why not more S110V/S90V?

[jimmyjohnjohn]

[T]he main two types of abrasion are ploughing , where the abrasive pushes the steel to the side like when you rake a stick in the sand, or chipping where the abrasive actually cuts the material like when you carve wood with a knife. Both will damage the steel in the region directly adjacent to the contact area in a depth proportional to the grit size. This damage is also effected by friction (hence the use of water cooling), and will be increased when there is rubbing vs cutting, hence why worn abrasives produce poorly performing edges.

Thanks very much, that helps.

Doing some more research into what could be going on with less-than-ideal stones being used on S90V/S110V, I stumbled across this explanation, which I think applies.

As discussed in Grinding, abrasives cause two types of changes to the metal. First, the obvious surface scratches. With large grits, these scratches are visible to the unaided eye (for those with good eyes!). Second, the hidden changes to the structure of the metal well below the scratches. In fact, metal up to 20 times the depth of the scratches has lost much of its crystalline structure.

The very presence of a flexible wire edge indicates that grinding has indeed change the structure of the steel.

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/wireedge.html" target="_blank

I have no idea what the crystalline structure would change to, but at the very minimum the nicely distributed chemical constituents created by the powder process would be somewhat disrupted. I should try to limit this plastic deformation as much as possible.

I have a geology degree, so I understand a bit about what happens in a cooling melt, crystalline structure, the properties of diferent physical materials and what happens when force is applied to them.

[MCM]

" 420j bargain-bin knife giving nothing away to a custom m4 knife is a pretty astounding idea. The massive difference in cost relative to the performance, well.....that's a pretty big gouge."

If you dont compare apples to apples your wasting oxygen.
Throw a razor knife in the mix and see what happens. :D
Shocking............. :eek:

[Cliff Stamp]

... that a 420j bargain-bin knife giving nothing away to a custom m4 knife is a pretty astounding idea.

The thing to think about is all of the factors aside from the steel which can influence the performance and think about what is a bigger influence - steel vs everything else added up? To first approximation (depends on correlation), if you have five things which can make the performance vary by 50% each, in total they make 250% of a difference. In steels, the actual differences in material properties is much smaller :

m390 : 2100/500 F : 59.5 HRC : 53 mg
S110V : 2150/500 F : 59.5 HRC : 50 mg

That is actual materials data on wear resistance between m390 and S110V, the total material loss is 53 mg for m390 vs 50 for S110V, no significant difference. In fact if you jump down to Elmax, which is S30V class, the materials testing just barely is able to show there is a difference and you need to be able to measure to 5% accuracy and precision to see it. But yet just read about S110V vs S30V or Elmax and what people say, it rarely reflects the physical properties as much as it does their perceptions of how they think the steel should act.

The next time you use a knife think about things like the force, speed, and angles and see what kind of variability do you think you have. The other way to think about it is just look at a knife from someone like Jerry Fisk who uses something like 1084 and in his personal knife hardens it to 52-54 HRC. It is really that reasonable to think all of those knives are many-to-one inferior. If so where are all the people complaining about the ABS guys and their poor performing 1084 which doesn't even have the wear resistance of 420HC.

[VashHash]

I'll just leave this here for the guy saying S30V and S90V heat-treated the same wouldn't experience a difference

[tvenuto]

I'll just leave this here for the guy saying S30V and S90V heat-treated the same wouldn't experience a difference

Ha, this is a little silly. Yes, the compositions are different. Yes, the steels ARE actually different in performance. The point is that they (the steels themselves) are LESS different than most people think. Their (most people's) bias is due to a combination of: "social proof," differences in finishing, differences in edge geometry, differences in cutting style, differences in media cut...to name a few. This does not make "most people" bad for preferring one steel over another, or for wanting to try different steels, or for being willing to pay a premium for different or more exotic steels, or for just plain not knowing that we're talking about performance in the margins. However, when discussing actual performance, it's necessary to bring these things up, if we want to be honest about what is (or even can be) seen.

[MCM]

Having the same models in different steels clears much of this up.
You just have to buy a few of the same knives in different steels if you really want to find out what you like.
Many folks here have done just that. Millie's, Para2's, Manix2's etc.
Carrying and using the same knife in different steels pretty much tells the tale.
And gives you a real idea on what you like / don't like.
This allows anyone to find out if its worth it or not to them. And keeps us in the hobby.
For many its all about trying to find, that perfect knife. And the fun of finding it!
That's kept me into it for decades. Not a bad hobby at all.
As a lot of this is just personal preference, the answer can only come from the end user.
Rather than trying to nail everything down from someone else's opinion, you just have to try it.
And therein lies the fun. :D

[Cliff Stamp]

Dude, my bar graphs are so much more impressive than your bar graphs :



They are even in 3D, that is 50% more D than in your graphs. 50% more, that is huge, it is almost twice as much as 25% more D.

This does not make "most people" bad for preferring one steel over another, or for wanting to try different steels, or for being willing to pay a premium for different or more exotic steels, or for just plain not knowing that we're talking about performance in the margins.

Preferences are just that, preferences and we all have hobbies and interests. A friend of mine just had this made :



It is a clean and functional design by a practical maker whose work is rooted in performance. However, there is also a bit of fun and play in the design and it will be reflected when Mark takes this to the chopping horse and wrecks some wood. He enjoys it, myself and others will also in the viewing - and all of admit on a serious level, that this enjoyment is part of the reason, in fact maybe it is the reason we are interested in that kind of knives. I really don't need to do this :



I enjoy it, which is why I do it. If I just wanted to do it with maximum efficiency I would use a timber saw. Therefore I can discuss the doing of it, explore blades doing it - but if someone actually asked me how to cut up that kind of wood (manually) efficiently I would recommend something like this :



Which I have and that saw just eats that wood. But sawing is lame and uneventful and what kind of hillybilly-pirate does that, so I chop it up. Similar, there is a practical discussion about the differences in steels and then there is the discussion about getting the maximum V in any steel. In fact I am waiting for them to stop fooling around and just making a knife out of vanadium carbide. Then you can just use that knife to sharpen other knives by whitting them like tent pegs.

By the way, if that graph on S30V vs S90V impresses you then you should plot S30V vs 121REX. I won't spoil it for you, but it makes S90V look like 420J2. It has maximum V, and W, and C and all the other letters you could want.

[MCM]

"Dude, my bar graphs are so much more impressive than your bar graphs :"

This kind of sums it up for me. Interesting, but does not really tell me how it cuts.
Usually have to do that for my self. :D

[tvenuto]

By the way, if that graph on S30V vs S90V impresses you then you should plot S30V vs 121REX. I won't spoil it for you, but it makes S90V look like 420J2. It has maximum V, and W, and C and all the other letters you could want.

But what happens when we run out of those letters?! Isn't this insistence on increased cutting performance contributing to the rape of our natural resources?

...And the grand irony is that, at this very moment, in another thread this argument actually being made.

[Cliff Stamp]

This kind of sums it up for me. Interesting, but does not really tell me how it cuts.

That is easy, as that has nothing to do with the steel at all.

But what happens when we run out of those letters?!

That is why you don't use lame arabic lettering, and switch to tamil which has 247 letters plus they are way cooler as your steel names now look like this : ஸ்ட்ரோங் டௌக்ஹ் .

In regards to S110V, there is a curious historical argument because S90V and especially S60V were not always making knife makers happy. Now to be clear some makers like Tom Mayo were always fond of S60V and has now complaints, but others were heavy in lamenting that these were hard to grind, shape and finish and the idea of someone making a production S90V knife was like suggesting someone not use Paul Bos for hardening. However, in general, there isn't as much said about S110V in that regard. I wonder how much of this is due to differences in abrasives, grinders or just a movement towards low grindability steels in general so the baseline for what is difficult is now just much higher.

[MCM]

Your special.