement. That's why we made the knife with his HT which is still proving to be exceptional.
CTS-BD1N was a different project.
Talkin' Story:
We worked with Carpenter for several years to help the develop their blade steels. Testing CATRA and corrosion and going back and forth with suggestions and more testing. When we finally had all of their blade steels down, Their head Metallurgist came to me and asked what they could do for us to thank us for our helping them.
I asked them to make a steel that we were importing from Japan called Gingami 1. There was no American equivalent. 440B is similar, but the perfornance of Gingami 1 was far superior to 440B. I asked them to reproduce the chemistry and then "tweak" it for greater performance. After much testing, CTS-BD1 was the new steel, and performance was even better than I had expected.
I had hoped to "own" the alloy, but that was not to be. The steel was too good to just limit to Spyderco. In conference with Carpenter, I had mentioned our using "G2" as the steel marked on blades in earlier models, as we couldn't use Gingami 1 at the time. I told them that G2 stood for "Good **** Also". We later converted the G2 to GIN 1 when we were larger and had more clout.
Carpenter showed their good humor when they came up with "CTS" which stood for "Carpenter Good ****", bit if pressed, they say it stands for Carpenter Tool Steels.
CTS-BD1 is proving to be an exceptional alloy punching far above it's weight and shouldn't be written off as 440B.
Hope that helps.
sal