I've gone steel crazy

I'm just disappointed that vanadis 8 has no nitrogen :( otherwise, it seems scary good at edge retention ... not even close to being stainless

Carbon 2.3
Silicon 0.4
Manganese 0.4
Chromium 4.8
Molybdenum 3.6
Vanadium 8
 
Currawong said:
Vanadis 8 is like 10V but tougher, right? And sound hard to get. What are your plans for it?
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Yea it's supposed to have high wear resistance AND High Toughness!!

DBK tested a pukko on their channel made by Dulo knives and the thing was a beast. Ut was way thicker than a standard Pukko to be fair. But it still held an edge Excellent even after all the abuse.

As for plans?
I havent the slightest of ideas.
One hopefully will be for me. The other for sale. But being a knife maker there is a good chance I will sell both.
Maybe some kind of camp knife or a utility/fighter.
 
dirc said:
I'm just disappointed that vanadis 8 has no nitrogen :( otherwise, it seems scary good at edge retention ... not even close to being stainless


Carbon 2.3
Silicon 0.4
Manganese 0.4
Chromium 4.8
Molybdenum 3.6
Vanadium 8
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Vancron 40 has nitrogen. But I havemt seen any knives in it. Hell i havent even seen the steel for sale anywhere. Id love to mess with that too. As for the Vanadis 8 I'm not too worried about corrosion. 4.8% is more than M4 and 4V. I coat all my carbon steels with EDCi and rarely have issues. Only basic high carbon steels give me issues.
Stuff like:
80CRV2
8670
O1
5160.
Those rust super fast.
 
I finally ground a small hunter out of the VANADIS 8 stock. It is more difficult to work with than 10V. I will be sending it to Peters' aiming for 64 RC. The raw steel also doesn't seem to pick up rust as quickly as 10V for some reason, but this is pre-HT.
 
navman said:
I finally ground a small hunter out of the VANADIS 8 stock. It is more difficult to work with than 10V. I will be sending it to Peters' aiming for 64 RC. The raw steel also doesn't seem to pick up rust as quickly as 10V for some reason, but this is pre-HT.
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Thanks!
I use Peter's as well. And my target was 64HRC as well when I use it.

Post your results here!! Because I have no idea when I will get to mine.
 
if I had to guess at what Larrin Larrin would say... it would be along the line of 'the really high carbon & V content forms the bulk of carbides, leaving more of the chrome and moly in solution, thus helping corrosion resistance more than you might expect'

hope he sees this and chimes in ; )

64 hrc AFTER temper is really high, I'd love to see a charpy test done for his thread on vanadis 8... it looks like it could be an 'm4 killer'
 
dirc said:
if I had to guess at what Larrin Larrin would say... it would be along the line of 'the really high carbon & V content forms the bulk of carbides, leaving more of the chrome and moly in solution, thus helping corrosion resistance more than you might expect'

hope he sees this and chimes in ; )

64 hrc AFTER temper is really high, I'd love to see a charpy test done for his thread on vanadis 8... it looks like it could be an 'm4 killer'
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If it's as tough as I've seen or heard, it should be! Only problem is that its RARE. I've only seen it once and I grabbed a peice. But that could change if popularity increases.

It seems to have more alloy than M4. Namely 8% vanadium. Which should give it great edge holding and wear resistance.
I'm excited to see how it performs.
 
dirc said:
if I had to guess at what Larrin Larrin would say... it would be along the line of 'the really high carbon & V content forms the bulk of carbides, leaving more of the chrome and moly in solution, thus helping corrosion resistance more than you might expect'

hope he sees this and chimes in ; )
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There are a few possibilities:
1) Vanadis 8 has more molybdenum
2) The surface is different (scale, ground finish, etc.)
3) The difference is perceived and not real
 
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Larrin said:
There are a few possibilities:

2) The difference is perceived and not real
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And I bet this is the crux of plenty of observations in the knife realm.

"In my experience, BlahBlah3750 is easier to sharpen than S&M69...." or:

"With the addition of whatevrium, this material should be tougher than M388-Blah Blah..."

I'm sure these perceptions are real, and those assumptions might hold some water. But I always take these observations with a grain of salt, simply because I think that perception many times is "good enough reality".

Not to derail your thread, Colin, but I just had to nod my head at this part of Larrin's post.
 
ShannonSteelLabs said:
As for plans?
I havent the slightest of ideas.
One hopefully will be for me. The other for sale. But being a knife maker there is a good chance I will sell both.
Maybe some kind of camp knife or a utility/fighter.
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It sounds like it would make the ultimate pigsticker!

When you hunt pigs on foot you tend to take absolute minimum gear i.e. one gun, one knife and one headlamp (if going at night). So whatever knife you use as a sticker also doubles up for skinning / gutting / processing meat / prying joints apart. It needs to be thin and very sharp to get through the armor on a boar, but also good edge retention because hog hair is brutal on an edge. Also it might get roped in to hacking away at light vegetation like blackberry because that's where pigs run to. So basically very good edge stability at thin geometry combined with very high wear resistance. Vanadis 8 sounds like it has all these qualities.

So pigsticker is my vote! :thumbsup: :cool: :)
 
Currawong said:
It sounds like it would make the ultimate pigsticker!

When you hunt pigs on foot you tend to take absolute minimum gear i.e. one gun, one knife and one headlamp (if going at night). So whatever knife you use as a sticker also doubles up for skinning / gutting / processing meat / prying joints apart. It needs to be thin and very sharp to get through the armor on a boar, but also good edge retention because hog hair is brutal on an edge. Also it might get roped in to hacking away at light vegetation like blackberry because that's where pigs run to. So basically very good edge stability at thin geometry combined with very high wear resistance. Vanadis 8 sounds like it has all these qualities.

So pigsticker is my vote! :thumbsup: :cool: :)
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Shit that's a Brilliant idea!!!!

It will be tough and hold an edge for al long time.
Velitrius said:
And I bet this is the crux of plenty of observations in the knife realm.

"In my experience, BlahBlah3750 is easier to sharpen than S&M69...." or:

"With the addition of whatevrium, this material should be tougher than M388-Blah Blah..."

I'm sure these perceptions are real, and those assumptions might hold some water. But I always take these observations with a grain of salt, simply because I think that perception many times is "good enough reality".

Not to derail your thread, Colin, but I just had to nod my head at this part of Larrin's post.
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No worries!!! This thread is a complete derailment of my sanity lol.
I buy more and more and more and more steel. And my reasoning behind it is....well it's new, cool, rare Or awesome steel. So I buy it.
I'll worry about selling it later!!
 
ShannonSteelLabs said:
No worries!!! This thread is a complete derailment of my sanity lol.
I buy more and more and more and more steel. And my reasoning behind it is....well it's new, cool, rare Or awesome steel. So I buy it.
I'll worry about selling it later!!
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Good on ya, Man.

Sometimes jumping out of the plane and building the parachute on the way down is the best way to proceed!
 
I'd follow the Protocol Tracy has up on Midwest knifemaker.

64rc should be where this stuff shines.

It should be used like a turbo charged Vanadis 4 extra that trades raw toughness/shock resistance for more strength and wear resistance yet has that sweet spot for not being edge chippy.

Tracy recommends
2 preheats and a 2010°F Austenizing, soak for 15min

Plate quench

Temper twice for two hours each for 950°F

I'd throw in a cryo immediately after quenched and up to room temperature.

Skip the snap temper. Immerse directly in the LN -300 for an hour then temper.

That should boost it to 65rc +


The steel is capable of going to extreme hardness 67rc plus but is perhaps not as ideal. The merit of V8E should be a balance of strength, wear resistance and chipping resistance.

I'd also recommend using very high end sharpening stones with this steel to get the most out of it.
 
I was going to ask how you “sleep” steel, but then I thought about it for a second and, obviously, that would be Sleipnir.
 
slyraven said:
I have no idea what you said, but you got me excited!!
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This steel is in the sweet spot of available steels that maxs out strength and wear resistance without being edge brittle.

K390, K294, Z-A11, CTS PMA11, and 10v will out cut this steel when used for purely cutting but the Vanadis 8 has qualities that balance it more towards edge toughness than the other A11 types. It's not shock resistant like lower alloy steels but will hold a wayyyyyy longer edge then S7, A8mod and 3V.

The edge it will hold it's shape better then most steels thanks to hitting that sweet spot for hardness, strength, wear resistance and relative toughness.

It's a high performance edge steel.

dirc said:
I'm just disappointed that vanadis 8 has no nitrogen :( otherwise, it seems scary good at edge retention ... not even close to being stainless

Carbon 2.3
Silicon 0.4
Manganese 0.4
Chromium 4.8
Molybdenum 3.6
Vanadium 8
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It's not the Nitrogen that helps with corrison that's the Chromium.

High chromium is not ideal for high strength and high toughness. You have to sacrifice some edge performance for stainless

But then you have to sacrifice ease of maintenance. Luckily a steel like this isn't going to be as reactive as 1095 etc.

Everything has trade offs.
 
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DeadboxHero said:
This steel is in the sweet spot of available steels that maxs out strength and wear resistance without being edge brittle.

K390, K294, Z-A11, CTS PMA11, and 10v will out cut this steel when used for purely cutting but the Vanadis 8 has qualities that balance it more towards edge toughness than the other A11 types. It's not shock resistant like lower alloy steels but will hold a wayyyyyy longer edge then S7, A8mod and 3V.

The edge it will hold it's shape better then most steels thanks to hitting that sweet spot for hardness, strength, wear resistance and relative toughness.

It's a high performance edge steel.


It's not the Nitrogen that helps with corrison that's the Chromium.

High chromium is not ideal for high strength and high toughness. You have to sacrifice some edge performance for stainless

But then you have to sacrifice ease of maintenance. Luckily a steel like this isn't going to be as reactive as 1095 etc.

Everything has trade offs.
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Actually, Nitrogen has a much higher impact on pitting corrosion resistance than Chrome - here is a good article from our resident metallurgist ; )
(it has 16 TIMES more impact than Chrome for resistance - so 0.5% N = 8% Chrome)
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/01/14/which-knife-steels-have-the-best-corrosion-resistance/
 
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