Thoughts on Steels: XD15NW / XD15TN & XD16N

[Sullivan609]

I'll start by saying hello - first post.

The company I work for is a steel distributor in NJ. We primarily serve the bearing industry with a lot of 52100, 8620, M50 and 440C in stock (mostly rounds and tubes but some flat bars).

We work closely with several steel mills on the grades above, including Aubert & Duval who makes XD15NW and XD16N. We are now stocking XD15NW (aka XD15TN) and XD16N. Both are high nitrogen steels, allowing for superior corrosion resistance, while achieving 58+ HRC. XD15NW is sometimes used as an alternative to Cronidur 30 or X360. These properties are great for bearings in corrosive environments!

While these materials were brought in for use in bearings, we are finding some interest from knife makers, but most of it is just that - interest. We don't have much feedback from end users or manufacturers.

I'm here to answer any technical questions and provide further information if needed. There is a very old thread (early 2000's) discussing XD15TN, but other than that, I haven't found much discussion on these grades.

Datasheets are easily available by searching XD15NW and XD16N - you can see in the searches that we are heavily promoting these alloys these alloys as the company is usually first on the search.

 

[Larrin]

Similar steels are available under different names to knifemakers and see some use: https://www.alphaknifesupply.com/shop/z-finit-stainless-steel

 

[unwisefool]

Doesn't Boker make a knife with X15tn?

 

[dirc]

xd15nw sits between 0.37-0.45% Carbon, but the Nitrogen amount is very nice... I'm curious about the upper end of hardness & heat treating... (there will be 'push-back' from the initial perception that it's a low Carbon steel)

I expect your xd16n will be much more warmly received, being 0.45-0.6% Carbon with the same basic amounts of Vanadium, Nitrogen and Chrome

PS, I just noticed the Nitrogen minimum is lower in xd16n - that's too bad - if you could keep it the same as xd15nw it would be better

PPS, your biggest direct competition is 14c28n, which has a very good reputation & price point and is already used by many large knife manufacturers. How will you compete with it? Price?

lol, I'm on a roll...
PPPS, M50 seems like an interesting steel for hard use better than 80crv2?
Carbon 0.80 - 0.85 Manganese 0.15 - 0.35
Chromium 4.00 - 4.25 Molybdenum 4.00 - 4.50
Silicon 0.25 max Sulfur 0.008 max
Nickel 0.15 max Phosphorus 0.015 max
Vanadium 0.90 - 1.10 Cobalt 0.25 max
Tungsten 0.25 max Copper 0.10 max

I'd like to test some 0.2" bar stock

 

[Larrin]

80crv2 is a low alloy steel and m50 is a high speed or semi-high speed steel. They're not really in the same category.

 

[DeadboxHero]

I'll start by saying hello - first post.

The company I work for is a steel distributor in NJ. We primarily serve the bearing industry with a lot of 52100, 8620, M50 and 440C in stock (mostly rounds and tubes but some flat bars).

We work closely with several steel mills on the grades above, including Aubert & Duval who makes XD15NW and XD16N. We are now stocking XD15NW (aka XD15TN) and XD16N. Both are high nitrogen steels, allowing for superior corrosion resistance, while achieving 58+ HRC. XD15NW is sometimes used as an alternative to Cronidur 30 or X360. These properties are great for bearings in corrosive environments!

While these materials were brought in for use in bearings, we are finding some interest from knife makers, but most of it is just that - interest. We don't have much feedback from end users or manufacturers.

I'm here to answer any technical questions and provide further information if needed. There is a very old thread (early 2000's) discussing XD15TN, but other than that, I haven't found much discussion on these grades.

Datasheets are easily available by searching XD15NW and XD16N - you can see in the searches that we are heavily promoting these alloys these alloys as the company is usually first on the search.

Can we get a nitrogen steel that can hit 63-65hrc when tempered? I'm not interested inother versions of the same steel unless you guys have better prices

 

[Sullivan609]

Thank you for the link - certainly eye opening. In aerospace we typically go up against Cronidur and N360. XD15NW hasn't really been reliably, readily available in small quantities until we started stocking it a few years ago.
What I really found interesting is that the .264" x 3.3" x 23.1" equates to about $37/lb.

 

[Sullivan609]

Can we get a nitrogen steel that can hit 63-65hrc when tempered? I'm not interested other verisons of the same steel unless you guys have better prices

Well, if we compare to AKS above, we can be significantly better, but at this time, we do not have the sizes they offer in stock. In XD15NW, we only have round bars and in XD16N, rounds and 1 flat @ .625" x 6.25" x mill length.

Let me do some research on hitting that hardness; XD16N we usually say 58+, and XD15NW is 60+.
XD16N is significantly less expensive than XD15NW / XD15TN

XD15NW - Air/ESR (so remelted)
XD16N - Air Melt Only (therefore less expensive)

 

[dirc]

80crv2 is a low alloy steel and m50 is a high speed or semi-high speed steel. They're not really in the same category.

agreed, but the 0.8% C and low chrome made me think of it
this M50 seems like it should be fun to test

 

[Sullivan609]

agreed, but the 0.8% C and low chrome made me think of it
this M50 seems like it should be fun to test

We actually have .20" M50 in stock!
However, M50 exists in Tool Steel and Aerospace flavors. The material we stock is VIM/VAR melted for aerospace, so it has a quite high $/lb price tag vs. the M50 tool steel. With that said, it is also far cleaner than the air melted variety.

 

[Sullivan609]

We also have this page specifically for XD15NW:
http://www.xd15nw.com/

We are exploring having XD16N available in sheets while being under $20/lb. Price checking some of the other suppliers, they are in the $40+ / lb.

 

[The Mastiff]

Isn't M50 the non stainless version of Bg 42 used for bearings? Maybe I should say BG 42 was made as a corrosion resistant version of M50. Something like that. It should make decent knives I would think.

Joe

 

[Larrin]

Isn't M50 the non stainless version of Bg 42 used for bearings? Maybe I should say BG 42 was made as a corrosion resistant version of M50. Something like that. It should make decent knives I would think.

Joe

It's all here: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/05/21/154cm-development-properties-legacy/

 

[The Mastiff]

Thanks Larrin

Joe

 

[BeyondTheBox]

I like what I'm reading and the idea of these new nitro steels, and an anxious to try one some day. I'll wait until they've come out for a while and been tested enough to believe in.

 

[Sullivan609]

I like what I'm reading and the idea of these new nitro steels, and an anxious to try one some day. I'll wait until they've come out for a while and been tested enough to believe in.

We prefer to have a $200 min transaction charge, but we would certainly entertain small volume requests for trials.
Most of our stock is round bar, but we do have some .625" x 6" flat stock in XD16N.

 

[Sullivan609]

Isn't M50 the non stainless version of Bg 42 used for bearings? Maybe I should say BG 42 was made as a corrosion resistant version of M50. Something like that. It should make decent knives I would think.

Joe

M50 and BG 42 are both bearing steels and probably can make very good knives. M50 is available in a tool steel, which I believe is usually import material. The M50 we stock at Sullivan is high temp aerospace material that is either VAR or VIM VAR remelted. Much cleaner than the tool steel version, but comes at a cost, which might be why it is not that popular as a blade steel.
The other half of that is availability - We stock M50 round bar, and I'm sure you can find M50 tool grade around. I'm not so sure about finding small quantities of BG-42 on the shelf somewhere.

 

[The Mastiff]

"M50 and BG 42 are both bearing steels and probably can make very good knives. M50 is available in a tool steel, which I believe is usually import material. The M50 we stock at Sullivan is high temp aerospace material that is either VAR or VIM VAR remelted. Much cleaner than the tool steel version, but comes at a cost, which might be why it is not that popular as a blade steel.
The other half of that is availability - We stock M50 round bar, and I'm sure you can find M50 tool grade around. I'm not so sure about finding small quantities of BG-42 on the shelf somewhere."

Thank you. BG 42 VimVar has been used in knives since the 90's that I'm aware of and probably earlier with the custom makers. It was one of the first ones called "super steel" and it still has a bunch of loyalists. The biggest problem was not performance or even cost but the scarcity of it and the unwillingness of the foundry to bother with small operations like knifemakers who may buy $500 or $1000 worth at a time instead of orders in the thousands of pounds. One company talked about a years wait for fulfillment of orders. Crucible gladly worked with people in the industry and had metallurgists available for questions. That led to their dominance of high end cutlery for a while, not that that helped them avoid bankruptcy when a recession hit car manufacturers.

It's still a good performing steel for knives and new knives in this steel are rarer than ever. The powder version, CTS B75P is a good steel but never caught fire. Steels like S110V and M390 have pushed it aside and won the chemistry wars. More carbides = more wear resistance = better, right?

I have never seen or heard of a M50 knife.

Joe