Is Steel Will using fake M390 and an unknown manufacturer?

[ATJ999]

May have missed it, but he never mentioned ease of sharpening. That would give more information to go by too.

 

[`br4dz-]

I have the exact same knife and it Rockwell tested pretty low. I checked it again yesterday and it came in at 58 Rockwell three times. If it is M390, they left a lot in the oven.

58 HRC isn't low for M390. 58-62 is about the norm for M390.

 

[AF]

I have the exact same knife and it Rockwell tested pretty low. I checked it again yesterday and it came in at 58 Rockwell three times. If it is M390, they left a lot in the oven.

Very interesting. That's low.

 

[Mo2]

why use m390 if your going to make it sub 60hrc?

besides that... anyone wanna send their steel will to Australia to be tested? for science.

 

[halden.doerge]

I think it would definitely be a mistake to underestimate how severely a poor heat treatment can change the performance of the steel.

 

[halden.doerge]

58 HRC isn't low for M390. 58-62 is about the norm for M390.

It’s a lot lower than 62...

 

[Eagle Scout]

Steel Won't?

 

[ourgon]

There was time when Benchmade had problems with M390 and it preformed like 154CM.

 

[M. Johnwell]

There was time when Benchmade had problems with M390 and it preformed like 154CM.

I have a benchmade mini Ritter from when they were having issues with their heat treat, it was at 59 when I tested it on the same Rockwell tester.

Does anyone know what size rope he uses in his test? I might try to cut test with mine, but I want to keep it as comparable as possible.

 

[Misanthropia]

I have no particular feelings about Steel Will one way or another, but with the amount of these sold someone else has to at least give this a shot. Someone really needs to invent an inexpensive CATRA machine or something because we've been struggling with unscientific (although about as scientific as we can get given our limited resources) ways to test edge retention for years now.

 

[mattmanyam]

May have missed it, but he never mentioned ease of sharpening. That would give more information to go by too.

In the YouTube comments.
Sharpened easily, to the point that his coarsest Lansky stone being temporarily out of service was inconsequential to the reprofiling process...

 

[zhyla]

Do we know what Rc they target for this knife? A poorly calibrated tempering oven can easily swing M390 from 60 RC to 58 Rc.

There must be some people here who own that knife and can comment on its performance. If a single knife underperforms that means pretty much nothing. If a single knife verifiably shows M390 level performance then that means a lot (as far as whether they're using M390).

 

[sharkattacksw]

Would I be out of line by suggesting that we get "The Apostle P" on the case of this mystery steel...?

 

[Mo2]

 

[SV-97]

I have no particular feelings about Steel Will one way or another, but with the amount of these sold someone else has to at least give this a shot. Someone really needs to invent an inexpensive CATRA machine or something because we've been struggling with unscientific (although about as scientific as we can get given our limited resources) ways to test edge retention for years now.

Regarding a DIY CATRA machine: My first idea would be an pneumatic cylinder with blade clamp that pushes through balistics gel. Measured would be max pressure in the cylinder. Only as a basic principle of course. What do you guys think? Any criticism/better ideas?

And on regards of the knife: Sample size of one; if there aren't more complaints coming up it's probably nothing.

 

[tim37a]

Air is compressible so you would be much better off using hydraulics.

 

[SV-97]

Air is compressible so you would be much better off using hydraulics.

Yeah, but no-one has a hydraulics compressor, so you'd need to build on in. Plus air being compressible doesn't really matter I'd guess, as it'll do so with all blades tested equally. A thing I'd worry about is the friction in cutting the gel. With a test like this blade geometry would surely be a giant factor

 

[b00n]

Maybe the company is more used to dealing with the ever present N690 so they had a learning curve dealing with a new steel?

 

[PirateSeulb]

I don't know that I have seen an M390 out of Maserin before this but what I have seen out of them in older steels has been excellent HT. We still don't know the target RC for this knife either but I agree 58 for M390 is low.

 

[tyyreaun]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Given how Steel Will is trying to grow their presence, trying to pass of a budget steel as M390 would be stupid - they would have to have known they'd get found out eventually. They're not some fly-by-night manufacturer trying to make a quick buck before disappearing. I think the most likely explanation is a horrible/failed heat treat.

What's interesting is how often the Cedric and Ada channel finds major QC errors, like when Bark River was passing off A2 as CPM-154. Maybe manufacturers just sent their bad batches to Australia?