On the fine line between laziness and usefullness.

[ryan3030]

I, like all of you, know that each steel is an alloy with different parts hardness/edge retention and susceptibility to rust. I realize that hardness is a product of heat-treatment, but I'm under the impression that certain alloys accept certain levels of hardening better than others.

I, like most of you, have knives for different purposes. I have some knives that sit in my house and get cleaned/coated frequently. I also have knives, like the one on my camping/emergency bag that rarely see the light of day during the colder seasons. These knives get a coating from a Tuf-cloth maybe twice a year.

My question then becomes, where do I sdraw the line? I know I'm going to be relatively lazy in seeing to the upkeep of a knife I only use during the warm seasons, so what do I look for there? Should I sacrifice some of the more desirable qualities in a knife for a more stainless alloy?

How do you make this decision? Where do you draw the line? Or do you just take the route of coating your blades every time you put them away?

With the exception of my ESEE-4, most of my ESEE knives have ended up with rust spots, even after being coated with Tuf-cloth. This is probably a result of storing them in their sheaths, though. And while I love these knives, I would rather have a steel that didn't need as much attention.

 

[PointFiveO]

Do you really have to give up the qualities you want for stainless properties? I was under the impression that some of the newer stainless steels were up to the task of matching some of the more corrosive steels in bushcraft.

I am interested in people's opinion on this as well. I've been working with 1095 recently and I want to hop over to some of the powdered Crucible steels because I've heard you get similar strength and edge retention with the lack of corrosion, not to mention steel that begs for a satin finish.

And after seeing the difference with a fresh powder coat vs. a satin finish on choppers at the Chop-In, I've become disenchanted with painted blades.

 

[DaKruiser]

I've become disenchanted with painted blades.

It didn't take me long working with coated blades to figure that out, but I do see why they coat them. Leave a 1095 or 52100 blade alone for awhile and you have rust quick!

 

[cubby]

cpm154.

no stainless is rust proof. cpm154 sharpens fairly easily. is rust resistant enough to be completely viable for almost everyone. it is tough. it is proven. it give the best bang for your buck.

1095 is an old stand by. great for a lot of things. great for MOST things. but not rust resistant in the least, most of the time. coatings and blade finishes can play a huge role in it, but can only do so much. and coatings create the issues you have seen.

 

[ryan3030]

Someone should make an awesome infographic of common knife steels and their point on a line between edge retention and rust prevention.

Or if the two aren't mutually exclusive like I'm thinking, then give each steel a numeric rating in those categories and plot it on a graph.

 

[drbarnes]

Get some infi and try to stain it or get it to rust... And use the heck out of it. Problem solved.

 

[PointFiveO]

Get some infi and try to stain it or get it to rust... And use the heck out of it. Problem solved.

If only they sold it in bar stock

 

[ryan3030]

Get some infi and try to stain it or get it to rust... And use the heck out of it. Problem solved.

I'm not yet at a point where I'm comfortable selling my house so I can buy a knife

 

[drbarnes]

Well you get what you pay for sometimes.

 

[grunt soldier]

Lol you can get a scrapyard war dog or a busse basic 4 (both made of infi) with some great feeling res c handles for 225 bucks. Often with a sheath.

Also check out bark river knives. They do a lo of stuff in great stainless steels for ghost (great even...not sure how my phone auto corrected to that lol) prices. Bravo 1 and the gunny are two very nice blades.

All the blades I mentioned are in the range of the esee-4

 

[ryan3030]

Well you get what you pay for sometimes.

In my experience thus far, you get what you pay for all the time.

 

[buford t justice]

if a Jominy end quench test has been performed on a specific knife steel it will give you some indication of how well that steel takes to heat treatment.

 

[ryan3030]

cpm154.

Is 154CM the same thing as CPM154? If so, why are they denoted differently sometimes?

Sometimes I see CPM S30V denoted as something else too.

 

[PointFiveO]

Is 154CM the same thing as CPM154? If so, why are they denoted differently sometimes?

Sometimes I see CPM S30V denoted as something else too.

I don't know a great deal on the subject, but here is a simple explanation that should kinda help:

I guess they powder it and reforge it. This apparently makes the carbon molecules, or something like that, more evenly distributed. It makes it potentially stronger, prettier, etc.

Crucible Tool Steel and Specialty Alloy General Information

There is the real info on it, I guess since I took the time to google that I may as well read it now...

 

[PointFiveO]

The reason you see multiple different steels with similar names is 1) many of them are very similar from what I've seen and so they'll just alter names from version to version. Even some with very different names are similar. And 2) Crucible does their CPM process with multiple types of steel, so you will see it often. Check out the New Jersey Steel Baron and you'll get an idea of the different knife steels available (Although he won't provide much of an explanation of each, you get an idea of what is out there).

 

[billyboyr6]

Is 154CM the same thing as CPM154? If so, why are they denoted differently sometimes?

Sometimes I see CPM S30V denoted as something else too.

The difference between 154cm and cpm-154 is the way it is made and who makes the steel.

All of the cpm stuff is manufactured by Crucible Industries (which is where the C in the CPM comes from) and all are powdered steels. Basically they take say 154cm and rebuild the make up of the steel with their powdered ingredients and have a higher end material.

That's why you will see: M4 and CPM-m4, d2 and CPM-d2, 154cm and CPM-154, and so on. Their redesigns of their original make up for better performance. Hopefully that all makes since.