Vanadis 4e heat treat

YorKnife

YorKnife

Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
7
I’ve got two 1meter bars of Vanadis 4e on the way, I’ve not heat treated it before and there’s very little out there to take anything from recipe wise... other than the manufactures HT on the Uddeholm website, which I’m guessing isn’t perfect for knives.

anyway, how closely do you think I’ll need to follow the manufactures recipe or are there any obvious differences that I’ll need make? there anyone willing to share?

thanks
Luke
 
I have not used 4E but 4V which is very similar. I have been following manufactures HT, 1950 Fahrenheit austenitizing with a 30 minute soak, plate quench, and 3 two hour tempers at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The blades have been ending up in the 61 to 62rc range and i have had excellent results. Every person i have sent a 4v knife to is blown away be the performance and edge stability of the steel. Grind the geometry thin to get the best out of the steel. Lots of makers are using Cryo and lower tempering temperatures. Looking at the data sheets for 4E using 1000 Fahrenheit tempering converts all the RA.
 
I just finished up one in V4e and I used a modified Phil Wilson heat treating protocol.
I used 2050 aus X 25 min followed immediately by LN cryo for 2 hr. Then 3 X 2 hr tempers 350 deg => RC65, 450 deg => RC63, 550 deg => RC61.
The customer wanted RC61 so that's why I went up so high with the temper. I will probably aim for RC63 for most of the knives I make with this stuff.
Good luck!
 
Run it hard. You don’t lose much toughness when going up to Rc65. I use cryo and low temper, rather than high temper. You get better edge stability, toughness, and corrosion resistance with cryo/low temper.

upload_2019-12-10_12-15-8.jpeg


You can compare toughness to steels we are more familiar with that hold up.
 
Vanadis 4 Extra heat treated a bit differently than 4V for me. 2000°F was peak as-quenched hardness with Vanadis 4 Extra but 4V was higher.
 
Some amazing info in these posts, Hardly anyone using the stuff over in the UK where I am so it’s great to have some specs to work to that aren’t the manufactures generic.
 
Robert Erickson said:
I just finished up one in V4e and I used a modified Phil Wilson heat treating protocol.
I used 2050 aus X 25 min followed immediately by LN cryo for 2 hr. Then 3 X 2 hr tempers 350 deg => RC65, 450 deg => RC63, 550 deg => RC61.
The customer wanted RC61 so that's why I went up so high with the temper. I will probably aim for RC63 for most of the knives I make with this stuff.
Good luck!
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Robert, looking at your recipe there, if I wanted the 61rc, would I just do 3 tempers at the 550 degrees as opposed to stepping down like you did there?
 
Willie71 said:
Run it hard. You don’t lose much toughness when going up to Rc65. I use cryo and low temper, rather than high temper. You get better edge stability, toughness, and corrosion resistance with cryo/low temper.

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You can compare toughness to steels we are more familiar with that hold up.
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Do you actually get noticeably better edge stability with 4E and 4V with cryo and a low temper? From my understanding, and i may be wrong, but better edge stability with low temper treatments is because secondary hardening is skipped but looking at the data sheets it does not seem that either of these steels experiences much of a secondary hardening effect. I have asked a couple makers about this with other steels and they contend they do no see any difference except potential higher hardness and a little better corrosion resistants.
 
Seedy Lot said:
Do you actually get noticeably better edge stability with 4E and 4V with cryo and a low temper? From my understanding, and i may be wrong, but better edge stability with low temper treatments is because secondary hardening is skipped but looking at the data sheets it does not seem that either of these steels experiences much of a secondary hardening effect. I have asked a couple makers about this with other steels and they contend they do no see any difference except potential higher hardness and a little better corrosion resistants.
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The secondary carbides do not form, leaving more chromium in solution. Lower carbide volume and smaller carbides both improve toughness. The effect in z-wear/cru-wear was noticeable.

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/04/toughness-testing-cru-wear-z-wear/

V4e is quite similar to z-wear in performance.
 
Willie71 said:
The secondary carbides do not form, leaving more chromium in solution. Lower carbide volume and smaller carbides both improve toughness. The effect in z-wear/cru-wear was noticeable.

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/04/toughness-testing-cru-wear-z-wear/

V4e is quite similar to z-wear in performance.
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4V is similar to the x-wear steels but not the same as 4v has 2.5 percent less chromium and no tungsten while the x-wear steels have around 1 percent tungsten. Looking at the data sheets for the x-wear steels, especially Crucibles, a noticeable secondary hardening effect is present but that is not nearly as obvious or maybe even absence on the V4E or 4V data sheets.

When Roman Landes was still participating on hypefreeblades someone asked if his heat treat protocol for 3v should also be used for 4v and his answer was no.

I could see were the low temper benefits x-wear steels but i really wonder how much of performance gain it provides for V4E/4V and if it would actually be noticeable outside of a lab setting.
 
Seedy Lot said:
4V is similar to the x-wear steels but not the same as 4v has 2.5 percent less chromium and no tungsten while the x-wear steels have around 1 percent tungsten. Looking at the data sheets for the x-wear steels, especially Crucibles, a noticeable secondary hardening effect is present but that is not nearly as obvious or maybe even absence on the V4E or 4V data sheets.

When Roman Landes was still participating on hypefreeblades someone asked if his heat treat protocol for 3v should also be used for 4v and his answer was no.

I could see were the low temper benefits x-wear steels but i really wonder how much of performance gain it provides for V4E/4V and if it would actually be noticeable outside of a lab setting.
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We have samples of high and low temper awaiting grinding in both 4v and V4e. The hardness is better at lower temps with 4V/V4e when using cryo/low temper, but toughness numbers aren’t in yet. In real world use, z-wear and V4e are pretty much identical. I use more z-wear, as I have it available in kitchen knife thickness, but I could interchange either without a customer knowing which was which. We have been waiting for those samples to be ground since last winter.

Every steel tested to date, excepting M2 has tested better with cryo/low temper. 4v/V4e might be another exception.
 
Willie71 said:
We have samples of high and low temper awaiting grinding in both 4v and V4e. The hardness is better at lower temps with 4V/V4e when using cryo/low temper, but toughness numbers aren’t in yet. In real world use, z-wear and V4e are pretty much identical. I use more z-wear, as I have it available in kitchen knife thickness, but I could interchange either without a customer knowing which was which. We have been waiting for those samples to be ground since last winter.

Every steel tested to date, excepting M2 has tested better with cryo/low temper. 4v/V4e might be another exception.
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I started using Zwear and Cruwear four years ago and have made hundred of knives out of the two steels and 3 years ago started using 4v. I can understand determining a difference in lab settings but real world use is were i start questioning noticeable performance gains. Like i said from use i could see were a performance gain in the x-wear steels could be noticeable but 4v through all my use and the samples i have sent out for other people who are avid tool users to test no one has ever expierenced stability issues with 4v. I always send out 3 or 4 knives with different steel for side by side use with same knife pattern, same geometry, and thickness behind edge. 4v has constantly blown minds and i do not see how the performance could be improved upon in real world use.

I am eagerly waiting for more of Larrin's testing and thank you for helping it come to fruition.
 
I’m not sure which 4V and V4E datasheets you’re looking at because both have plenty of secondary hardening.
 
Larrin said:
I’m not sure which 4V and V4E datasheets you’re looking at because both have plenty of secondary hardening.
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I see my mistake with the data sheets. The Crucible data sheet for Cruwear has the tempering hardness graph starting at 900 degree Fahrenheit while all the 4v graphs i have seen start at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit for tempering so well into the secondary hardening.
 
Seedy Lot said:
I started using Zwear and Cruwear four years ago and have made hundred of knives out of the two steels and 3 years ago started using 4v. I can understand determining a difference in lab settings but real world use is were i start questioning noticeable performance gains. Like i said from use i could see were a performance gain in the x-wear steels could be noticeable but 4v through all my use and the samples i have sent out for other people who are avid tool users to test no one has ever expierenced stability issues with 4v. I always send out 3 or 4 knives with different steel for side by side use with same knife pattern, same geometry, and thickness behind edge. 4v has constantly blown minds and i do not see how the performance could be improved upon in real world use.

I am eagerly waiting for more of Larrin's testing and thank you for helping it come to fruition.
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how thin do you go at the edge? I rarely make a knife thicker than 0.005” before sharpening anymore.
 
Willie71 said:
how thin do you go at the edge? I rarely make a knife thicker than 0.005” before sharpening anymore.
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I measured my 4v knife and it is 0.008 behind the micro bevel. I have been hard on the knife on purpose, lots of aggressive bone contact while cutting leg joints when butchering deer and plenty of battoning, even cut some trees down with the knife battoning a notch like one would do with an axe, plenty of side load on the edge.

I would not run a Cruwear knife as thin, I use a little more pronounced micro bevel, as i have experienced micro chipping which I am assuming would potentially be eliminated with a cryo, though i do not know if my Cruwear is CPM or ingot. I asked the supplier when i started buying Cruwear and was assured it was CPM but then a couple years later they started carrying CPM Cruwear and charging more for it and labeling it differently which leads me to think that all my Cruwear may have been ingot.
 
I personally have not used any V4E yet but have used quite a bit of 4V, Z Wear, and PD1; I have to say that from my experience they are not similar in performance.
All steels mentioned were heat treated with high temp tempering, I am not a fan of the low temper protocols due to the slight loss in edge holding, to a final of 63 Rc.
The steels were also treated to a dry ice sub-zero treatment.
I will state that I feel that ZWear and PD1 have a higher toughness than 4V, but 4V has much higher wear resistance IME.
I am speaking from a competition chopper standpoint here, but this is a great avenue to put a couple steels against one another.

The first knife I made for my wife was from PD1 heat treated to 63 with dry ice treatment and high temper.
Her knife was noticeably duller after a single course run.
It would no longer cut newsprint and needed to be touched up after or before each competition.
Her edge geometry was very thin for a chopper as well at .010" BTE.

My 4V chopper though can go three or four competitions before needing to be touched up, it's generally around the fourth competition I start feeling it dragging through the big 2" rope.
At this point only about half the edge will still cut newsprint, and I am still using this same knife between competitions for practice.
My knife varies from around .008" to .012" BTE.
The 4V was heat treated to 63 Rc given a cold treatment and high temp temper.

IMO this is not necessarily real world testing but it is very hard on a knife edge.
I have compared low and high temp tempers several times and aside from the increase in stain resistance I am not sold on low temp protocol for any steel.

All that I have personally experienced with 4V in BladeSports is the same basic results others are getting with V4E.
 
Seedy Lot said:
I measured my 4v knife and it is 0.008 behind the micro bevel. I have been hard on the knife on purpose, lots of aggressive bone contact while cutting leg joints when butchering deer and plenty of battoning, even cut some trees down with the knife battoning a notch like one would do with an axe, plenty of side load on the edge.

I would not run a Cruwear knife as thin, I use a little more pronounced micro bevel, as i have experienced micro chipping which I am assuming would potentially be eliminated with a cryo, though i do not know if my Cruwear is CPM or ingot. I asked the supplier when i started buying Cruwear and was assured it was CPM but then a couple years later they started carrying CPM Cruwear and charging more for it and labeling it differently which leads me to think that all my Cruwear may have been ingot.
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there is a significant difference in the toughness of the ingot compared to the cpm version of that steel.
 
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