Blade Steels - Have We Been Fleeced By Marketing?

Rasmus80 said:
Where marketing plays a huge role, is when Spyderco does a sprint run on PM2, made of some amazing steeltype. And customers, who all ready has 9 PM2's in 9 different configurations, feel they "need" that 10th PM2. That is clever marketing.
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I have to believe that for many customers, they could write whatever they want on the tang stamp and nobody would be the wiser.
 
GronK said:
It's all about bragging rights. Got in a conversation with a gent at a mall a few months ago. In the course of the conversation he said he collected knives. I pulled out my small Sebenza as he pulled out his rainbow anodized MTech POS. It was obvious he thought he had bested me so I just smiled and changed the subject.
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Don't be too hard on yourself - very few knives can stand up to one of these fine pieces!
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DocJD said:
Classiest knife I ever seen is their "Mermaid " model ! :p
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Oh man, I missed that one! (Wonder's if it's too gaudy even for 5yr old daughter who loves Mermaids n Rainbows) Probably not a good Daddy gift idea.
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Sorry for the thread derail!
 
aue123 said:
so what “bests” a sabenza?
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Any knife you decide to carry bests a sebenza that you are not carrying. Or "a knife in the hand beats two in the safe any day".
The argument of what's best is always subjective to all, personally I like my ZT les george best so far but I am just starting in the knife game, my philosophy won't change though, everyone likes what they like so I respect that.
It really only comes down to what the individual likes and will carry and has little to do with the opinions of others, except the others that love to impose their will, those guys won't stop until you agree with them so just pretend like you agree with them to shut them up, saves a lot of time.
If you like a sharpened prybar then you prob won't like a sebenza and if you like a thin blade then you prob won't like a Strider but both will do just fine when needed for general use.
 
If anything, we are fleecing ourselves. We hear about new steels here and elsewhere and "gotta have it."

I never really got into it. My two favorite steels thus far are CTS-XHP and S35VN. Both have been great in my opinion. I have a ZT with S90V, but other than coming extremely sharp, I haven't owned it long enough to say that there is much difference.

I've had XHP Manix 2 for 6 years, and have only had to occasionally strop it.

To me, it's more about value, especially in production knives. I need a price/materials balance that makes sense. $130 for a knife with S30V? Not my favorite, but ok. $200+ I need at least XHP or S35VN.
 
I am not an experimenter of edge retention and lack that kind of knowledge but I will give my take on this subject.

I used to be really into the greatest steels (on paper) and steel type was the biggest factor in the knives I would buy. Design was important too, but I would often buy knives I wasn't really into just to have an example of a certain steel. Over time my interests in knives moved to traditional knives almost exclusively, especially old ones made many years ago before all these modern steels existed. I used to be biased against such steels, but it was all just wrong perception. In my use of old and new traditional knives with simple carbon or stainless steel I have never found them to be inadequate. I don't do controlled testing of edge retention, but comparing the everyday random use of modern high end steels vs simple steels I don't notice a perceptible difference. That being the case I really don't care about steel type anymore as long as it's not some junk steel.

What is so much more important to edge retention than steel type (in my experience and research) is geometry of the blade and the edge. How the edge is sharpened is also very important. For example minimizing the burr is extremely important. Raising and working a large burr back and forth is like poking something with a stick that's nearly broken in half, it's so stressed that once it has a little pressure on it then it collapses.
 
Short answer:
"Yes."

At least in my opinion. My "obsolete" blades, be they 10xx carbon steel or 440A, 425HC stainless steel, or whatever carbon steel Opinel and Mora use still do everything I need a knife for.

I have a couple knives with CPM154 and one with D2 blades. Do I really need the modern steels?
Nope.
However, I still carry them for reasons other than the blade steel.
 
DeadboxHero said:
I'd avoid going wild on the Maxamet and Rex121.

10v/A11 type steels seem to be the limit for that. Yet these won't touch the raw horsepower of Rex 121

Also the geometry for being able to do both cutting on metal and being able to slice is limited to 0.015"bte. Cannot go lower if using for knuckle head stuff.

Also 20dps is critical.

But that doesn't hold a candle to the pure cutting performance at 0.010" and 12dps

So pick and choose.


Natlek,
I'd rather just use it like a knife and not a can opener and get more performance.

Can openers aren't made out of any crazy steel they just cleve and sheer by using thick geometry with soft steel. So why water down my knife to do that?

I'd rather have the thin geometry, harder steel cutting for performance over cleaving and sheering with thick geometry with softer steel.

No right or wrong answer for everyone, that's just my preference.
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Got it. I was not advocating using a Maxamet or Rex 121 to open cans. I just wanted to make the point that they're not too fragile to use. I have thick blades for a reason and I have my Spyderco Chaparral for a reason.

My CRKT Razel gets a lot of use around the house. Overall it's not a nice knife. The blade shape and geometry are useful for construction and maintenance work.

afishhunter said:
I have a couple knives with CPM154 and one with D2 blades. Do I really need the modern steels?
Nope.
However, I still carry them for reasons other than the blade steel.
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Could not agree more. Even 154 CM is a great blade steel for me. I recently bought a 440C blade, and it's great. I don't need any high end steel. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate them.

As BBB wrote earlier, sometimes it's easier to not have to stop and sharpen.
 
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GronK said:
It's all about bragging rights. Got in a conversation with a gent at a mall a few months ago. In the course of the conversation he said he collected knives. I pulled out my small Sebenza as he pulled out his rainbow anodized MTech POS. It was obvious he thought he had bested me so I just smiled and changed the subject.
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All good natured fun. It simply doesn't matter much to me any more. That guy can best me any day of the week and I won't change what I carry.
 
David Richardson said:
.... My CRKT Razel gets a lot of use around the house. Overall it's not a nice knife. The blade shape and geometry are useful for construction and maintenance work.


Could not agree more. Even 154 CM is a great blade steel for me. I recently bought a 440C blade, and it's great. I don't need any high end steel. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate them.

As BBB wrote earlier, sometimes it's easier to not have to stop and sharpen.
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I have three CRKT Razels. I use them primarily as work knives. Tried carrying one as a regular and it didn't suit me. Better or higher end steel.... wouldn't change a thing.
 
You don't cut a cake with a hammer. You don't grab your folder with the .125" thick blade and go to work chopping on that 18" thick tree that fell across your driveway. It's not easy to butter your toast with a 20" machete. You don't carve runes in your tomahawk handle with a katana. My stainless $1000 1911 in .45ACP will turn off my TV, but it's an absolute P.O.S. when it comes to changing the channel!

Picking the right tool for the job is more important than what steel is used in any given knife/tool.
 
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I would put Internet forums and YouTube videos as a source of fleecing way above marketing. I don’t think I have ever purchased a knife due to marketing. I have purchased a couple thousand dollars a worth of knives because of forums.
 
Reitwagen said:
I have to believe that for many customers, they could write whatever they want on the tang stamp and nobody would be the wiser.
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Now THAT would be fleecing customers. Cedric & Ada testing some knives that were stamped as D2 that were not. Assuming the steel is correctly labeled, I don't see how makers could be accused of "fleecing" (swindle, cheat, defraud, deceive, trick) unless they made claims that were not true about the steels. I haven't seen this.

I'm sure many people would not notice the difference in cutting. Sharpening differences can be significant.
 
Of course, there is some hype in marketing. There has to be. If there wasn't, we would not have mall ninjas. To think it would not apply to steels is just silly.

Since I joined BF.com, I've been more inclined to chase super steels but, the First National Bank of Spouses has limited my funds somewhat. It's a good thing too.
It has kept me from financial ruin and forced me to use what I have instead of buying the latest and greatest. Because of this, have found that I love Sandvik 14C28N and Benchmades 154CM. In some ways, I like 154CM better than S30V.
 
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