Nathan the Machinist
KnifeMaker / Machinist / Evil Genius
Moderator
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2007
- Messages
- 15,653
These are made of a Crucible CPM 4V, an American made version of Uddeholm Vanadis 4 which is the steel that has been supplanting CPM M4 as the king of steels winning cutting competitions. We have done our homework and optimized a heat treat for this material that I feel is probably the best in the industry. Our interest in this material stems from an on going project to produce competition cutters for Bladesports that I hope will win next year's world cutting championship. These 3" EDC are an off-shoot of that R&D. They are CPM 4V at HRC 63-64.
If you're looking for something that is very durable at relatively high hardness with good edge stability, good wear resistance, good corrosion resistance, not too bad to sharpen and an all around great steel, wait for another batch of these in Delta 3V. The EDC is a great knife in 4V, but it's more of a specialty steel for knife nuts.
It is not as tough as 3V, but it's tougher than most steels. It has 5% chrome so it has better corrosion resistance than stuff like O1 or 1095, but it is not at all a "stainless steel", it will rust easily. If you have good tools it's not too bad to sharpen but I wouldn't call it easy to sharpen. What it has is outstanding edge stability, edge durability and wear resistance that adds up to a level of real world edge retention in normal use that will probably rival anything most people have ever tried. They're hard and thin, but you don't need to baby them, they're built for hard work. And with the optimized heat treat they're not at all chippy or crumbly so they'll take a thin narrow edge and hold it in rough use that will blow your mind.
The 3" EDC was designed as a collaboration with Lorien Arnold. It is a well made, no frills, high performance, small utility knife. The steel is Crucible CPM 4V at HRC 63-64 with a fully optimized heat treat with very good edge retention and edge stability. You'll be surprised how sharp this gets and how well it holds an edge. If you have never used really good 4V, it is gonna blow your mind.
This steel with this heat treat will support a relatively fine edge, so this was taken down to .015" before sharpening (though I'm leaving some additional meat in the tip) and it was sharpened 18 degrees per side. This is relatively acute and it cuts very well, but is durable. They're also lightly hand ground after machining to give it a slight convex grind.
The primary grinds on these are more narrow than the Field Knife. They are quite "slicey"
Some might consider this a tactical knife but the point is not reinforced and it is not shaped or balanced as a weapon. It's thin behind the edge. It is a hard working cutting tool, a tradesman's knife and small woods knife.
It's very light weight.
The handle is ergonomically designed for a standard forward, reverse, saber and pinch grips for an average to relatively large hand. Despite its compact size it fills the hand and allows extended hard work without hand fatigue. The tang is internally skeletonized. The scales are 3D sculpted CNC machined. The blade is made of 1/8 4V with a heat treat that has been optimized to maximize edge retention. Despite being relatively thin it is durable.
A side effect of this heat treat is a higher percentage of free chromium, though it is not at all stainless.
Specs:
4V, 63-64 HRC, .135 thick at ricasso (a hair over 1/8")
Total length 7.5
Blade length 3.2
Weight 4.8 oz
Edge angle 18 DPS
.020" BTE
Grippy 3D machined scales in micarta or G10
Black oxide treated 18-8 stainless steel fasteners
Hidden lanyard
Choice of vertical or horizontal Kydex sheath made by Dan Crotts of Dozier Knives. If you want one of both sheaths, an extra sheath is $50.
We're running low on some sheaths. We have ten horizontal and six vertical in stock so depending on your order there may be a delay while we wait for your sheath.
Be aware the horizontal sheath has very high retention. You can't remove the knife by pulling straight back, you have to tilt it up at the same time. See video. If you want something that's easy to get in and out of you should choose the vertical pouch sheath.
Tell me what scale option you choose and I'll build it. There are fifteen knives available in this sale. The knives in the picture are not the knives you will receive. I'm sharpening now and they can ship next week.
We're milling the OD green and maroon Micarta now so it might take a little longer with those. We're no longer doing camo micarta, sorry that picture is out of date.
A video illustrating the sheath options:
[video=youtube;HiG_KqF06KY]
These are all field grade, as machined and stonewashed with tool and grind marks.
$245 in canvas micarta, natural or black
$255 in OD green canvas micarta.
$255 in black or OD green G10
$265 in maroon linen micarta, or black/blue G10
Shipping in the USA is $10.
We're a little short on some of the special colors, and we can never predict how many of one color or another will sell, so if there is a shortage it will be first-come first-serve.
Includes a good kydex sheath, choose vertical or horizontal. An extra sheath is $50
These knives are unusual because they are machined. I do this in my shop on industrial CNC machine tools. A WIP thread documenting my technique can be found here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1048443
I take paypal, cash, check or MO.
Jo will contact you via PM or email. Emails though BF often get lost in spam filters. If you don't hear from her by Monday please contact Jo on her PM, or send us an email at carothersknives at g mail dought com
Our next sale will be a few of these in Delta 3V in two weeks. Those will be the last 3" EDC we offer for a while, so there will be some delay in shipping while we wait for the last sheaths to arrive. We may come back and run this pattern again at some point in the future but you can consider it at least temporarily retired while we work on other stuff. We hope to have the first few 12" Behemoth Choppers on our forum in about a month here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/carothers-performance-knives.929/
A few NASK after that and there are some 4V Light Choppers in the works too.
Thanks for looking,
Nathan
If you're looking for something that is very durable at relatively high hardness with good edge stability, good wear resistance, good corrosion resistance, not too bad to sharpen and an all around great steel, wait for another batch of these in Delta 3V. The EDC is a great knife in 4V, but it's more of a specialty steel for knife nuts.
It is not as tough as 3V, but it's tougher than most steels. It has 5% chrome so it has better corrosion resistance than stuff like O1 or 1095, but it is not at all a "stainless steel", it will rust easily. If you have good tools it's not too bad to sharpen but I wouldn't call it easy to sharpen. What it has is outstanding edge stability, edge durability and wear resistance that adds up to a level of real world edge retention in normal use that will probably rival anything most people have ever tried. They're hard and thin, but you don't need to baby them, they're built for hard work. And with the optimized heat treat they're not at all chippy or crumbly so they'll take a thin narrow edge and hold it in rough use that will blow your mind.
The 3" EDC was designed as a collaboration with Lorien Arnold. It is a well made, no frills, high performance, small utility knife. The steel is Crucible CPM 4V at HRC 63-64 with a fully optimized heat treat with very good edge retention and edge stability. You'll be surprised how sharp this gets and how well it holds an edge. If you have never used really good 4V, it is gonna blow your mind.
This steel with this heat treat will support a relatively fine edge, so this was taken down to .015" before sharpening (though I'm leaving some additional meat in the tip) and it was sharpened 18 degrees per side. This is relatively acute and it cuts very well, but is durable. They're also lightly hand ground after machining to give it a slight convex grind.
The primary grinds on these are more narrow than the Field Knife. They are quite "slicey"
Some might consider this a tactical knife but the point is not reinforced and it is not shaped or balanced as a weapon. It's thin behind the edge. It is a hard working cutting tool, a tradesman's knife and small woods knife.
It's very light weight.
The handle is ergonomically designed for a standard forward, reverse, saber and pinch grips for an average to relatively large hand. Despite its compact size it fills the hand and allows extended hard work without hand fatigue. The tang is internally skeletonized. The scales are 3D sculpted CNC machined. The blade is made of 1/8 4V with a heat treat that has been optimized to maximize edge retention. Despite being relatively thin it is durable.
A side effect of this heat treat is a higher percentage of free chromium, though it is not at all stainless.
Specs:
4V, 63-64 HRC, .135 thick at ricasso (a hair over 1/8")
Total length 7.5
Blade length 3.2
Weight 4.8 oz
Edge angle 18 DPS
.020" BTE
Grippy 3D machined scales in micarta or G10
Black oxide treated 18-8 stainless steel fasteners
Hidden lanyard
Choice of vertical or horizontal Kydex sheath made by Dan Crotts of Dozier Knives. If you want one of both sheaths, an extra sheath is $50.
We're running low on some sheaths. We have ten horizontal and six vertical in stock so depending on your order there may be a delay while we wait for your sheath.
Be aware the horizontal sheath has very high retention. You can't remove the knife by pulling straight back, you have to tilt it up at the same time. See video. If you want something that's easy to get in and out of you should choose the vertical pouch sheath.
Tell me what scale option you choose and I'll build it. There are fifteen knives available in this sale. The knives in the picture are not the knives you will receive. I'm sharpening now and they can ship next week.
We're milling the OD green and maroon Micarta now so it might take a little longer with those. We're no longer doing camo micarta, sorry that picture is out of date.
A video illustrating the sheath options:
[video=youtube;HiG_KqF06KY]
These are all field grade, as machined and stonewashed with tool and grind marks.
$245 in canvas micarta, natural or black
$255 in OD green canvas micarta.
$255 in black or OD green G10
$265 in maroon linen micarta, or black/blue G10
Shipping in the USA is $10.
We're a little short on some of the special colors, and we can never predict how many of one color or another will sell, so if there is a shortage it will be first-come first-serve.
Includes a good kydex sheath, choose vertical or horizontal. An extra sheath is $50
These knives are unusual because they are machined. I do this in my shop on industrial CNC machine tools. A WIP thread documenting my technique can be found here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1048443
I take paypal, cash, check or MO.
Jo will contact you via PM or email. Emails though BF often get lost in spam filters. If you don't hear from her by Monday please contact Jo on her PM, or send us an email at carothersknives at g mail dought com
Our next sale will be a few of these in Delta 3V in two weeks. Those will be the last 3" EDC we offer for a while, so there will be some delay in shipping while we wait for the last sheaths to arrive. We may come back and run this pattern again at some point in the future but you can consider it at least temporarily retired while we work on other stuff. We hope to have the first few 12" Behemoth Choppers on our forum in about a month here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/carothers-performance-knives.929/
A few NASK after that and there are some 4V Light Choppers in the works too.
Thanks for looking,
Nathan
