Spyderco Maxamet

Also.....I would love to have a maxamet knife with a thin hollow grind like the Gayle Bradley. That would be killer.
 
onionfan said:
I've had my manix 2 for about a month now. Really impressed so far with the steel. This knife is my first with the frcp handle and I can say I do like the Japanese frn handles better but not enough to miss out on Maxamet. I like the stonewash finish. I've got some patina starting, haven't forced it but haven't tried to prevent it either. It seems to hold an edge like no other and sharpen up fairly easily for what it is. Hadn't had any issues with chipping until the other night at work. We were working on a project and had wrapped electrical tape over some pipe threads to keep welding spatter off of them. Cut it off after they were done welding them in and put my knife up. (Didn't have to use a knife, but you guys know how it is...) Didn't see any damage until after I sharpened it up a few days later but I had been real busy and never really looked either. No big deal really. I still love it.

20170509_132318_zps85irtg3n.jpg


20170509_132318_zps85irtg3n.jpg
Click to expand...
let us know how it goes after sharpening the chips out.
 
That pic is what it looked like after I got it sharp. I'd say it'll be awhile before they're all sharpened out because the thing holds an edge so well as long as you don't do dumb stuff like I did.
 
I've been using a Maxamet mule as my daily box cutter since it first came out.
It has been pretty easy to sharpen using any of my usual methods, including diamonds, ceramics, or just lapping abrasive on a strop.
I have had no problems with chipping and I've just needed to touch it up once in a while.
Even when it is "dull" there really isn't much edge damage.
 
I have scraped slivers off of a steel paper clip with my manix and had no visible chipping. I can feel some catches along the edge suggestion there are some micro chips, but I'd expect that the way I was torquing the edge on the paper clip.

So far, maxamet has out performed anything I've ever used. It literally just cuts and cuts and cuts with almost no signs of it ever stopping. The other weekend I went out and cut cardboard just to dull it so I could sharpen it. Needless to say, I got bored after about 20 minutes and I still haven't sharpened it.

It truly is an insane knife steel. I am thankful that spyderco has brought it to us in an affordable package.
 
This is an alien. No blade history. You are going where no person has gone before. A "trek" into the here and now. All input is valuable and should be evaluated so we can all learn. Lab tests were very good. RWT (Real World Testing) is now your job.

sal
 
AwayFromMySpydieHole said:
I have scraped slivers off of a steel paper clip with my manix and had no visible chipping. I can feel some catches along the edge suggestion there are some micro chips, but I'd expect that the way I was torquing the edge on the paper clip.

So far, maxamet has out performed anything I've ever used. It literally just cuts and cuts and cuts with almost no signs of it ever stopping. The other weekend I went out and cut cardboard just to dull it so I could sharpen it. Needless to say, I got bored after about 20 minutes and I still haven't sharpened it.

It truly is an insane knife steel. I am thankful that spyderco has brought it to us in an affordable package.
Click to expand...

This most closely mimics my experience so far. Like most of my knives, Maxamet Native has mostly only done cardboard cutting, mail opening and light food prep. It's cut up a few stacks of heavy cardboard moving boxes like this one:

33982506926_8273f0e7f0_b.jpg


Light food prep, of sorts. :p
33923149572_998e4b57af_b.jpg


I did some experimenting and shaved metal fragments off of the spine of my Swiss Army Knife nail file.

Video excerpt: https://www.flickr.com/gp/alwaystomboy/TES413

And close up photo afterwards of metal shavings on the nail file and Maxamet blade. The blurry fuzz on the tip of the file and the black specks on the blade are metal fragments.
33216293214_a64febd47e_b.jpg


Tried the same with S110V and couldn't get any shavings. No video, but I could hear and feel a definite difference. S110V didn't want to bite into the nail file like Maxamet did. It just kind of slid across.

Here's an after photo of that but there's not much to see. I couldn't get any metal off of the file with S110V.
33247198533_25fdd68d01_b.jpg


And the mention of paper clips in this thread tonight made me want to see what I could do with one of those, so I did some whittling. :D
34566527945_7402fef1fd_o.jpg


No chips or damage to the edge that I can see with the naked eye or feel with my finger nail so far, and I've only done light touching up of the edge on the medium brown Sharpmaker rods.

I second the appreciation to Spyderco for making this steel available at such an affordable price.
 
While I know it is not true, due to too many variables like what types of stones you are using and other factors, I have long thought that more or less there is a linear relationship between edge retention and time to sharpen. I have sort of figured that as a general rule that a knife that stay sharp twice as long will usually take twice as long to sharpen. I have advocated many times reprofiling high carbide steels with diamond stones because they seem eat all steels at a similar rate, especially the coarser diamond stones, and they seem to sort of level the field. Maxamet really seems to defy that principal though. It touched up on the Spydreco ceramics, which do seem to eat high carbide steels slower than lower carbide steels, in just a few passes. Maybe it is just wearing soooo slow that it isn't even getting that dull in the first place. From my experience when it stops shaving it usually only takes a few passes on the Spyderco brown ceramic for me to have it back to popping hairs off my arm. It also seems to resist bur formation which is also quite nice. I assume that is the high hardness? Maybe the bur is just breaking off as it forms?

I like steels that touch up effortlessly and for me Maxamet does. Why? I dont know? This stuff is nuckin' futs....

DSC05656%202_zpsvq356jay.jpg
 
Sal Glesser said:
This is an alien. No blade history. You are going where no person has gone before. A "trek" into the here and now. All input is valuable and should be evaluated so we can all learn. Lab tests were very good. RWT (Real World Testing) is now your job.

sal
Click to expand...
This really opens this thread up now to get even more data points and real world testing. Thank you Sal!

So who has questions we should try and answer here as a community?
i know i have one...

1. what is the proper way to sharpen maxamet, what stones to use, etc. will diamond stones cause carbide tear out and other such issues? what grit is best, a mirror edge or a course grit. micro bevel or no micro bevel? etc.

anyone else have some solid data?
 
I did some cardboard cutting tonight but I'm too lazy to do it like a civilized man and cut it into strips. I'm out to learn about edge performance, not make a bunch of tiny pieces of cardboard. I take an entire box and make quick raking cuts across one side. This uses mainly the last 1/2" of blade at the tip and is very efficient as a test for wear. The cuts barely go all the way through the cardboard so the box maintains its structure and I can make 2-3 cuts per second. You have to wait about 20 seconds before testing sharpness because the tips get so hot they will burn you. Lots of data quickly without much effort. I'm lazy. ;)

So I did a couple hundred 18" cuts with both maxamet and cruwear. Both were sharpened at 30 degrees with small 40 degree microbevels. I tested for sharpness along the way and falloff was relatively similar. Both stopped shaving at about the same point. After 200 cuts, both would reflect light but upon examining with a 10x loupe I could tell that the flattened and reflective area on the cruwear was about twice as wide as on the maxamet. Neither would shave at that point but the Maxamet still had a bit more bite on the thumb than the cruwear. It should also be noted that neither steel showed ANY chipping, even when examined under 10x maginification. I found that fairly impressive as these are high speed "impact" cuts that I thought might stress the edge enough to cause some damage. I suppose if I had kept testing then the maxamet would pull away even further but these edges were already far past the point where I would normally resharpen.

When it came time to resharpen I just resharpened the microbevels on 1200 grit DMT stones that I have mounted to my sharpmaker. The Maxamet was shaving and no longer reflecting light after 10 passes and was at optimal sharpness after 20. (Optimal sharpness for me at 1200 is when the knife will firmly bite into head or beard hair on contact). The Cruwear actually took more passes. After 20 passes it was barely scrape shaving and was still reflecting a little light in two places. I would say this is a result of heavier dulling on the cruwear but it should also be noted that the microbevel on the cruwear was slightly wider than that on the maxamet and that can drastically increase sharpening time. That said, I kind of agree with what Darby alluded to above. The fact that Maxamet shows less dulling and responds to sharpening about the same as many others easy sharpen steels means that this is a "supersteel" that can actually be quicker to resharpen rather than slower.

All in all, I am liking the steel quite a bit. I have no problem with the performance of some of the more "mundane" offerings like cruwear, s30v, cpm 154, or even lc200n, but if I am going to be using a high wear resistance steel I will take maxamet over s110v/s90v any day of the week...at least based on what I've observed so far. (And assuming that corrosion resistance is not a priority).
 
Sadly, I think I might have to send my Native back to home base. I was cutting some fresh landscaping cloth, when I noticed the edge starting to drag. The roll was about 3 ft wide, and I probably cut 8 pieces off. After that, I really had to put some effort into cutting through cardboard. When I got home and looked at the edge under magnification, the edge was pretty ragged. I've tried diamonds, ceramic, even stropping on wet/dry paper, and keep getting the same results. When I try to remove the burr, the edge ends up looking ragged again.

I'm going to give it another shot tonight and see what happens.
 
This is odd, that some of us are experiencing stellar results, but on the same token, others are at the opposite end of the spectrum with all the micro chipping. I've yet to experience any kind of chipping throughout normal use.
 
Yeah, I was doing good up until yesterday. I've got all the microchips out, and I put a 1500 grit finish on the edge, and a microbevel using the Sharpmaker. I'll see how it holds up now.
 
skwurll said:
Any plans for a Maxamet fixed blade?

A Sprig sprint with Grey G-10 sounds good.
Click to expand...
Maxamet Mule team 24 is the only fixed blade from spyderco with maxamet. iirc there are some custom fixed blades with maxamet out in the wild, but not many.

@CliffStamp has/had some. i wonder if he found edge chipping on any of his examples.
 
Just to clarify, the chipping I had was because my edge had come into contact with steel threads (cut the tape off of 24 separate 5/8" pipes) and it would have probably damaged the edge of any knife in one way or another.
 
onionfan said:
Just to clarify, the chipping I had was because my edge had come into contact with steel threads (cut the tape off of 24 separate 5/8" pipes) and it would have probably damaged the edge of any knife in one way or another.
Click to expand...
This is the kind of stuff I do with my knives almost every day. All steels will get damaged, but some much less than others. This is the major factor when I have a choice of steels.
 
onionfan said:
Just to clarify, the chipping I had was because my edge had come into contact with steel threads (cut the tape off of 24 separate 5/8" pipes.
Click to expand...

That is an important bit of information.
User fault. Not Maxamet.
 
I'm still having chipping issues with mine, unfortunately. I didn't do much today other than cut some clear pvc hose, and break down a couple of cardboard boxes. Noticed it was dragging toward the end, and when I examined the edge, it was reflecting light. Trying to resharpen the blade, I keep getting microchipping. This is on the Sharpmaker too. I even tried cleaning the stones, in case there was some contamination. No luck thus far.

I'm not sure if it's my sharpening, or if I got a defect. I'm going to send it home and find out. At the least they can put the edge back to factory specs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top