S30V Steel – History and Properties

[Pancake]

What I want to see is the Catra comparison between S39v, .

Damm, these new steels are coming every few weeks :cool:

EDIT:
I really enjoyed your article Larrin, great job as always.
I never had any problems with S30V, I think its a great user steel, stainless, good edge retention, never had issues with chipping. If an ,,average Joe,, want a recommendation for a knife steel, S30V is going to be on a list.

[Larrin]

I like your articles Larrin. Have you ever considered having guest writers? Might be worth a try to get more eyeballs on your site.

I had one person offer to write an article about titanium alloys but I never heard anything after agreeing to it. I do fine for visitors each month but to accept outside articles they would have to fit the style/theme of the site.

[Larrin]

What I want to see is the Catra comparison between S30v, S45VN, and the new Spyderco steel SPY-27.

You will see a comparison S30V and S45VN in the next couple months. Or you can join the Patreon and see now. SPY27 didn't make the cutoff with the big project right now but will probably come later.

[Doc Dan]

What I want to see is the Catra comparison between S30v, S45VN, and the new Spyderco steel SPY-27.

You will see a comparison S30V and S45VN in the next couple months. Or you can join the Patreon and see now. SPY27 didn't make the cutoff with the big project right now but will probably come later.

Money. Exchange rate is a killer.

[Larrin]

Money. Exchange rate is a killer.

What exchange rate?

[curlyhairedboy]

Larrin, great writeup as usual. S30v is one of my favorites, it's nice to dive into its development.

[RamZar]

Sal was mentioning how they don't see any advantage going with S35VN over S30V and they dropped S35VN for the regular production Native5 in favor of S30V. That's the opposite of Chris Reeve, Hinderer and many others.

I wonder what advantages S45VN has over both S30V and S35VN.

At the same time, many have moved on to M390/20CV/204P albeit at a premium on price.

[Halfneck]

....but I'm still hesitant about S30V to this day.

There's lots of great steel choices available today but I'd recommend giving some more recent Spyderco S30V a try. I have several knives with it from recent years and I haven't had any issues. They've all performed admirably. I think my oldest is from 2010 and even that seems to be fine. I've only touched up the factory edge on that one. I have several others that I've reprofiled to 30° inclusive and they've held up great

I have the Lil'Temp 3 in S30V, love the knife enough that steel was not a factor. So far the blade has held up fine, but them I'm no longer as hard on knives like I use to be.

[GarageBoy]

Thanks larrin!
What's everyone's favorite way of sharpening the stuff?

[JRinFL]

Looking at the charts, it is interesting to see where Nitro-V places. Certainly seems it might be worthy of its own article in the future. Based on the same charts, S30V seems to be just about the same as 154CM, so hardly a super steel. It has always performed better for me than VG-10 despite it being lower in toughness and hardness.

[Larrin]

Looking at the charts, it is interesting to see where Nitro-V places. Certainly seems it might be worthy of its own article in the future. Based on the same charts, S30V seems to be just about the same as 154CM, so hardly a super steel. It has always performed better for me than VG-10 despite it being lower in toughness and hardness.

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/09/23/ ... -treat-it/

[Sharp Guy]

Thanks larrin!
What's everyone's favorite way of sharpening the stuff?

I use the Sharpmaker with the medium (brown) stones for touch ups and Moldmaster (SiC) for reprofiling on my Hapstone V7

[Phil Wilson]

Thanks Larrin for the great article and history on CPM S30V. I am proud to be part of the history but it does date me somewhat. Looking back Crucible did take interest in their materials for knife blade use and both Ed Severson and Dick Barber were interested in knives. I think Ed still has a Chef I made for him in his kitchen back then. It was just being realized that there might be some market for their company in supplying material for knives. I think it was about 1999 or 2000 that I wrangled a trip to New York to take a tour in the mill. During lunch with Dick and Ed they mentioned that they were working on a new steel grade that might have application in knife blades. At the time we only had CPM S90V for the CPM stainless steels. It was and is a great material but as Larrin pointed out was not the most friendly in terms of heat treating and workability. The new grade they said would solve some of that problem. I asked for a sample as soon as they had some and would make a knife and try it out. At the time I was writing some tech articles for the magazines and looking for new materials to write about. I also recall that the idea of Nitrogen as an addition at that time was something they were trying out and that was proprietary for them. I did write two articles on the grade and the last after I had some and made a couple of knives. This is about the same time as Chris introduced it on his knives. I still use CPM S30V and if it was the only steel available it would fill the bill. It makes a nice blade for Bird and Trout and fillet knives. Larrin has good description on ductility, corrosion resistance and heat treating and is an excellent reference and appreciate his work developing the article. For use on higher abrasive cutting applications CPM S90V will hold an edge longer and in that case is worth the extra expense and fabrication. But as mentioned CPM S30V and its derivatives in that category of knife blade steels will always be favorites. Phil

[sal]

Hi Larrin,

Nicely done.

thanx.

Hi Hookandlateral,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

[Wartstein]

Great read, as always Larrin. Very informative, and still understandable for total laymen (like me) too.

I really like S30V and would be happy with it in any (non serrated) knife I have, but in the only XHP knife I own the latter steel to me always feels rather similar to, but still like a "just slightly better S30V"... now it is interesting to see in the graphs how close the two really are concerning edge retention, but XHP is seemingly a lot tougher (to be clear: I am rather clueless when it comes to steel, and compare S30V to XHP solely on totally subjectiv "in-use" perceptions, and in no way "scientifically").

[Sharp Guy]

Thanks Larrin for the great article and history on CPM S30V. I am proud to be part of the history but it does date me somewhat. Looking back Crucible did take interest in their materials for knife blade use and both Ed Severson and Dick Barber were interested in knives. I think Ed still has a Chef I made for him in his kitchen back then. It was just being realized that there might be some market for their company in supplying material for knives. I think it was about 1999 or 2000 that I wrangled a trip to New York to take a tour in the mill. During lunch with Dick and Ed they mentioned that they were working on a new steel grade that might have application in knife blades. At the time we only had CPM S90V for the CPM stainless steels. It was and is a great material but as Larrin pointed out was not the most friendly in terms of heat treating and workability. The new grade they said would solve some of that problem. I asked for a sample as soon as they had some and would make a knife and try it out. At the time I was writing some tech articles for the magazines and looking for new materials to write about. I also recall that the idea of Nitrogen as an addition at that time was something they were trying out and that was proprietary for them. I did write two articles on the grade and the last after I had some and made a couple of knives. This is about the same time as Chris introduced it on his knives. I still use CPM S30V and if it was the only steel available it would fill the bill. It makes a nice blade for Bird and Trout and fillet knives. Larrin has good description on ductility, corrosion resistance and heat treating and is an excellent reference and appreciate his work developing the article. For use on higher abrasive cutting applications CPM S90V will hold an edge longer and in that case is worth the extra expense and fabrication. But as mentioned CPM S30V and its derivatives in that category of knife blade steels will always be favorites. Phil

I love reading interesting posts like this from Mr. Wilson!

[Sharp Guy]

Great read, as always Larrin. Very informative, and still understandable for total laymen (like me) too.

I really like S30V and would be happy with it in any (non serrated) knife I have, but in the only XHP knife I own the latter steel to me always feels rather similar to, but still like a "just slightly better S30V"... now it is interesting to see in the graphs how close the two really are concerning edge retention, but XHP is seemingly a lot tougher (to be clear: I am rather clueless when it comes to steel, and compare S30V to XHP solely on totally subjectiv "in-use" perceptions, and in no way "scientifically").

I certainly don't disagree with you about XHP but what makes it "just slightly better" than S30V for you? For me XHP seems to get sticky sharp a little easier and that's about all I can think of. I really can't tell a difference in edge retention between the two but it's not like I measure how much cutting it takes for me to make my knives dull. I've said it before, for the materials I cut (mostly cardboard, hardwood, a little plastic, and occasionally poly banding), with the exception of Maxamet, S110V, & S90V, I don't really see huge differences in edge retention.

[Wartstein]

Great read, as always Larrin. Very informative, and still understandable for total laymen (like me) too.

I really like S30V and would be happy with it in any (non serrated) knife I have, but in the only XHP knife I own the latter steel to me always feels rather similar to, but still like a "just slightly better S30V"... now it is interesting to see in the graphs how close the two really are concerning edge retention, but XHP is seemingly a lot tougher (to be clear: I am rather clueless when it comes to steel, and compare S30V to XHP solely on totally subjectiv "in-use" perceptions, and in no way "scientifically").

I certainly don't disagree with you about XHP but what makes it "just slightly better" than S30V for you? For me XHP seems to get sticky sharp a little easier and that's about all I can think of. I really can't tell a difference in edge retention between the two but it's not like I measure how much cutting it takes for me to make my knives dull. I've said it before, for the materials I cut (mostly cardboard, hardwood, a little plastic, and occasionally poly banding), with the exception of Maxamet, S110V, & S90V, I don't really see huge differences in edge retention.

First let me repeat: I don´t (and can´t) say XHP IS slightly (!) better than S30V, for me it just feels like that.

Compared to most of the folks on this forum I am really not experienced at all concerning steels and sharpening, but sure I can clearly tell differences between the few steels I use rather frequently ( VG10, S30V, HAP40...). Mostly concerning edge holding and effort to touch up / get sharp again.
S30V and XHP though are really similar in my use, but still XHP seems to stay sharp longer ever so sligthly and seems to get sharp again just a tad easier. But the differences are so minor that I am never 100% sure if if they are actually there or maybe just due to the blade geometry, thin blade stock, edge angle.... of my only XHP knife (the Chap) and not the steel itself.
Now seeing in Larrins graphs (as far as I can read those) that S30V and XHP are really close in edge retention, but XHP is the tougher steel, I figured that could possibly be the difference I as total layman perceive.

For reference: On the other hand I could feel no difference whatsoever between S30V and S35 VN, despite in Larrins graph there is actually more difference in edge retention than between S30V and XHP...

[Larrin]

Thanks Larrin for the great article and history on CPM S30V. I am proud to be part of the history but it does date me somewhat. Looking back Crucible did take interest in their materials for knife blade use and both Ed Severson and Dick Barber were interested in knives. I think Ed still has a Chef I made for him in his kitchen back then. It was just being realized that there might be some market for their company in supplying material for knives. I think it was about 1999 or 2000 that I wrangled a trip to New York to take a tour in the mill. During lunch with Dick and Ed they mentioned that they were working on a new steel grade that might have application in knife blades. At the time we only had CPM S90V for the CPM stainless steels. It was and is a great material but as Larrin pointed out was not the most friendly in terms of heat treating and workability. The new grade they said would solve some of that problem. I asked for a sample as soon as they had some and would make a knife and try it out. At the time I was writing some tech articles for the magazines and looking for new materials to write about. I also recall that the idea of Nitrogen as an addition at that time was something they were trying out and that was proprietary for them. I did write two articles on the grade and the last after I had some and made a couple of knives. This is about the same time as Chris introduced it on his knives. I still use CPM S30V and if it was the only steel available it would fill the bill. It makes a nice blade for Bird and Trout and fillet knives. Larrin has good description on ductility, corrosion resistance and heat treating and is an excellent reference and appreciate his work developing the article. For use on higher abrasive cutting applications CPM S90V will hold an edge longer and in that case is worth the extra expense and fabrication. But as mentioned CPM S30V and its derivatives in that category of knife blade steels will always be favorites. Phil

Thanks Phil! I cited one of your articles in mine.

[VashHash]

Thanks for the history lesson Larrin. I really appreciate these articles.