Any more Super Blue knives in the works?

[Donut]

Where are the votes for the full size Calypso sprint? :-)

[Donut]

Now that I think bout it, the full size is only a half inch away from the 3.5... I guess this once we can let it slide. I will try to think of another good Seki slicer model.

Dragonfly sounds sort of nice, but seems like it wouldn't shine as well as the Caly.

[PocketZen]

I am curious as to whether there are any more Super Blue knives in the works?

Para 2 or Superleaf :D

+1 on the para 2

Personally I am hoping for a non-stainless Para 2. Superblue, Blue II, or CruWear, 3V, would all be great to me!

Now other idea's for super blue or blue II... the bushcraft.

As an aside I thought I remember reading that Hitachi makes a stainless/laminate version of SB. I really like laminated blades as they seem to offer the best of both worlds in maintenance and carbon steel performance.

[syphen]

You can already get a tool steel Manix in M4 and there was a D2 Para was there not?

I'd like to see something else in Super Blue. Sretch or Dfly get my votes before a Para or Manix.

Personally I'd like to see a FFG Pe blade and preferably not a hawkbill. A Chapparal would be very cool. Micarta scales or wood scales and SB! Seems classy to me. I also typically prefer Caly 3 / Delica sized knives but the 3.5 is still small so I've been carrying it.

Just my 2 cents there.

[Cliff Stamp]

If there is a desire for a US steel which is the same, then just use O7, that is a cold working, extremely high carbon, tungsten tool steel. This and the no longer used finishing grades (F1, F2, etc.) were used traditionally when you needed high wear resistance, especially in sharp edges tools. They were later replaced by the HSS which give very similar properties in that regard but also have high heat resistance and thus allow higher rates of cutting.

[Zerimas]

If there is a desire for a US steel which is the same, then just use O7, that is a cold working, extremely high carbon, tungsten tool steel. This and the no longer used finishing grades (F1, F2, etc.) were used traditionally when you needed high wear resistance, especially in sharp edges tools. They were later replaced by the HSS which give very similar properties in that regard but also have high heat resistance and thus allow higher rates of cutting.

I'll take any steel that has similar properties to Blue Super!

[The Mastiff]

I've always wanted to try F2 steel but have never encountered any in real life. I wouldn't know where to get it. I recall a wear resistance test on rope done by Wayne Goddard where it did pretty well. http://sharpeningmadeeasy.com/edge.htm.

It looks like the cruware/vascowear is one of the better performers in that test. It is without question tougher than Super blue, as well as being more wear resistant, and though not stainless, it resists oxidation better than Super blue.

Very few steels are going to sharpen as easy and as nice as super blue though. I get some of the most savage edges on my Caly 3.5 without trying hard or putting much time into it. I've tried a bunch of steels in the last 40 years but I still get surprises fairly often. The Super blue has been one. I've only had it in apparently less than high quality damascus/sandwich type blades some of which have had voids and much less often inclusions. None have performed as well as these Caly's overall in all aspects combined

Heck, any of these steels will make me happy. Spyderco has done more steels in the last 3 years ( including the mule team program) than any other production knife company has done in all the 40 years combined of my knife collecting using days. Likely more than all the manufacturers put together. Only Bark River comes close to being in the same ballpark.

F2 and F8 steels are in this chart: http://www.knifemakersdatabase.com/Cust ... Chart.html

[Cliff Stamp]

It looks like the cruware/vascowear is one of the better performers in that test.

Yeah, they are not designed for high wear, to be specific they are high wear but not optimized for it. The D series steels are high wear steels, that is all they do well, but they have coarse grain and huge segregated carbides and thus do not take or hold a very fine edge very well which is what steels like the F series and O7 are intended to do.

But again, not everyone wants or needs the type of edge these steels are designed to hold. Dozier makes knives out of D2 and they are exceeding popular. I have one and for aggressive slicing with a coarse edge you are not going to be disappointed, and he really knows how to sharpen an edge for that purpose. David Boye does the same with his dendretic materials.

Wayne, and a lot of the guys who cut rope will use a very coarse finish, while it is called "fine india", it isn't really fine and leaves a very aggressive toothy pattern on the edge. If you are sharpening like that then something like O7 is pointless as you are using an edge which is directly opposite the intended use of the steel.

In order to see why O7 (and similar) are good knife steels you need :

-very high hardness levels (66-68 HRC)
-very low retained austenite (< 5%)
-very thin and especially very acute edges
-very high polish

If you put all of that together you will end up with an edge that can do some amazing things, if you don't you will end up with an edge that won't outperform ATS-34 on a rope cute and people will wonder what the fuss is all about anyway as you can get better performance with a much simpler material at a lower cost.

The problem is that it is very easy to write this but such knives are very specialized and there are nut jobs out there who do odd things with knives (I know as I am one of them) so people like Sal who actually have to run companies have to take into account and build margins into the knives to minimize such risks.

I would love to see a Military for example in AEBL at 64-65 HRC with an edge at 0.005" thick and sharpened at 10 degrees per side. It would be exactly, with no exaggeration, a folding razor blade. But I would not fault Sal for not making it as there is a very high risk that the negatives which could result would out weigh the positives.

[guidosst]

+10

I would definitely grab a few of these!

Same here.

I loaned out two sharpened and polished up MT08 mules for deer season this year and got back rave reviews about the edge, I'm going to have a struggle getting them back I suspect. I'd absolutely love to have the same edge in a more purpose-built package like the Moran.

[xavierdoc]

The problem is that it is very easy to write this but such knives are very specialized and there are nut jobs out there who do odd things with knives (I know as I am one of them) so people like Sal who actually have to run companies have to take into account and build margins into the knives to minimize such risks.

I would love to see a Military for example in AEBL at 64-65 HRC with an edge at 0.005" thick and sharpened at 10 degrees per side. It would be exactly, with no exaggeration, a folding razor blade. But I would not fault Sal for not making it as there is a very high risk that the negatives which could result would out weigh the positives.

Well put, Cliff. I know it has been said before but this is the nub of the problem faced by manufacturers of production knives trying to push the limits and introduce "new" steels. Like the difference between a mainstream car manufacturer and a top-fuel dragster team: the production knife has to cope with a wide range of tasks and handle a certain amount of careless use, whereas
custom makers can "tune" HT and geometry that can give better performance within a narrower window of use (they can brief the owner individually if need be).

I would love Spyderco to make some blades that chase the max performance of steels like M390, Elmax, K294, K390, CPM-Rex121 etc. However, this isn't going to happen due to considerations of HT, manufacturing difficulties and allowances for End (ab)User.

I'm happy that Spyderco do still experiment with the Sprints and Mules, albeit with understandable restraint.

[The Mastiff]

Cliff, I really don't know anywhere that has O-7 in stock. In past dealings with steel suppliers I notice there isn't much chance of them carrying something that isn't in demand. I was given some steel with an order that had sat around since 95. It may be a great steel but if it's not in demand it won't be around. In those cases then expect to have to order around 85-90,000 lbs of steel , then send it to have it rolled to your specs.

There are a lot of steels that likely would make great knives that we'll never get to try. I have some M3-1 ( higher carbon M2), some CPM 15V and a few other steels around I'm using for projects over the next couple of years.

The more strange and new steels I try the more I do appreciate the old standbys and usual s like 52100, O-1, and yes, luckily enough Super Blue. I probably would get along with O-7 and quite a few others.

I thought Kershaw tried running 13C at rc 64-64 and didn't have much luck BTW. Not enough temper back made it pretty brittle and even less corrosion resistant IIRC.

Right now I'm just along for the ride with Spyderco. I feel they have hit on enough of my dream steel/knife combos to last a lifetime. I'll hope for more in this area, but I won't ask for anything else. The mule team, CPM M4, O-1, and Super blue as well as Cruware in the mule team have hit all my favorites.

Joe

[Cliff Stamp]

I'm happy that Spyderco do still experiment with the Sprints and Mules, albeit with understandable restraint.

Yes, there is also the custom market if you want to do something which is very specialized and take all the risks/liabilities yourself. I am ordering a custom knife now and I am going to specify a geometry which is optomized for cutting to a very high level, so much so it may not have the necessary durability and may get damaged in use. But for me, finding that line for a steel is part of the enjoyment of working with knives and both myself and the maker are aware that it could happen. But it isn't reasonable to expect a production company to release products under such circumstances, with knives or any other product.

Cliff, I really don't know anywhere that has O-7 in stock.

I turned up a few manufacturers who still offer it. The reason why it came to mind was that Alvin was looking for steels back in 96 to replace M2 as he could not harden than and thus had to grind it as-hard. The F series of course is the first obvious place and then he looked to the general cold work high tungsten steels and O7.

In past dealings with steel suppliers I notice there isn't much chance of them carrying something that isn't in demand. I was given some steel with an order that had sat around since 95. It may be a great steel but if it's not in demand it won't be around. In those cases then expect to have to order around 85-90,000 lbs of steel , then send it to have it rolled to your specs.

Tungsten is actually a far superior carbide former than vanadium for knives because it forms smaller carbides which have lower rates of segregation. Vanadium is pushed heavily in the US market simply because it is much more available than tungsten, but where tungsten is available in large amounts that is what is used. Again this is the reality of manufacturing, you have to be able to spin what you have into what has to be bought - but as an ELU you also have to be aware that this is going on to a certain extent and the materials data is there and the internet makes this trivial.

The more strange and new steels I try the more I do appreciate the old standbys and usual s like 52100, O-1, and yes, luckily enough Super Blue. I probably would get along with O-7 and quite a few others.

As a general rule, I would expect to find that as cutting skill increases with a knife and as sharpening skill increases, the less value one would find in the high carbide steels and the more someone would desire steels with high edge stability.

I thought Kershaw tried running 13C at rc 64-64 and didn't have much luck BTW. Not enough temper back made it pretty brittle and even less corrosion resistant IIRC.

Then it was not hardened properly, the corrosion resistance issue would make that clear because a higher hardness has to be achieved by a number of things :

-high austenization
-oil quench
-low temper
-deep cryo

None of which reduce corrosion resistance and all of which increase corrosion resistance both directly (high austenization puts more chromium into solution through primary carbide dissolution) and indirectly (oil quench will prevent secondary precipitation of carbide during cooling), etc. . As for embrittlement, there are a number of ways that can happen, the most common one is secondary precipitation and a large amount of retained austenite in the edge.

The mule team, CPM M4, O-1, and Super blue as well as Cruware in the mule team have hit all my favorites.

Yeah, that is really a great thing Sal has done, the mule project. For the dedicated consumer base who wants to explore new steels, to release a steady stream of identical blades with different steels is simply awesome.

[sal]

Thanx for the support. Now maybe "youse guys" can help us pick some new Mule Teams?

The Cruware Mule is getting ready to be released again. CATRA tests were quite acceptable, especially for an ingot steel. The Elmax Mule teams are on the shelf for the next release. Then ???

Probably needs a new thread?

sal

[chuck_roxas45]

Thanx for the support. Now maybe "youse guys" can help us pick some new Mule Teams?

The Cruware Mule is getting ready to be released again. CATRA tests were quite acceptable, especially for an ingot steel. The Elmax Mule teams are on the shelf for the next release. Then ???

Probably needs a new thread?

sal

3V for a mule team, Mr. G?

[Zerimas]

Where are the votes for the full size Calypso sprint? :-)

That would be pretty excellent, especially if they kept the micarta handles!

[JacksonKnives]

All this talk about Super Blue inspired me to go out to the shop, fire up the poor, neglected grinder and put an ultra-low convex edge on my Caly3.5 sprint. It's *scary.*

Next Super-Blue: G-10 Dragonfly gets my vote, basically it's a mini-Caly, which is a great profile for this application, and it gives Sal an excuse to pick a new colour for the scales. (I'm not big on the lighter colours, so hopefully it would mean I can have something in SB with dark scales. Polished (a la Persian sprint) would be a nice bonus.)

Second choice would be the Junior. I love the design, hopefully that's a possibility sometime down the road.

I'm seriously considering making something akin to the Yojimbo along the lines of what Cliff suggested above... literally, a folding razor. If Sal were crazy enough to import Ayogami and allocate production capacity to a Sprint Run of the original Yojimbo, I guess I wouldn't have to...

[sal]

A super Blue D'fly is possible, but I would guess that a larger blade would be better to take advantage of the slicing ability?

sal

[speedcut]

A Superblue Stretch Mr. Glesser! that would be so awesome....! :)

[The Mastiff]

A super Blue D'fly is possible, but I would guess that a larger blade would be better to take advantage of the slicing ability?

Yes. In addition, the Dragon fly lends itself more to utility stuff, and forgetting it on the bedside table. It's too much of a ruster for the younger guys who don't do nightly maintenance.

Thin, sharp , easy to service knives 3 inches or more would be my choice. I guess some of that is selfishness though as I don't typically buy blades under 3 inches, 3.5 inches preferably.

To be honest, It could be pushed a up a point or a point and a half on these smaller blades. It was just entering a sweet spot in the Caly 3.5. It sure does sharpen nicely at that hardness though.

Joe

[Blerv]

Are FRN runs any different than g10 ones? A Stretch would be pretty fantastic.