More CPM 3v coming?

[Bodog]

Super thin and abuse don't go together.

That is a Robert Herder paring knife, the spine of the blade is thinner than the edge on most folding knives. It is zero ground, full flat grind with a micro-bevel. The raw reality is that most people think knives have to be far heavier ground than necessary because :

-knives now commonly use extremely brittle steels
-heat treatment often puts steels in embrittlement zones

The second one is a boggling mistake but it happens very frequently because people are trying to hit the magical 60 HRC and people are under the severe mistake that fracture toughness increases as hardness decreases.

-issues with handle ergonomics / security cause high loading of the blade during cutting
-blades are generally ground so the failure point is in the wrong spot

The last one happens on almost all blades because of issues with edge configuration and it is another case of extremely poor design. The knife should be designed so it fails in this order :

-apex
-edge
-blade

However, most knives are designed so they tend to fail in this order :

-edge or blade
-apex

which makes no sense at all.

For an example of what can be done when strong and tough steels are used by someone who has a practical approach, see work by Jeremy McCullen for example. He routinely takes blades down to the 0.005" range with full blade grinds on thin stock and uses tough and strong steels and then breaks them in use and shows just how much it takes. The work he does with them before they break has long passed what most people would consider abuse. The grinds he runs on large chopping blades are thinner than what most people think are thin grinds on folders :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ovZZmZ2RcA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The edge on that chopping blade is 0.013" . That is much thinner than most folders and now have a look at the impacts and think about if a folders is going to take similar in use.

But I want super thin blades that can handle massive side loading and lateral stress while being super hard and high carbide volume!

[Ankerson]

But I want super thin blades that can handle massive side loading and lateral stress while being super hard and high carbide volume!

Yeah I know what you ment, that why I said there aren't any. :D

*EDITED - Unnecessary, unproductive and unwelcome on our forum*

[bearfacedkiller]

So your are saying that is SPAM with ham? I have never really thought that there was any ham in SPAM! lol!!! :p Sorry, couldn't resist. :o

[Ankerson]

So your are saying that is SPAM with ham? I have never really thought that there was any ham in SPAM! lol!!! :p Sorry, couldn't resist. :o

Yeah I know, that was funny. ROFL :D

*EDITED - Unnecessary, unproductive and unwelcome on our forum*

[bearfacedkiller]

Yeah, I got your point and honestly don't want to get involved but I can't turn down a good joke opportunity like that.

If you are gonna set 'em up I am gonna knock 'em down!

[Ankerson]

Yeah, I got your point and honestly don't want to get involved but I can't turn down a good joke opportunity like that.

If you are gonna set 'em up I am gonna knock 'em down!

Has to do with things like integrity and honor, somethings I learned when I was in the USMC back in the early 80's. :spyder:

Here is me on deployment someplace in the Mediterranean Sea back in the 80's.

[Cliff Stamp]

But I want super thin blades that can handle massive side loading and lateral stress while being super hard and high carbide volume!

I have already posted on this before, it tends to get lost in the kind of posts as seen in the above.

Ultra high carbon steels, heat treated so as to produce nanoscale structures exhibit high toughness, strength, wear resistance, and are even super ductile. These have a very large carbide volume (the carbon content can be > 1.5%) , the hardness is 65+ HRC. There are even makers using these steels and hardening and one of them even posts here.

You really need to step up your fantasy game. Science advances fairly fast, it catches up to fantasy at a rapid rate. We now have ceramics which have fracture toughness exceeding common cutlery steels. Just think about if that was reasonable to ask for a short period of time ago. Ceramics are much harder than steels, they are in fact usually harder than the actual carbides in many steels. The strength is on a different scale, they are near invulnerable to corrosion and even much stronger chemical attacks - and now they toughness is in the same class and exceeding well known and respected tool steels.

If you forget about calling them ceramics, just think about asking for a blade material which is much harder than steel, not just 1-2 HRC points, but like twice as hard, that the strength has also basically doubled, that is immune to corrosion and chemical attack - and, here is the kicker is just as tough and isn't overly expensive. That well describes modern ceramics due to research in crack growth inhibition.

If you go back just one generation ago, imagine telling someone you wanted a device which fits in you hand, holds more information than any library, will allow you to talk to some that you can see on all over the world, can be used to make movies, has a more memory and computing ability that the current best mainframe - and allows you to listen to Justin Bieber any time you want.

A common "fantasy" for example, even a short time ago was for people to ask for a stainless steel that behaved just like carbon steels but was stainless. This is common now but was just a dream a short time ago because people were unaware of the metallurgy. Thanks to people like Cashen and Landes, a lot of makers understand now why AEB-L is that type of stainless and ATS-34 isn't.

The main issue in modern metallurgy usually isn't getting some combination of properties it is being able to do it very simple and very cheap. This is because at the end of the day these make money by being used in industry. While people will often pay $500 for a small folding knife for the same reasons they buy jewelry, in general, someone working on a shop floor doesn't buy a gear or roller because it is pretty, they do so because it has a very high production/cost ratio. This is where metallurgy struggles to advance, how do you make these extreme materials but keep the cost so low that they become a functional choice.

[bearfacedkiller]

OK, mental note, bringing levity to the conversation still doesn't work. :confused:

[Bodog]

OK, mental note, bringing levity to the conversation still doesn't work. :confused:

Guess not

[Ankerson]

OK, mental note, bringing levity to the conversation still doesn't work. :confused:

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I can understand why 3V isn't the best choice for a folder as that performance range is for the most part right around the S30V/S35VN, CPM 154, ELMAX range so it really doesn't offer anything more than they do in respect for the typical 3" to 4" folders.

For large fixed blades or hard use smaller fixed blades that are built to be abused yes it fits right in there and it works very well in that role provided the hardness is kept down in the 60 RC or lower range.

So we are back to the question of how tough or strong does the blade really have to be if a person is using a folder to cut things with?

That's aside from cider blocks and punching through car doors or trying to pry apart a tank as examples.

That said I can and have taken A11 steels and whittled nails with them and cut the edges right off of other steels in other folders with little or no damage. So no steels like them don't just fall apart or shatter if you look at them too hard like some others would like people to believe they do.

In the end people can believe what they want to believe.

[Helios]

Nothing irks me more than reading ankerson insult a fellow contributor, who brings nothing but quality insight that is backed up by thoroughly referenced material. Ankerson on the otherhand loves to bring snide retort to the table all the while promoting his biased views.

[Ankerson]

Nothing irks me more than reading ankerson insult a fellow contributor, who brings nothing but quality insight that is backed up by thoroughly referenced material. Ankerson on the otherhand loves to bring snide retort to the table all the while promoting his biased views.

*EDITED - Unnecessary, unproductive and unwelcome on our forum*

[Helios]

Ankerson you should consider shaking that "god complex", it doesn't help open up channels for discussion.

[Cliff Stamp]

Nothing irks me more than reading ankerson insult a fellow contributor...

I appreciate the support, really I do. However if you do respect my work, if it has any value to you, then I would rather you not make a post if in it you would return the favor and make another insult. I realize why you do it, I understand you would be upset - but here is the thing, the reason why people turn to insults is because the argument can't be disputed. Thus the discussion is turned to insults because anyone can insult and then several pages later everyone forgets the false claims which were disputed. It is a move of deliberate disinformation, realize it for what it is, focus on the argument. Report the insults if they bother you and you feel they degrade the forum, but never, never, never respond to personal attacks.

[Ankerson]

Ankerson you should consider shaking that "god complex", it doesn't help open up channels for discussion.

*EDITED - Unnecessary, unproductive and unwelcome on our forum*

[Cliff Stamp]

In an effort to actually discuss the properties of the materials, in regards to fracture toughness, steels don't have a simple relationship between hardness and toughness, the reason why this often appears to be if you look at data sheets is that you are getting a very selected data set. Imagine for example looking at the NBA, you could easily pick out ten people and create a group where the best players were ranked in height, but this is artificial, it is easy to understand that while height is a factor, it is only one factor.

How does toughness actually depend on hardness - well that isn't a trivial question because the reality is that it doesn't. Both of them are influence by the microstructure and some factors can increase both properties, some times one is increased and the other decreases, thus in general, well you can't really generalize. It would be like asking are Sal's designs better than Eric's. It would be a hard question to answer because you would have to define better and then how to measure it. If you attempted to do that you would quickly realize both are likely quality designers and bring different things to the approach.

How are toughness and hardness related, well here is some actual data :



This is from "The effects of heat treatment on fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth Rates in 440C and BG42 steels", Bingzhe Lou, B. L. Averbach .

The interesting thing about this graph is that it shows two very strong embrittlement effects very clearly. Note what happens in tempering at about 300C, the toughness goes to a minimum. In fact as you increase the tempering temperature from 150C, the toughness keeps decreasing even though the steel is getting softer. The toughness is actually highest when the steel is the hardest. The reason this happens is well known, it is called TME. BG-42 has an even more dramatic effect when it is tempered at 525C, note how the toughness goes to a drastic minimum. But the interesting thing here is that in this case the hardness is increasing as you increase the tempering temperature from 475C to 525C. Now the hardness is increasing but the toughness is decreasing, the exact opposite of what happened previously. This is also well understood and it is processed called secondary hardening.

If a steel has a high Molybdenum and/or Tungsten then it will have the kind of behavior that is seen in BG-42, thus 3V has it as well. Almost all steels have the embrittlement effect at ~300C which is shown in 440C. There are ways to stop it, for example Silicon inhibits it (as it prevents cementite precipitation), this is why you see Silicon in high toughness steels as it allows higher tempering without getting into TME.

That graph also shows the dramatic effect that extended quenches have on a reduction in fracture toughness, this is also well known and it is do to the phase transformation of austenite. Thus if you want an ultimate tough steel you might not want to use cold treatments.


Now as for 3V, it is an interesting steel which attempts to bring high toughness and wear resistance into the same steel using the principle that Crucible championed in the late 90's which is to eliminate almost all carbide except MC carbide. Is it a good folder steel? Well it depends on how your folder blades are failing :

-do you like D2 but find it chips a bit too easily

-do you like O1 but find it wears smooth a bit too easily

then 3V might be something you would like as it is more wear resistant than O1 and tougher than D2. However if you have an M4 blade and it doesn't chip then you likely are not going to see 3V as an upgrade. But now if you just like to collect steels, then it is a pretty interesting one history wise because of where it stands in cutlery history. It was (along with S30V) two of the first big pushes of "modern" steels into the knife industry. It also was the case where a steel manufacturer got directly involved with knife makers/manufacturers.

[Blerv]

I see no reason why a discussion of steel, especially with such a completely innocuous question "More CPM 3v coming?" has to lead to chaos.

If you like it, fine. If you don't, fine. A few personal preferences shouldn't dictate a market shift in either way. Like 80% of the knives Spyderco makes are either VG-10 or CPM-S30v and no street riots have been caused because of that.

Just remember that if Spyderco uses a steel it's guaranteed they have a reason to use a steel. If you feel their decision making is flawed the solution is simple: Don't buy their knives, don't buy a particular model they make, or make your own.

[Ankerson]

I see no reason why a discussion of steel, especially with such a completely innocuous question "More CPM 3v coming?" has to lead to chaos.

If you like it, fine. If you don't, fine. A few personal preferences shouldn't dictate a market shift in either way. Like 80% of the knives Spyderco makes are either VG-10 or CPM-S30v and no street riots have been caused because of that.

Just remember that if Spyderco uses a steel it's guaranteed they have a reason to use a steel. If you feel their decision making is flawed the solution is simple: Don't buy their knives, don't buy a particular model they make, or make your own.

They always have a reason for choosing the steels they use and they are good ones from what I have seen over the years, haven't seen anything that didn't make since to me anyway.

Haven't had any of those why did they do that thoughts lets say.

With all of the testing they do before releasing a model I think we can be sure that it will do what Spyderco says it will and will perform up to their expectations.

[Cliff Stamp]

Just remember that if Spyderco uses a steel it's guaranteed they have a reason to use a steel. If you feel their decision making is flawed the solution is simple: Don't buy their knives, don't buy a particular model they make, or make your own.

No the decision isn't that simple because Sal isn't Jim Jones and he doesn't run a cult.

Sal has never encouraged that people worship at the alter of Glesser. He has in fact sought out people who have been critical of the designs and steels and had a dialogue with them as that is how you learn from rational discourse. He, as the owner of the company, as the person who literally is Spyderco knives for most people, has never asked for, demanded or even implied that people should have blind faith in Spyderco and not question their choices. That kind of viewpoint undermines what he does and the approach he has taken.

As I have always said, if you look at products with a critical eye, if you engage in fair and open criticism, if you look at performance and function, if you are unbiased - then Spyderco products in general do very well and often dominate in multiple categories. If you don't do this, if you start making decisions based on faith then you throw away all the value of the R&D that Spyderco has done because blind faith doesn't benefit from justification.

This is a company who bought a CATRA machine because they wanted to know, who has q-fog testing done before any one else, who did break testing on folders before Cold Steel had heard of Demco. This is science not religion and you don't show respect to people doing scientific work by adopting a religious view. If you want to respect them, if you want to show their work has value then you approach it just as critically as they do - because that will show the value of what they did.

If you feel their decision making is flawed and you actually have justification for your position then state it. If it is a really critical point then make a video about it, discuss it on forums, email it to Sal. He actually does want to make a better product and he realizes that he doesn't know everything there is to know about knives and actually wants to hear what other people have to say. Respect the man and his commitment to his product. There is no need to create an alter of Spyderco, instead make your own lab of Spyderco and share the results.

[Ankerson]

They always want feedback, real world use is as important as controlled testing.