2 Swedish Air Force survival knives

[Enactive]

Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing.

[termite]

Very nice work and thanks for sharing the process.

[JRinFL]

Spectacular work! Thank you for the series of posts and great pictures.

[cabfrank]

Wow. Great thread, great work and great skills.

[Doc Dan]

Thanks for taking us along the journey. Those turned out really nice.

[Manixguy@1994]

I am in awe ! Thanks for sharing your hard work , results are beautiful. MG2

[shunsui]

Great post.

It would be interesting to know if a bit of silver would improve today's steels. I bet a steel/silver bullet would work wonders on werewolves.

[aicolainen]

Great work and interesting background information. Thanks for sharing!
I live only an hour’s drive from the Swedish border, so the “local” connection made it even more interesting.

[Rusty_Shackelford]

Absolutely incredible work. It’s awesome seeing you bring them back to life!

[SpyderEdgeForever]

You don't know how happy I am that you posted these. I am a lover of Swedish and Scandinavian knives. I have heard legends of survival stories with thia model you posted. That website you mentioned is great. I think it was posted by a father in memoriam of his son who was a Swedish military soldier. Thank you!

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Great work and interesting background information. Thanks for sharing!
I live only an hour’s drive from the Swedish border, so the “local” connection made it even more interesting.

This is amazing. If you can can you please share some photos with us in this section of Sweden and Swedish and other Scandi knives? I love those.

[aicolainen]

Great work and interesting background information. Thanks for sharing!
I live only an hour’s drive from the Swedish border, so the “local” connection made it even more interesting.

This is amazing. If you can can you please share some photos with us in this section of Sweden and Swedish and other Scandi knives? I love those.

Hi SEF, I’m sadly lacking in knowledge with regards to local knife history. Especially the Swedish, which although close and I’ve been there a million times, is still a different country. That said, I didn’t even know about the Foss sharpening stones, which actually are from my country, so there’s that .
It’s stories like the one @kwakster has presented here, that make me realize there is more to the Scandinavian knife history than I was aware of and that inspires me to learn more.

[Naperville]

"Maybe Larrin can tell us more about the validity of Faraday's claims about steel alloyed with silver, and maybe his thoughts about the type of steel in these two Swedish knives."

@Larrin what do you think?

To me, silver seems pretty soft but maybe there is something you know that I don't.

[Ankerson]

At this point i'm quite certain that the steel in these 2 knives is an entirely different type when compared to the standard Sheffield made crucible cast steel.
One reason is that Pontus Holmberg classifies it as a stainless steel, where the Sheffield made crucible cast steel was a carbon steel.
See this detail picture of the sheath of knife #2, and "Rostfri" is the Swedish word for stainless.

https://ibb.co/bzfSNhV

The second reason is the very high wear resistance of this Swedish steel: using whatever grit of black silicon carbide on it is extremely slow, be it waterproof SiC paper or the coarse black SiC side of the Foss 7205 combination stone.
The green silicon carbide side of that stone however, even though much finer than the black side, cuts the steel noticeably faster, better, and also with great feedback.
Based on this i'm beginning to suspect there might be quite a lot of tungsten carbides in it, also because the steel is able to take & hold a thin ~20 degree inclusive edge angle while whittling an old piece of hard beechwood cutting board (tested with knife #1)

A possible third reason is a little piece of info i found on this website with mining data: https://www.mindat.org/loc-3153.html
According to this there could be (traces of) silver in the Dannemora iron ore, which made me remember what Faraday wrote about the alloy of steel with silver in this thread: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/phi ... t-20358902
Problems might be that Faraday wrote about his findings around 1822, he doesn't talk about silver in ore but about lab made alloys, and i'm no metallurgist.

Maybe Larrin can tell us more about the validity of Faraday's claims about steel alloyed with silver, and maybe his thoughts about the type of steel in these two Swedish knives.

Likely some configuration of 440/C tempered to a higher hardness.

Wasn't a lot of choices back then in stainless steels for knife blades.

440C can be VERY hard to sharpen which is why BUCK stopped using it, they got a ton of complaints that people couldn't sharpen it.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

I wish the Swedes would make a modern update of these knives using molded FRN grips. Why don't they do that and why doesn't Mora make locking blade folders?

[Larrin]

The steel would not be anything exciting. If it's stainless it would be 420 or 440A. If it's carbon steel it would be a 1095 or W1. Claiming it is some special high wear resistance steel is wishful thinking.

Silver doesn't improve steel, Faraday was wrong.

[Ankerson]

The steel would not be anything exciting. If it's stainless it would be 420 or 440A. If it's carbon steel it would be a 1095 or W1. Claiming it is some special high wear resistance steel is wishful thinking.

Silver doesn't improve steel, Faraday was wrong.

Like I said not a lot of choices back then.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

The steel would not be anything exciting. If it's stainless it would be 420 or 440A. If it's carbon steel it would be a 1095 or W1. Claiming it is some special high wear resistance steel is wishful thinking.

Silver doesn't improve steel, Faraday was wrong.

Actually, sir, I must correct you on this fair point. First of all I have great respect and admiration for your fine metallurgical knowhow and hands on experience. Sir Michael Faraday never made definite statements that silver improved the properties of steel. He only carried out experiments with silver, chromium, and other atoms being added to the iron carbon matrix. It was not a conclusive statement he made. Thank you.

[Ankerson]

That silver does not play a role in this steel might very well be true, after all it was just something i read about in Faraday's work on alloys and in the mining data that stated there might be traces of it in the iron ore.

However, my experience with hand regrinding/sharpening/deburring and using it tells me that this vintage Swedish stainless steel is an entirely different animal compared to modern 440A, 440B, and even 440C stainless steel.

Depends on how it's heat treated, I have seen some 154CM and 440C that is a bear to sharpen even with modern day stones.

[Larrin]

Actually, sir, I must correct you on this fair point. First of all I have great respect and admiration for your fine metallurgical knowhow and hands on experience. Sir Michael Faraday never made definite statements that silver improved the properties of steel. He only carried out experiments with silver, chromium, and other atoms being added to the iron carbon matrix. It was not a conclusive statement he made. Thank you.

Please do a basic check of your information before correcting someone. People may read your post and believe your information to be accurate and thus be misled.

"This alloy is decidedly superior to the very best steel, and this excellence is unquestionably owing to combination with a minute portion of Silver. It has been repeatedly, made, and always with equal success. Various cutting tools have been made from it of the best quality."
"From the facility of obtaining silver, it is probable that its alloy with steel is the most valuable of those we have made. To enumerate its applications, would be to name almost every edge-tool."
- Stodart and Faraday
https://scholar.archive.org/work/npcabr ... 652361.pdf