The "Ask Nathan a question" thread

Nicholas stabilized wood is a staple of Blade Show and the wood I like to use on special projects.

Here is some double dyed buckeye burl

ngGJ9MV.jpg
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Nicholas stabilized wood is a staple of Blade Show and the wood I like to use on special projects.

Here is some double dyed buckeye burl

ngGJ9MV.jpg
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Oooooo...

Thanks for that. Just went to the Vivid website and this stuff looks really sweet (I was wondering why the patterns in the pic you posted don't look like any wood grain I know).

Even more eagerly awaiting the integral Shivs now.😀
 
gunslinger387 said:
Thanks for putting this put AFTER the pre-order closed, saved me hundreds of dollars. Until they come out for Friday sales and I have to fight the masses.
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Cap’n Smudge said:
^^^
Move over, I’m in your boat.
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You guys will still probably get one before me. I couldn't resist ordering the "everything bagel" at more than twice the price. Probably be one of the last to ship...
 
fielder said:
Nathan somewhere I read that you said your special treatment of 3v makes it more stain resistant. Also I seem to recall you referring to Aeb-l as semi - stainless. How much difference is there between them with your treatment regarding stain resistance?
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Nathan the Machinist said:
3V was a steel with marvelous potential that was being heat treated with a process optimized for tool and die, which has thick sections, risk of cracking and distortion, and the application calls for minimal dimensional changes. My knives are measurably longer after heat treat due to expansion from martensite, which would be a problem in tool & die. These things lead to a slow quench, intentional stabilized retained austenite and utilizing the secondary hardening hump for the T&D application it was designed for. This gives good performance in a stamping tool but a chippy mushy edge when used in a knife due to softer carbon lean martensite and areas of RA that behave like the perforations in a sheet of postage stamps. So you end up with a steel that will tolerate rough use except the edge would go dull from poor edge stability. 10-15 years ago I was among a few makers buking the trend and utilizing heat treats that differed greatly from the data sheets. I used to get called out for blasphemy. I started with D2 but gravitated to 3V due to a better balance of properties.

3V is a complex steel with complex interactions. For example, an attempt to use a low temp tweak without addressing the RA through quench rate and quench depth could easily lead to worse results. The condition of the steel going into HT is an important variable. There are a couple aspects of the Delta protocol that are not intuitively obvious and work for 3V but not D2. I tweaked 3V over the course of several years before finally going through the laborious process of identifying and evaluating the effect of minor changes to a bunch of interconnected variables. I started having the steel made specifically for me buying entire "melts" and owning the entire heat lot. At this point I felt comfortable saying that my 3V with my HT is demonstrably different (and better) than the industry standard. They're really not the same thing. It is changed (Delta). So I added the Delta prefix to differentiate it from my earlier work and from other people's 3V. This was important because a lot of people had preconceived notions about the alloy and its ability to shrug off damage from rough use. I didn't want my work pre-judged from people's experience with the alloy from other makers. This is why it was named.

AEBL is a relatively simple steel. I'm not doing anything revolutionary with it. Doing a competent job on AEBL isn't rocket science. There is some low hanging fruit and I've picked it. That doesn't warrant a special name.
Click to expand...
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
3V was a steel with marvelous potential that was being heat treated with a process optimized for tool and die, which has thick sections, risk of cracking and distortion, and the application calls for minimal dimensional changes. My knives are measurably longer after heat treat due to expansion from martensite, which would be a problem in tool & die. These things lead to a slow quench, intentional stabilized retained austenite and utilizing the secondary hardening hump for the T&D application it was designed for. This gives good performance in a stamping tool but a chippy mushy edge when used in a knife due to softer carbon lean martensite and areas of RA that behave like the perforations in a sheet of postage stamps. So you end up with a steel that will tolerate rough use except the edge would go dull from poor edge stability. 10-15 years ago I was among a few makers buking the trend and utilizing heat treats that differed greatly from the data sheets. I used to get called out for blasphemy. I started with D2 but gravitated to 3V due to a better balance of properties.

3V is a complex steel with complex interactions. For example, an attempt to use a low temp tweak without addressing the RA through quench rate and quench depth could easily lead to worse results. The condition of the steel going into HT is an important variable. There are a couple aspects of the Delta protocol that are not intuitively obvious and work for 3V but not D2. I tweaked 3V over the course of several years before finally going through the laborious process of identifying and evaluating the effect of minor changes to a bunch of interconnected variables. I started having the steel made specifically for me buying entire "melts" and owning the entire heat lot. At this point I felt comfortable saying that my 3V with my HT is demonstrably different (and better) than the industry standard. They're really not the same thing. It is changed (Delta). So I added the Delta prefix to differentiate it from my earlier work and from other people's 3V. This was important because a lot of people had preconceived notions about the alloy and its ability to shrug off damage from rough use. I didn't want my work pre-judged from people's experience with the alloy from other makers. This is why it was named.

AEBL is a relatively simple steel. I'm not doing anything revolutionary with it. Doing a competent job on AEBL isn't rocket science. There is some low hanging fruit and I've picked it. That doesn't warrant a special name.
Click to expand...
So Nathan how much of a difference is there between your heat treat protocol for your D3V compared to say a 3V blade heat treated by Peters Heat Treating ?... Obviously there is a difference between your D3V heat treatment and how Peters heat treats their 3V blades ! Is peters HT on par with your or do you feel its lacking ? Looking forward to your reply on this ! Thanks

Frank aka frc505
 
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