Rukus 610 in A8-mod

T

Twindog

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This is a photo (above) from Josh.

Mine (below) isn't as good:
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I just got my oldest Rukus 610 (first production run) back from Josh at Razor Edge Knives. Josh had to do a lot of legwork to make this project work. (Many thanks)


The idea was to take a large, strong and durable knife platform — the Benchmade Rukus 610 — and give it a super tough, upgraded steel with a world class heat treat. I chose A8-mod steel, which is about as tough a knife steel as you’ll find. It’s the steel of choice for things like wood chipper blades.


A8-mod is a medium carbon steel with added chromium, molybdenum and vanadium. Of course, steel is only as good as the heat treat. Fredrik Haakonsen, a renowned Norwegian knife maker with a PhD in metallurgy, agreed to provide the steel with longitudinal grain pattern (for even more strength) and his famous and elaborate heat treat.


Haakonsen likes to use A8-mod because it’s far less likely to break or chip than high-alloy steels under hard use, even at Rc 60-61, which is this blade’s hardness. With that hardness (hardness is a good proxy for strength, or resistance to rolling or bending) and the incredible toughness of A8-mod, the edge retention on this steel exceeds even high-wear powder steels under hard use. If you get lost in the wilderness, this is a good knife to have in your pocket.


The upgraded steel and edge retention allowed Josh to grind the edge thinner than the stock blade — down to about 0.017 inches at the shoulders with a 30 degree inclusive bevel. It easily out slices the stock blade and almost any other factory blade, while retaining its incredible toughness.

If you read this far, the reward is a puppy photo -- Haley the three-month-old GSD.

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Wow! That's a beast of a knife, and it sounds like it will be a tough and dependable cutter. Haley is a beautiful dog too.
 
Thanks, I use my Rukus to chop branches the grow over trails where I walk in the NW rainforest. That chopping is surprisingly tough on blades. I destroyed a large Cold Steel in Aus 8 doing this. This steel doesn't care.

The Rukus is long enough -- a little over 10 inches -- that it holds up to light chopping. The stock steel, S30V, was a little chippy.
 
Aside from that fact that I wouldn't use a folder in the woods, if I had to, you (and Josh) created probably the best for the task. Clean work, and a good platform. I'd still take the pup over the knife though :p;)
 
Incredible project that you have done here.Id love that steel on a Cold Steel AD10, Too bad I sold my Rukus,i can think of a few knives id love with an a8 blade !!Did you have to send that blade to the Netherlands for the heat treat ?
 
goldie said:
Incredible project that you have done here.Id love that steel on a Cold Steel AD10, Too bad I sold my Rukus,i can think of a few knives id love with an a8 blade !!Did you have to send that blade to the Netherlands for the heat treat ?
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Josh took care of that. He set up the project with Fredrik. Fredrik sent Josh the steel. Josh ground it to shape and sent it back across the Atlantic. Fredrik heat treated it, and sent it on its final Atlantic crossing for finishing. So three crossings of the Atlantic and two cross-continental mailings.
 
Great knife..

Josh's work is outstanding :thumbsup:

Beautiful commission..Congrats on the project.

Good looking pup:)
 
Haakonsen knives are awesome.
In general I dont see the point of a folder for the scenario described nor for the 'worlds toughest steel' in a folder for use in a wilderness scenario but I applaud the project spirit.
Always nice to see people go off the beaten path so to speak.
 
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SpyderPhreak said:
That's awesome! :cool: :thumbsup: Looks like Josh did an excellent job as usual. :)



Not to derail the thread, and rehash this yet again, but A8 Mod ≠ INFI. ;)

ETA - I would suggest an edit to the title, to reflect the actual composition of the steel, as your blade is not INFI.
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I wondered, when someone would comment on that:D
Yes, claiming INFI is A8Mod can open up a can of you-know-what, as we have seen before.
 
BladeScout said:
I wondered, when someone would comment on that:D
Yes, claiming INFI is A8Mod can open up a can of you-know-what, as we have seen before.
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Too many times before. And all too recently.

That is an excellent custom re-blade, and it should stand on its own without that debate derailing the thread. Hopefully the OP will consider that before it's too late, and we get some fanatics on either side of that fence showing up in here.
 
I hate to ask what this cost u & how long did the whole thing take ? I imagine the frequent flyer milage you gave that blade alone was 125.00 still worth it for such a unique 1 of a kind project.
 
SpyderPhreak said:
That's awesome! :cool: :thumbsup: Looks like Josh did an excellent job as usual. :)



Not to derail the thread, and rehash this yet again, but A8 Mod ≠ INFI. ;)

ETA - I would suggest an edit to the title, to reflect the actual composition of the steel, as your blade is not INFI.
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We had a long, technical, well-sourced thread on this steel issue, but because of multiple requests, I took the other knife company's name out of the thread, as well as its proprietary steel name. This knife and the work by Josh and Fredrik speak for themselves.
 
goldie said:
I hate to ask what this cost u & how long did the whole thing take ? I imagine the frequent flyer milage you gave that blade alone was 125.00 still worth it for such a unique 1 of a kind project.
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Any reblade is going to be expensive, and when you add in multiple cross-Atlantic mailings for a custom heat treat in Europe, the extra costs add up. I won't be specific about the costs so that people don't get the wrong idea about normal reblade costs.

Josh had done a similar reblade in Vanax SC, which is my favorite steel. It has been my EDC. This reblade was to make a more specific, and very capable hard-use knife.

Although it would have been a lot cheaper to buy a production knife like this with this steel, that knife doesn't exist.
 
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