Abyss_Fish wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:20 am
I'm always a little concerned with steel campaigns like this...
Vanax (I'm assuming we're all talking about super-clean here), like Sal said is prohibitively expensive and difficult to get. Meaning there is very few actual vanax blades out there (and even less being actively used I'm sure) but a lot of hype. And while in concept it sounds wonderful, I mean how could I turn down M390 level wear resistance with close to the toughness and stainlessness of Lc200n? but I'm afraid due to the lack of actual testing and "real world use" that most spydercos go through, we're all going to be a little disappointed with our 500 dollar pm2s when the steel doesn't immediately obliterate everything it comes in contact with...
Again I'm not saying that vanax is bad, I'm just saying we don't know enough about it to say it's the end all be all of steels. And seeing the low availability and high cost of it, I'm not sure it's worth it. Especially when simply running lc200n at 60-61 hrc achieves nearly the same goal. Trading just a tad of vanax's edge retention for absolute stainlessness, more toughness, and easier sharpening.
Fish, you’ve said what I think but here’s my slat anyhow.
I don’t have any interest in a Vanax folder whatsoever.
However, l’d love to see a dedicated, full tang, small game, fixed blade knife, akin to the old Gerber Pixie. I’d love to see polished G10 scales like Mr Wilson’s knives, preferably detachable, and I’d gladly pay the premium if Spyderco’s interpretation of Vanax matched or bettered the characteristics of the Vanax SC blade I have made by Luong (Bluntcut).
I wouldn’t be interested in a Vanax filleting knife either because I cut through heavy rib bones often enough and I’ve been spoiled by S90V. That said, where Vanax well and truly has it over S90V and other blade steels is in corrosion resistance Not that S90V isn’t corrosion resistant to a point but if you were to use it and forget about it, as sometimes happens, if nothing else, at very least the edge would degraded through corrosion. Not so with Luong’s knife which I couldn’t rust with over two months in a saltwater wicking bath which I eventually let evaporate. After cleaning the dry salt off the blade it was like new and freshly sharpened just the way I left it in the first place.
I don’t think Vanax is going to do anything that isn’t already being done with current steels freely available in an array of affordable folders except that you’ll never need to worry about it staining or rusting in any way. Though that can also likely be said for LC200N.
All the hype on edge retention, etc. is just that and an unknown as no Spyderco Vanax SC production blades actually exist so the way I see it, overall this thread is much ado over nothing and personally, I’m still patiently waiting for a Maxamet Military. :rolleyes: