“Best” steels video with Larrin

[zhyla]

As requested by Sharp Guy in another thread, I thought this was interesting. Keep your eyes open for a Spyderco cameo.

[Studiousworkman]

Watching Dr. Larrin Thomas talk about knife steel is always a incredible. The wealth of knowledge he has and shares challenges me to research and study the periodic table of elements in steel more!

As requested by Sharp Guy in another thread, I thought this was interesting. Keep your eyes open for a Spyderco cameo.

[Spyderwebs]

Great video. I never saw Larrin before but he's exactly my kind of expert. Nerdy, full of caveats, straightforward - after seeing this video I like him even more.

The standout statement of the video - "Edge geometry is more important than steel or heat treatment in edge performance"

[zhyla]

I also noticed that bit about edge geometry. I think that’s fairly well known by anyone familiar with making/sharpening knives.

What really made me smile was him saying how similar a lot of steels are in performance.

[Albertaboyscott]

Cool video. S110V fans going to be coming out of hiding?

[Larrin]

The editor saw through my not-very-cryptic reference to Spyderco.

[legOFwhat?]

Now I gotta get that book!

[Sharp Guy]

Thanks for the link zhyla!

Thanks for the great vid Larrin!

[RamZar]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

Word: “Edge Geometry is more important than Steel and Heat Treating”.

[Evil D]

I think a lot about Cliff Stamp saying in so many words to make the edge thinner until it starts to damage and then make it make it thicker until it stops damaging.

[vivi]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

Word: “Edge Geometry is more important than Steel and Heat Treating”.

I wonder why H1 isn't ever on his charts?

[JSumm]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

Word: “Edge Geometry is more important than Steel and Heat Treating”.

I wonder why H1 isn't ever on his charts?

It is. Most people give up scrolling down on the Edge Retention Chart to ever see it though.

I'm kidding, I have always wondered the same thing. It think it is a very special steel and a super steel in its own right. Hopefully H2 will make his charts. My guess is it would be a 9 or even a 10 on the toughness scale with maybe a 2 or 3 on edge retention. Probably a 11 on corrosion resistance.

[JoviAl]

I’m always surprised how little air time Vanax seems to get - it is very similar to Magnacut (slightly lower toughness but fractionally higher edge retention and corrosion resistance), at least on paper. I have a quiet carry drift in Vanax and a Magnacut mule and they really are very similar to live with

[vivi]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

Word: “Edge Geometry is more important than Steel and Heat Treating”.

I wonder why H1 isn't ever on his charts?

It is. Most people give up scrolling down on the Edge Retention Chart to ever see it though.

I'm kidding, I have always wondered the same thing. It think it is a very special steel and a super steel in its own right. Hopefully H2 will make his charts. My guess is it would be a 9 or even a 10 on the toughness scale with maybe a 2 or 3 on edge retention. Probably a 11 on corrosion resistance.

It's always been weird to me. I consider H1 the most impressive steel I've tried since my first 420 series knife and it's never mentioned on his charts, lists, etc.

There's a single article on his site for H1 as far as I know. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/06/24/ ... -it-works/

It gives some interesting background information on steels similar to H1, but when you get to the meat of the article its a little disappointing how little hard info there is.

He mentions work hardening, but just says it doesn't make sense and dismisses it.

He mentions some people, Spyderco included, claiming SE H1 has better edge retention than you'd expect given the chemistry of the steel, but doesn't explore this at all.

He mentions sending in an H1 knife for RC analysis, but then mentions the edge RC numbers might be deflated because of the factory sharpening job....meaning it sounds like a brand new knife.

I dunno, I just feel like H1 warrants deeper investigation than this.

Like lets RC test a new Pacific Salt and a heavily sharpened one and compare results.

Lets do cut tests with PE and SE Pacific Salts in H1, then repeat the test with VG10 Endura 3's, and compare the edge holding difference percentages in each edge type for the respective steels.

Couple years ago Spyderco posted on their website that H1 SE outcut all the other steels they had tried. Period. That's a big statement to make about a steel with the chemical composition of H1 when they were using stuff like S90V in the same era. Maybe not in SE, but they at least had SE S60V and S30V knives at that time.

The way the article was worded made it sound like he hadn't actually used H1.

[vivi]

I’m always surprised how little air time Vanax seems to get - it is very similar to Magnacut (slightly lower toughness but fractionally higher edge retention and corrosion resistance), at least on paper. I have a quiet carry drift in Vanax and a Magnacut mule and they really are very similar to live with

I've always been interested in Vanax since I heard about it. But like with magnacut I'm waiting to see it in a reasonbly priced model that I'd use frequently.

I'll be first in line for a Pacific Salt in either steel, so I can compare them to the H1 and LC200N versions.

[Wartstein]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

....

What jumps out to me in that chart is how similar LC200N actually appearantly is to 14C28N - just slightly less though (LC "8.5" vs 14C "9") and, yes, noticeable even-more-rustproof, but I think for most people the "8.5" of 14C (vs "10" of LC) will be rustproof enough.

So I guess LC200N should be "the" choice in the "high toughness" category for folks who need extreme levels of corrosion resistance (and want ffg, which rules out H1 / H2)

Second thing about LC200N:
I can recall when it came out, it was said to have edge retention "like S30V" or at least "between VG10 and S30V" - I never found that to be true in my own use (as far as I can tell), but always that VG10 holds an edge longer than LC. Larrins charts suggest this too (LC "3", VG10 "4.5", S30V "6" in edge retention).

Now probably one could make use of the much higher toughness of LC over VG10 by giving an LC blade a more acute edge angle than VG10 could take and by THAT increase the edge retention of LC.

[JoviAl]

The six steels Larrin mentioned with two in each category of High Toughness (14C28N, AEB-L), Balanced Steel (CPM-154, CPM-MagnaCut) and High Wear Resistance (CPM-S90V, CPM-S110V) are all Stainless Steels.

....

What jumps out to me in that chart is how similar LC200N actually appearantly is to 14C28N - just slightly less though (LC "8.5" vs 14C "9") and, yes, noticeable even-more-rustproof, but I think for most people the "8.5" of 14C (vs "10" of LC) will be rustproof enough.

So I guess LC200N should be "the" choice in the "high toughness" category for folks who need extreme levels of corrosion resistance (and want ffg, which rules out H1 / H2)

Second thing about LC200N:
I can recall when it came out, it was said to have edge retention "like S30V" or at least "between VG10 and S30V" - I never found that to be true in my own use (as far as I can tell), but always that VG10 holds an edge longer than LC. Larrins charts suggest this too (LC "3", VG10 "4.5", S30V "6" in edge retention).

Now probably one could make use of the much higher toughness of LC over VG10 by giving an LC blade a more acute edge angle than VG10 could take and by THAT increase the edge retention of LC.

Funny - I was just about to comment something similar about LC200! I was going to say that my H1 SE dragonfly seems to stay functionally sharp about as long as my LC200 SE Caribbean (if not longer). I was surprised to see LC200 rated at an edge retention of only 3, but I suppose if the edge angles and stock thicknesses haven’t been optimised for each steel in the test it somewhat brings the whole set of datapoints into question.

[JoviAl]

I’m sure Larrin has considered this variable, so I’d be interested to hear if the edges of the blades/coupons were all sharpened to the same bte thickness and angle, or whether they were tested at optimised thicknesses and angles according to the data he presents in his book (which I’ve just ordered by the way and can’t wait to read in full).

[JoviAl]

PS - I’ve just re-read my first comment above and I may have inadvertently come across as dismissive of the data or the effort that went in to collating it (I’m not). I don’t mean to imply the data is not generally representative (all experiments need to be conducted methodically), I just wonder if we might get different results if blade edges were optimised for the steel’s innate characteristics.

[JSumm]

As far as Larrin's edge retention testing, the edge angles and blade thickness are not optimised for each steel because Larrin is trying to compare steels against each other while eliminating as many other varaiables as possible. Just to compare wear resistance of the steel.

In real life, we know we can change the edge angle to improve performance and/or buy knives where manufacturer's have optimised the thickness for a certain purpose.

On his website, he explains the process with the CATRA tester. This is his diagram from the website about the blanks and uniformity in the testing.