S30v vs s110v

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PayneTrain
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#21

Post by PayneTrain »

This isn't really a comparison because I didn't do this to both steels, but it does speak to the strength of S110V. I was cutting a hole in the top of a 5 gallon bucket the other day with my S110V Manix, or rather gouging a hole in it. You know, dig the tip into the side, push and twist. It took a while to get the hole to the right size, and with every cut I was sure I was going to break the tip off. That plastic is thick, I'd say somewhere between a 1/8 and a 1/4 inch. By the end of it you'd think I was trying to break the knife, but to no avail. Of course, the edge wasn't as sharp as it started out as, but to my surprise it was just a little rolled and still serviceably sharp. I have to speculate that doing that to a lesser steel, maybe even S30V, would have broken chunks off. Again, that plastic was thick and I was using a lot of force in a twisting motion. I was and still am very impressed.

Oh and then I left it in my pocket and sent my pants through the washing machine, where they sat till I got back 12 hours later. Then it hung up to dry. When I finally found it the next day it was still wet inside, but not a spot of rust. And it smelled like a spring breeze!
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#22

Post by bearfacedkiller »

Surfingringo wrote:
elena86 wrote:Different animals.Metalurgy and chemistry are so boring.Let's talk real life.S30V is a good allaround steel, it keeps a good working edge for a decent amount of time but it looses the shaving sharp edge quite fast.What I like about S30V is that it's very aggresive when it bites into the material(probably due to the microchips).For "usual stuff" S110V will maintain a shaving sharp edge for a long time.Very long....And it's quite tough.Being a Cruwear guy I don't care for any of these steels.I am surprised to hear that you do not have anything in S110V.I own two Manix2 LW in S110V and one of them is collecting dust.It's a shame.From now on it is written Lance all over it.Just say when and where.Let's say that the little duck you saved was a friend of mine :)
That is an amazing gesture Elena. I will graciously accept under the condition that I pass along one of my own to someone who will take joy from it. I have just the person in mind. :)
Awesome! There has been lots of generosity on here lately. :D
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sal wrote:Knife afi's are pretty far out, steel junky's more so, but "edge junky's" are just nuts. :p
SpyderEdgeForever wrote: Also, do you think a kangaroo would eat a bowl of spagetti with sauce if someone offered it to them?
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#23

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Surfingringo wrote:How does it stack up on edge retention, toughness, strength, edge stability etc?
The edge retention will be more/less depending on what you are cutting and how as the apex stability is lower but the wear resistance is higher in S110V. If you slice to low sharpness with high angles and coarse finishes then you will likely favor S110V, if the opposite is true then you will likely favor S30V. However even in ideal cases favoring S110V you are looking at most at a 2:1 which means you are not going to see it even then unless you do carefully controlled runs and average and look for patterns. Ideal case for S30V (vs S110V) would be carving woods with a high polish.

The compression strength of S110V is slightly higher as it typically has 1-2 HRC points on S30V and has a higher carbide volume. However this is rarely going to be an issue in use with either as they will tend to fracture vs plastically deform. The toughness is lower for S110V almost the same reasons. The grindability is the only thing you are likely to really be able to notice without careful repeated measurement, especially if you use softer abrasives. If you use harder abrasives, silicon carbide, or diamond/cbn then they both grind fairly easily.

As one example, I have a Modulator in S110V from R. J. Martin, it tends to at best match the performance of a bunch of S30V blades on cardboard. Apex is 600 DMT/15 dps, edge is 6-8 dps. In general the S110V will show damage down into the edge through fracture when the S30v will not. However you have to do a lot of trials to pick out a pattern. Even doing very careful stock work with everything tightly controlled the baldes will still bounce around each other a fair bit.

As a fishing example, I ran a custom S90V knife (Phil Wilson) in a group of professional fisherman. They sharpen for function, when it stops cutting fish (which is pretty low compared to most edge retention comparisons in general people do on stock work). They all remarked it had a pretty obvious difference vs the normal knives they use (420J2 class). Years later I did the same with a S30V blade, they said almost the same thing. I would be really curious to see if they could tell the two V's apart, I would bet against it because the random factors in use are higher than the steel properties.

Looking at knives, even light changes in the nature of the knife would be more dominant than the steel as most of those properties have nonlinear responses and most of the steel properties are linear and very small in difference in those steels. Given you have decent blades in M4, I would be curious how you found a decent blade in S110V.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#24

Post by Brock O Lee »

I prefer M4 and Superblue to S110V because they keep that very keen edge much longer in my experience (light work with the Manix LW and forum Native).

I find both S30V and S110V lose the hair shaving edge quickly, and then keeps cutting for a long time.

I am excited about a PM2 in M4. I will most probably skip S110V. :o
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#25

Post by Bodog »

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. I wouldn't say it was hard use. I cut stuff with my knives like I should, I don't try to cut stones or steel rods with em or anything crazy. I cut A LOT of cardboard and random dirty stuff. I have to say, sounding like a broken record, that PSF27 has fulfilled my steel needs better than anything else I've used. The other day I was cutting open about 50 boxes of blackberries. Not a big deal cutting them open, but I was using the knife to dig around inside these boxes. The knife and my hands were covered in blackberry juice all day. My knife didn't rust and kept its edge throughout. Since then I've cut open, through, or up probably 200 more boxes ranging in size from a normal pizza box to boxes big enough to put couches in. I haven't touched up my PSF27 knife in about a week and a half and it still shaves and cuts aggressively. For instance my PPT, obviously in S30V, I just got lasted about a day before there was a noticeable flattening of the apex near the tip and several decent size chips out of the rest of the blade. Immediate sharpening was needed after one day and it wasn't even a hard days work. I reprofiled that to about 16 degrees per side before use and removed the factory edge before use so I know it was fresh steel. S110V hasn't been much better IME.

After saying all of that, is there a steel better suited for my needs that I'm missing? I think 4V will be a likely candidate even though I'll need to protect it from corrosion a little more than PSF27 but not as much as M4 which I believe would also be a good candidate. I can't find 3V ground down enough to make a good cutting blade. S30V and S110V haven't done it for me. B75P hasn't done it for me, dulls too quickly. Lower carbide steels haven't done it for me, they dull WAY too quickly. 154cm hasn't, it chips out AND goes dull quuckly. PSF27 is a good, good balance. Anything have a higher balance of toughness, edge retention, and moderate corrosion resistance?
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#26

Post by Donut »

Cliff, do you think that the coarse/fine finish is affected at all by carbide volume?

I was figuring more: Low carbide steel does good with high grit finish, High carbide steel does good with low grit finish. It didn't occur to me the task orientation.


Lance, I don't see enough use to provide significant wear to S110V or S30V even in a full week's time. Either is good with me, but the doomsday prepper inside of me wants more wear resistant steel. :p
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#27

Post by Surfingringo »

Interesting observations and information from everyone. As Cliff pointed out, I have a couple of very nice examples of m4, so it would be interesting to get some s110v to compare to both that and some of the s30v knives I have.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#28

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Surfingringo wrote:... I have a couple of very nice examples of m4, so it would be interesting to get some s110v to compare to both that and some of the s30v knives I have.
If you have the time/inclination, I would be curious to see if your perspective on them changes if they have a low vs high grit finish, the Fine vs CBN rods for example.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#29

Post by Surfingringo »

Cliff Stamp wrote:
Surfingringo wrote:... I have a couple of very nice examples of m4, so it would be interesting to get some s110v to compare to both that and some of the s30v knives I have.
If you have the time/inclination, I would be curious to see if your perspective on them changes if they have a low vs high grit finish, the Fine vs CBN rods for example.
you mean just on the m4 knives, or on the m4 vs. s110v?
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#30

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Surfingringo wrote:
you mean just on the m4 knives, or on the m4 vs. s110v?
Relative, how you would see one vs the other, I suspect that it should favor M4 with a fine finish, S110V with a coarse finish. Ideally, if you could do fish work Japanese style with the Fine rod and Western style with the coarse finish. But again, your time/effort.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#31

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Donut wrote:
I was figuring more: Low carbide steel does good with high grit finish, High carbide steel does good with low grit finish. It didn't occur to me the task orientation.
Essentially yes. Roman Landes was the first person I note argue this clearly from the metallurgy with data to support the argument. He was the first maker to argue that a steel could be good/bad because of how it was sharpened as much as the task. He noted for example that 440A was a better steel than AEB-L when it was being used with a coarse finish on a knife being used for mainly draw cuts. Now this argument wasn't new, you can sort of see it being hinted at in comments from other makers, David Boye for example. Roman was just the first person I saw really make the clear statement and trace it back to metallurgy and provide the direct materials data and just anecdotal data to support it.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#32

Post by Surfingringo »

Cliff Stamp wrote:
Surfingringo wrote:
you mean just on the m4 knives, or on the m4 vs. s110v?
Relative, how you would see one vs the other, I suspect that it should favor M4 with a fine finish, S110V with a coarse finish. Ideally, if you could do fish work Japanese style with the Fine rod and Western style with the coarse finish. But again, your time/effort.
haha, actually thats exactly what I'm doing now but instead of s110v for the coarse edge work its one of Phils fillet knives in cpm154. What a wonderful steel that is. Probably my favorite stainless I have used to date. Takes an extremely aggressive edge (I guess that has something to do with the scratch pattern?) and the edge has been very resilient.

Anyway, I tried using the m4 with a coarse edge but I found that i preferred the cpm154 for that. The way i work with the m4 knives is different than the fillet knife and I find a bit more refined edge works better for that. For clarification, when I say "more refined" I'm talking about 800-1000grit finish vs. the 400-600 I use on the fillets. I find that a 1000 grit edge can reach a very high level of sharpness for push cutting the meat while still retaining enough bite.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#33

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Surfingringo wrote:I find that a 1000 grit edge can reach a very high level of sharpness for push cutting the meat while still retaining enough bite.
What stones are you using as grit tends to vary as much with stones as the size of the fish each time the fisherman tells the story. I like the 6 micron-MXF DMT for push cutting work. It is about the highest finish I can go and not have to be really particular about the edge before the micro-bevel. The 1200 grit Atoma / DMT which is their x-fine allows a sloppier edge bevel but I can notice the difference dicing and peeling.

I tend to use a very fine edge for filleting as it is all push cuts here mainly. But I don't do much of it since the main food fishery closed and I switched to not eating fish a few years back. Now I just do it on occasion when I cook for friends and it is so rare that I amuse myself with odd knife choices :

https://youtu.be/KAnKRbUqYFk
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#34

Post by Surfingringo »

Cliff Stamp wrote:
Surfingringo wrote:I find that a 1000 grit edge can reach a very high level of sharpness for push cutting the meat while still retaining enough bite.
What stones are you using as grit tends to vary as much with stones as the size of the fish each time the fisherman tells the story. I like the 6 micron-MXF DMT for push cutting work. It is about the highest finish I can go and not have to be really particular about the edge before the micro-bevel. The 1200 grit Atoma / DMT which is their x-fine allows a sloppier edge bevel but I can notice the difference dicing and peeling.

I tend to use a very fine edge for filleting as it is all push cuts here mainly. But I don't do much of it since the main food fishery closed and I switched to not eating fish a few years back. Now I just do it on occasion when I cook for friends and it is so rare that I amuse myself with odd knife choices :

https://youtu.be/KAnKRbUqYFk
I habe and use the DMT xf but I more commonly just microbevel with the corners of the brown rods. I get a notably more aggressive edge off the corners than I do the flats. Seems to work really well for a lot of the fish work. I call it a "800-1000"grit edge because I don't know how to accurately define it and that's about what it feels like to my thumb.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#35

Post by Surfingringo »

Surfingringo wrote:
Cliff Stamp wrote:
Surfingringo wrote:I find that a 1000 grit edge can reach a very high level of sharpness for push cutting the meat while still retaining enough bite.
What stones are you using as grit tends to vary as much with stones as the size of the fish each time the fisherman tells the story. I like the 6 micron-MXF DMT for push cutting work. It is about the highest finish I can go and not have to be really particular about the edge before the micro-bevel. The 1200 grit Atoma / DMT which is their x-fine allows a sloppier edge bevel but I can notice the difference dicing and peeling.

I tend to use a very fine edge for filleting as it is all push cuts here mainly. But I don't do much of it since the main food fishery closed and I switched to not eating fish a few years back. Now I just do it on occasion when I cook for friends and it is so rare that I amuse myself with odd knife choices :

https://youtu.be/KAnKRbUqYFk
I habe and use the DMT xf but I more commonly just microbevel with the corners of the brown rods. I get a notably more aggressive edge off the corners than I do the flats. Seems to work really well for a lot of the fish work. I call it a "800-1000"grit edge because I don't know how to accurately define it and that's about what it feels like to my thumb.
BTW, thats some pretty clean fillets considering what you are working with there! lol :eek:
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#36

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Surfingringo wrote: I call it a "800-1000"grit edge because I don't know how to accurately define it and that's about what it feels like to my thumb.
I suspected that is what you were using. The problem with grit is that there are multiple scale and they don't agree with each other :

- https://www.fine-tools.com/G10019.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just look at how grit and micron change from one scale to the next. If you find the same micron, it gives different grit ratings. Of course people won't agree to use the same scale so the grit ratings end up all over the place for the same stones.

The razor guys tend to favor the japanese ratings and so they have very high grit ratings for stones. People who use norton stones have a very different grit rating for the same abrasive.

The Spyderco rods are solid sintered ceramic so they will get progressively smoother over time as abrasive isn't released and almost not one resurfaces them. Just use one particular corner for a year and then the next year look at that vs one of the other corners, the difference is likely significant.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#37

Post by Donut »

Surfingringo wrote:
Cliff Stamp wrote:
Surfingringo wrote:
you mean just on the m4 knives, or on the m4 vs. s110v?
Relative, how you would see one vs the other, I suspect that it should favor M4 with a fine finish, S110V with a coarse finish. Ideally, if you could do fish work Japanese style with the Fine rod and Western style with the coarse finish. But again, your time/effort.
haha, actually thats exactly what I'm doing now but instead of s110v for the coarse edge work its one of Phils fillet knives in cpm154. What a wonderful steel that is. Probably my favorite stainless I have used to date. Takes an extremely aggressive edge (I guess that has something to do with the scratch pattern?) and the edge has been very resilient.

Anyway, I tried using the m4 with a coarse edge but I found that i preferred the cpm154 for that. The way i work with the m4 knives is different than the fillet knife and I find a bit more refined edge works better for that. For clarification, when I say "more refined" I'm talking about 800-1000grit finish vs. the 400-600 I use on the fillets. I find that a 1000 grit edge can reach a very high level of sharpness for push cutting the meat while still retaining enough bite.
I've been loving CPM 154, also. I got a couple Northwoods Indian River Jacks (traditional knife) with it and they are pretty amazing. I haven't been carrying my other traditionals.
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#38

Post by Cliff Stamp »

Donut wrote: I've been loving CPM 154, also. I got a couple Northwoods Indian River Jacks (traditional knife) with it and they are pretty amazing. I haven't been carrying my other traditionals.
That is a pretty interesting steel history wise. RWL34 is the PM version of ATS-34/154CM and has been around a long time. It never became that popular in the west and discussions about steel tended mainly to pretend it didn't exist. When 154CM starting being offered in PM form by Crucible then a lot of the same makers/manufacturers who ignored RWL34 thought 154CM/PM was a great idea.

The real interesting thing is when you compare the initial promotion of S30V, Crucible went at length to argue how chromium carbide was detrimental for a knife steel because of the low toughness/wear resistance ratio it produces. But then that entire materials argument was forgotton when 154CM was presented in PM mode.

Curious to anyone who has used it, do they prefer it over S30V in a similar blade from a similar maker and if so why/how?

- data sheet : http://michaelwest.dk/knive/rwl34-datasheet.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: S30v vs s110v

#39

Post by dreadpirate »

I have both steels. I think the S110V on the Manix 2 has a keener edge, seems sharper than my S30 Sage or S35VN Native. But that's just my impression - I have no hard data to back that up.
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