The plague of S30V and S35VN

2-3 years ago it was hard to find either at least under $150-200.
I welcome it for the industry. However now that m390 and other super steel is available I've avoided both. I mean I have plenty with s30v and S35vn just don't want anymore. I'm a creature of variety since it's become so over used.

If anyone is to blame, blame crk.
 
i don't see the problem with S35VN, i've used my kizer with S35VN quite a lot and am very happy with the performance.
i even dropped it very very hard on a stone floor and, so hard that it chipped a chunk out of the floor, but the blade had a maybe a 0.2MM chip at worst.

from what i hear S30V does chip very easy, so i don't understand why they often pick s30 over s35.
 
I'm OK with S30V, and I really like S35VN. And since CRK bumped up the hardness on their S35VN a bit (I think to 59-60 HRC), I haven't noticed any edge-holding issues with theirs, either.

Just you wait and see. In a couple/few years, people will be saying that M390, S110V, Elmax, etc., are all 'garbage steels'. How many people who gripe about the performance of former 'super steels' actually use them to their full potential in real-world usage (as opposed to over-the-top testing)? Or is it about whatever is the flavor of the month?

It reminds me of a guy who was so OCD about the latest cell phone technology that he had to buy a new one every month. He also said he knew that off the shelf, the new phone was 'already obsolete technology' and he wasn't completely happy with it. He even admitted he never used (or even knew how to use) very many of the features, and certainly not to the phone's potential; yet he still needed a new one every month, because he 'needed' the latest technology. And he felt that all the previous phones he had 'sucked'.

I like all kinds of steels, myself, but find S35VN to be one of my favorites. I also really like Victorinox's SAK steel.

In countries all over the world, there are people who make their living/survive using knives that many BF members would consider 'junk steel'. Yet they use their 'junk steel' knives a lot harder and a lot more than many knife enthusiasts who consider anything but the latest super steels to be trash.

Jim
 
I consider it a good thing if a knife i like comes in s30 or s35. I used to prefer s35 between the two but my position has reversed. I think how one feels about a particular steel has a lot, if not a majority to do with how the manufacturer makes the knife: proper geometry, and proper heat treat. For me personally, edge retention is not the end all be all. i prefer a knife with very good edge stability.
 
For me s30v is a great steel for a knife that I need to have and hold a sharp slicing edge. Its toughness is another story and that’s why I use other steels for cutting harder materials.
 
It also matters who does the heat treat. In the past, I have mentioned Mr. Ankerson’s edge retention test where the production Fiddlebacks in S35vn where performing better than “superior” steels. Sometimes we as knife nuts get too obsessed with the numbers on the blade without considering who did the heat treat and what rc it has been taken to.

Personally, I like S35vn when taken to rc 60-61. Holds an edge well and has reasonable toughness for edc duties. Touch up on ceramic rods or stropping brings back a crisp edge quickly.
 
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Man, when properly heat treated these steels will function extremely well in any reasonable scenario - I’m thinking of folders, by the way. As somebody who occasionally breaks out a straight razor, ‘shaving sharp’, relative to facial hair, requires stropping throughout the process. I do ‘get’ the joy of finding a steel like M390, with good geometry and good edge, and discovering something a little bit better than ‘lesser steels’; but it is neglibile, in my experience. YMMV
 
dkb45 said:
Being a knife nut, of course I keep an eye on new models, and always look to see if I can find the next new knife I can fall madly in love with (until the next thing comes around). It's the nature of the beast when it comes to collecting. After extensive use, however, I have found I just don't really care for how S30V and S35VN perform on a pocket knife. They are great steels to most people, but they are pretty garbage on holding a razor edge, and that makes me sad. That leads to the next problem...

It seems every new model now made by almost any manufacturer is in S30V or S35VN. Every manufacturer is in on it. Seeing the new models I was.initially happy, then that turned to mostly apathy as I see a new design that catches my eye, then find it's in the same two steels. ZT dropped a great steel completely (Elmax) for S35VN, and it just doesn't hold the second edge. Overall edge retention or razor edge, S30V and S35VN are pretty middle of the road, are kinda towards the back of the pack as far as super steels are concerned... so why are they on every bloody model?

Am I the only one seriously fed up with these steels flooding the market?
Click to expand...

Well let me say this about that.
Plague
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may be a little strong?
According to Road And Track (the Ankerson cutting tests) that is like saying why are every body and their brother driving around in these mid priced Ferraris (S30V and S35VN) ? ? ?
What a drag. Don't they like "Good" cars (good knives) ? ? ?

and . . .
I am totally in sympathy / agreement with you.
Of course if I got my way every body would be going around with stains and blotches if not . . . wait for it . . . actual oxidation (rust) gasp; here or there on their EDC.

And for what ? Just to have that slightly sharper . . . lovely . . . addicting . . . to die for . . .hair splittingly glorious . . . .
. . .
. . .
where was I ? ? ?
Oh yes . . . a passably decent usable edge.

Gee . . .I don't know . . .
I wish I could help you but I got to go sharpen some knives.
 
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halden.doerge said:
I think the answer is pretty simple. Production knife companies make the lions share of their living by selling knives, not to a small cadre of geeky enthusiasts (i.e. all of us posting here), but to a wide range of "normal" people who just want a high quality knife at an affordable price point. S30V and S35VN offer a great balance of the important attributes for a knife steel (good edge holding, good toughness, stainless, easier for neophytes to sharpen). They are also widely available at a good price to manufacturers and they are easy to work with on the productions side.
It just seems kinda ridiculous to complain about the current state of steel availability in the current knife market. It's better than it's ever been. And it's gonna keep getting better. It's a great time to be alive.
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Well said, HD.
While this isn't exactly true, I view s30v as a subsidy. Take the PM2 example. If spyderco sells lots of PM2 in s30v, they will have the financial resources to then do the R&D and release sprint runs in "better" or at least different steels. I like these steels:D. S30v enables me to have these steels...:p Win-win-win for everybody. Most users get a good knife, the manufacturer does well, and the crazies (including me, and you if you are reading this) get wonderful variations and flavors.
 
halden.doerge said:
I think the answer is pretty simple. Production knife companies make the lions share of their living by selling knives, not to a small cadre of geeky enthusiasts (i.e. all of us posting here), but to a wide range of "normal" people who just want a high quality knife at an affordable price point. S30V and S35VN offer a great balance of the important attributes for a knife steel (good edge holding, good toughness, stainless, easier for neophytes to sharpen). They are also widely available at a good price to manufacturers and they are easy to work with on the productions side.

It makes all the sense in the world that manufacturers would use these steels as their basic go-to materials for large runs of production knives. Sure, us knife nerds are gonna want everything in Maxamet, Curwear, M4, M390 and the next great thing to come, but it would be a financial disaster for say, Spyderco if they suddenly stopped offering PM2s in S30V and did them all in Maxamet or Cruwear. The costs would go up and they'd have knives coming back to them all the time from every Joe Blow complaining that the knife was too chippy and couldn't be sharpened and its getting rusty. How dare you charge me $200 for this?! Or they could do them all in M390 and charge $250 for them and sales would plummet.

Honestly, I don't think we could ask for anything better than the model Spyderco currently has going. Offer large runs of well-established popular designs in S30V, and then offer other smaller stream production lines of higher performing steels (S110V, Maxamet), and THEN on top of that offer sprint runs and dealer exclusives in even more high end super steels to cater to us nerds. How on earth could we really expect a company to do better for us than that??

It just seems kinda ridiculous to complain about the current state of steel availability in the current knife market. It's better than it's ever been. And it's gonna keep getting better. It's a great time to be alive.
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This is pretty spot on I think. Eventually m390 will be the norm and we'll have something like a stainless maxamet to lust after. As the market moves forward and upward the volume of the next particular super steel consumed will drive the price down and it'll become the new norm. Think 1095, then 420/440, ATS34, Aus 8, 154cm, d2, etc. Onward and upward.

It's just like horsepower in a car. At one point your base model, mid-size sedan had output in the high two-digit range with a small displacement(~3L) 6 cylinder. Now they've got nearly 300 horsepower out of an engine small enough to comfortably fit on a motorcycle.

I'll admit that I'd rather see m390 than s30v, but I'd rather have 30/35vn than Aus-8... which was well received not that long ago.
 
Sergeua said:
Isn't this steel designed specifically for knives...
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Yes but for all around knife making goodness.
Where as S90V, S110V, maybe 10V seems to have been engineered to make knife makers cower in the corner and whimper : "No more ! Go AWAY ! I hate you !"
Just ask Charlie Mike.
 
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A sword is better than a paring knife. Especially if the sword is M390 and the paring knife is zdp189. Excuse me, I'ma go see if Manila rope is back in stock on Amazon.
 
Have you had a chance to try s30v treated and tempered correctly? Crusader Forge does a great job with s30v.
 
Sergeua said:
Isn't this steel designed specifically for knives...
Click to expand...

If "they" were, then S30V, S35VN, CPM 154 and CPM 3V are failures at what they were "intended" for: Hard to sharpen for the first 3, and yet all 4 lose their apex stability with astonishing ease (I still marvel at how they managed that): The apex instantly grabs the nail on one side after any kind of impact-type contact with any type of wood, sometimes grabbing the nail even after just slicing thin cardboard (Gerber S30V)...

Maybe a really steep micro-bevel would perform a miracle, and stabilize the "wobbly apex syndrome", revealing a truly wear-resistant edge, but the trouble is a 20 dps main bevel (40 degrees total) should not require a micro-bevel going up in the 30s (a whopping 60 degrees total) when some of the older and less glamorous steels stabilize their apex even below the 20s.

The reality is the entire concept of Crucible Particle Metallurgy was never intended for knives: Most CPM steels were solely intended for industrial use, and knives were just an add-on when they realized there was a more "mainstream" market with an insatiable hunger for novelty.

There is nothing "scientific" about knife use, so they knew they could push any outrageous claim based on industrial data, and claim it applied to knives... It obviously doesn't. There were many CPM steels before any that were "intended" for knives, and perhaps they work well enough... For industrial use...

I remember the hype surrounding CPM steels when they were announced in knife mags in the mid-1990s: It went even beyond the ATS 34 lunacy, for those who remember the heydays of that: They were literally claiming this new "process" would make other knife steels obsolete. I kid you not. Hard to reconcile these claims with how poorly this stuff actually works, which, for apex stability, is about on par with low-end sub $30 Chinese Kershaws, or no name brand generic "440".

Maybe the crooked apex does cut longer than a low end Kershaw: After all, probably entire empires were won with rolled edges... That doesn't mean I have to like this on my knives.

Gaston
 
G Gaston444
S30V and S35VN tend to develop lingering burrs in my experience. Your description indicates that you have a wire edge or foil burr, rather than clean apex.
Once they are removed, I think the edge would be more stable even at 15 DPS.
 
Gaston444 said:
If "they" were, then S30V, S35VN, CPM 154 and CPM 3V are failures at what they were "intended" for: Hard to sharpen for the first 3, and yet all 4 lose their apex stability with astonishing ease (I still marvel at how they managed that): The apex instantly grabs the nail on one side after any kind of impact-type contact with any type of wood, sometimes grabbing the nail even after just slicing thin cardboard (Gerber S30V)...

Maybe a really steep micro-bevel would perform a miracle, and stabilize the "wobbly apex syndrome", revealing a truly wear-resistant edge, but the trouble is a 20 dps main bevel (40 degrees total) should not require a micro-bevel going up in the 30s (a whopping 60 degrees total) when some of the older and less glamorous steels stabilize their apex even below the 20s.

The reality is the entire concept of Crucible Particle Metallurgy was never intended for knives: Most CPM steels were solely intended for industrial use, and knives were just an add-on when they realized there was a more "mainstream" market with an insatiable hunger for novelty.

There is nothing "scientific" about knife use, so they knew they could push any outrageous claim based on industrial data, and claim it applied to knives... It obviously doesn't. There were many CPM steels before any that were "intended" for knives, and perhaps they work well enough... For industrial use...

I remember the hype surrounding CPM steels when they were announced in knife mags in the mid-1990s: It went even beyond the ATS 34 lunacy, for those who remember the heydays of that: They were literally claiming this new "process" would make other knife steels obsolete. I kid you not. Hard to reconcile these claims with how poorly this stuff actually works, which, for apex stability, is about on par with low-end sub $30 Chinese Kershaws, or no name brand generic "440".

Maybe the crooked apex does cut longer than a low end Kershaw: After all, probably entire empires were won with rolled edges... That doesn't mean I have to like this on my knives.

Gaston
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Please ignore anything this guy posts.
 
I don't think that cutlery is driving the state of the art of metallurgy. I'd bet that most steels used for knife blades was designed for some other purpose. I would say part of the allure of this hobby is the creative use of some steel designed for another purpose being used as a knife blade. Knives have been made out of springs, saw blades, ball bearings, chain links, wrenches, files, drive shafts, piston rods, and on and on. Most of us would be at least curiously interested in a blade made out of the steel from 16" inchers on the USS Missouri or from steel used as landing gear struts on the Space Shuttle. By the way, that chunk missing from the Eiffel tower, was not me. Just sayin.
 
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