Vanadium Vs Other Carbide Formers

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Ten_Mile_Knives

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Hey everyone, so I was recently going over some alloys on the Zknives charts and I was thinking. If Vanadium Carbide is the hardest/most abrasion resistant Carbide in a steel matrix, then why use any other Carbide formers? Wouldn't molybdenum, tungsten, chromium, and other Carbide formers just be wasted space for the much harder Vanadium carbides? I'm really looking to learn as much as I can about the chemistry and physics behind my favorite hobby so don't be afraid to get technical!
 
Ten_Mile_Knives said:
Hey everyone, so I was recently going over some alloys on the Zknives charts and I was thinking. If Vanadium Carbide is the hardest/most abrasion resistant Carbide in a steel matrix, then why use any other Carbide formers? Wouldn't molybdenum, tungsten, chromium, and other Carbide formers just be wasted space for the much harder Vanadium carbides? I'm really looking to learn as much as I can about the chemistry and physics behind my favorite hobby so don't be afraid to get technical!
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I know that some other carbide formers such as niobium can do other stuff like help refine grain structure.
 
Molybdenum, tungsten, and chromium are not only used to form wear resistant carbides but also for things like hardenability, hot hardness and secondary hardening, and corrosion resistance. 3V, 4V, and 10V, for example are made up almost entirely of vanadium carbides in the heat treated condition despite all of the Cr and Mo.

Hardenability: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-fast-do-i-have-to-quench.1555442/
Secondary hardening: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/04/23/what-happens-during-tempering-of-steel/
Corrosion resistance: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/11/how-much-more-chromium-does-d2-need-to-be-stainless/
 
I can't contribute a ton to this post, but I will be following it closely since it it such a great one!
 
Check out Spyderco's catalogue (download) -- it has an excellent section on various alloys and what they do.
 
I haven't followed it all that close but I seem to remember M4 has a good amount of tungsten and not so much vanadium and . . . in any case I would WAY rather have a blade from M4 than the few S110V blades I have.
For Me . . . In My Opinion . . . From lots of first hand experience cutting challenging, fairly hard, abrasive rubber products
M4 :
  • holds a fine cutting edge for just scads of time
  • the edge remains sharper
  • the edge sharpens / touches up more easily and does not require diamonds for touch up
  • takes an interesting dark cast (sort of a patina) that I enjoy

super high vanadium alloys have . . . well . . . lots of vanadium
and M4 has . . . the edge characteristics I have always dreamed about made a reality.
. . . so there you go.
IMG_5163.jpg
 
Wowbagger said:
I haven't followed it all that close but I seem to remember M4 has a good amount of tungsten and not so much vanadium and . . . in any case I would WAY rather have a blade from M4 than the few S110V blades I have.
For Me . . . In My Opinion . . . From lots of first hand experience cutting challenging, fairly hard, abrasive rubber products
M4 :
  • holds a fine cutting edge for just scads of time
  • the edge remains sharper
  • the edge sharpens / touches up more easily and does not require diamonds for touch up
  • takes an interesting dark cast (sort of a patina) that I enjoy

super high vanadium alloys have . . . well . . . lots of vanadium
and M4 has . . . the edge characteristics I have always dreamed about made a reality.
. . . so there you go.
View attachment 946072
Click to expand...

If only m4 became more commonly found. I love me some m4.

Too bad high vanadium seemed to become in vogue and tungsten rich steels did not.
 
Lapedog said:
If only m4 became more commonly found. I love me some m4.

Too bad high vanadium seemed to become in vogue and tungsten rich steels did not.
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I suppose it makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems the majority of knife buyers / users prefer a toothy edge (maybe this is indeed the best all around edge) and the high vanadium alloys make the most durable toothy edges (micro saws).

I have almost daily need of polished edge push cutting edges (and I have an addiction to using this sort of edge that may go beyond rationality) and so M4 has proven its self to me.

If I use an edge all week in tough stuff and it still catches on my thumb nail (=~ shave sharp) and feels smooth when drawn across my nail (no dings, flat spots, rolls or what ever that awful thing that some S110V does that I call "the carbides falling out" where it just feels kind of rough) then I smile. That's M4

When I use an edge for a week and sometimes much less, in the fairly regular tasks I have done every work day for more than a decade and the edge skips and slides down my thumb nail and sort of catches and scrapes off some nail (well less than shave sharp) and feels rough when drawn across my nail, where as it had been VERY SMOOTH when sharpened and was shave sharp and hair whittling then I know I am carrying an S110V blade . . . I don't smile but console myself that at least this "working edge" will stay like this until the end of time.

Doesn't stop me from reaching for the DMT 8,000 to get it back to a "smile worthy edge".
That's just me.
 
Lapedog said:
If only m4 became more commonly found. I love me some m4.
Click to expand...
Surprisingly enough I have been having a similar experience with D2.
This is my very first D2 blade (Rat 1).
It has survived the first week of daily work cutting and the edge is still as I described the M4 to be.

ALTHOUGH . . . though . . . I haven't subjected it to the task of hard rubber trimming that usually separates the real knife steels / heat treats from the other funny stuff that passes for pocket knives. We will go there in the coming week.

This task tends to put some side loading (or some such) on the edge that can even make some batches of S110V look silly and dull and useless in a single day of light cutting. See my rants on my first example, a Manix LW in S110V. I sharpened it at least five times on diamonds on the Edge Pro Apex and it still just sucked for this task. I have other S110V that can survive the task but they still do not like it.

What about the M4 you ask ?
Oh . . . well ALL THREE of my M4 blades have the same off hand remark when I ask them about how they are doing after a week and even a month of this kind of trimming on hard rubber using the thumb nail test and more importantly how the knife is still performing AT THE HARD RUBBER TRIMMING which is :

:cool: What trimming ? I hadn't really noticed . . . I'm looking forward to it . . . when do we start ? :cool:
;)
This makes me :D :D :D :D
 
Wowbagger said:
Surprisingly enough I have been having a similar experience with D2.
This is my very first D2 blade (Rat 1).
It has survived the first week of daily work cutting and the edge is still as I described the M4 to be.

ALTHOUGH . . . though . . . I haven't subjected it to the task of hard rubber trimming that usually separates the real knife steels / heat treats from the other funny stuff that passes for pocket knives. We will go there in the coming week.

This task tends to put some side loading (or some such) on the edge that can even make some batches of S110V look silly and dull and useless in a single day of light cutting. See my rants on my first example, a Manix LW in S110V. I sharpened it at least five times on diamonds on the Edge Pro Apex and it still just sucked for this task. I have other S110V that can survive the task but they still do not like it.

What about the M4 you ask ?
Oh . . . well ALL THREE of my M4 blades have the same off hand remark when I ask them about how they are doing after a week and even a month of this kind of trimming on hard rubber using the thumb nail test and more importantly how the knife is still performing AT THE HARD RUBBER TRIMMING which is :

:cool: What trimming ? I hadn't really noticed . . . I'm looking forward to it . . . when do we start ? :cool:
;)
This makes me :D :D :D :D
Click to expand...

I love d2. I find it takes a nice crisp edge that easily touches up to very fine and sharp. It is hard to reprofile but touchups are great.

I am not a huge fan of the high vanadium steels line s30-s125. The exception is s35vn which I love.
 
Lapedog said:
I love d2. I find it takes a nice crisp edge that easily touches up to very fine and sharp. It is hard to reprofile but touchups are great.

I am not a huge fan of the high vanadium steels line s30-s125. The exception is s35vn which I love.
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As I understand it the D2 in my blade isn't the powder metallurgy version and so has some fairly large carbides that I expect to not do so well in the rubber trimming.
I look forward to farting around with the Rat on monday.
Even if the Rat D2 is only some what useful in the rubber trimming it has proven to be a totally great edge for general use; well above many.

Who has CPM D2 blades ?
 
Wowbagger said:
As I understand it the D2 in my blade isn't the powder metallurgy version and so has some fairly large carbides that I expect to not do so well in the rubber trimming.
I look forward to farting around with the Rat on monday.
Even if the Rat D2 is only some what useful in the rubber trimming it has proven to be a totally great edge for general use; well above many.

Who has CPM D2 blades ?
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I do :D
 
Like Larrin mentioned, carbides do more than just offer wear resistance. But if wear resistance is what you're after, then vanadium carbide is where it's at (niobium carbides aren't quite as hard, IIRC). Tungsten carbides are nice, too. Not quite as hard as vanadium, but the WC (tungsten carbide) can be cut with silicon carbide stones, especially if SiC is all you have and you want a more refined edge.

CPM M4 is one of my favorites. A nice combo of alloying. 1.4Carbon 4.0Vanadium 5.5Tungsten 5.2Moly 4.0Chromium The wear resistance will come primarily from the vanadium carbide content, while the moly and tungsten really help its hot hardness.
115W8 is also one of my favorites. While it doesn't have the all out wear resistance of M4, the 4% (proprietary smelt from Achim) Tungsten gives decent wear resistance.
Cru Forge V is another good one. Only .75% vanadium, but that's enough to make it shine over a simple 1% carbon steel.
My ideal steel would be nothing but carbon and vanadium as alloying (plus a bit of Mn and Cr to make it deeper hardening/easier to heat treat). Like 1.2% carbon and 4% vanadium. The carbon % needs to be matched with the correct vanadium % to make sure there is enough carbon to harden the martensite matrix to 66HRC or so. I think 1.2%C and 4%V works. Any more vanadium and you'll need more carbon. That brings on another set of challenges, like larger than wanted carbide networks! It has to be matched correctly!

I love this stuff. Like Deadbox and Wowbagger. Could talk about it all day and learn even more.
 
I am really enjoying this discussion, it sounds to me like while Vanadium carbides are more durable, tungsten carbides offer a more user-friendly hardness. The kind that lends itself to a finer, easier-to-sharpen edge? Maybe for me (cutting boxes all day) the highly wear resistance vanadium carbides make more sense . I've got some CPM 4V on the way and some Vanadis 4e (nearly identical steels) after that . I'm really excited to see how they behave against highly abrasive cutting tasks . Ideally I want a steel that has the impressive edge performance of the Carbide-rich steels, but that can handle being pushed into Staples here and there *cringe*. I think 4V might be my ticket .. Final note, I wonder how the trifecta of Mo, V, and W carbides in M4 benefit or inhibit these characteristics when compared to 4V Wich lacks the tungsten. We shall see!
 
I would say i do like the vanadium and tungsten Alloyed steels.
Cru-Wear and Z-Wear.
Both get insanely sharp, and arent horrible to sharpen. To mee it seems like Zwear is slightly tougher. But just a tiny bit. Both exellent steels.

I have a para 3 in cruwear that i just resharpened on a DMT fine diafold to bring the edge back. Then went through every strop i have from bastard stops. Then hit 1 micron and 0.5 microb diamond emulsion from him. (Polycrystalline diamond)
And its sticky sharp. Not a mirror polish, but scary sharp. I love the refined 600 grit edge.

Ten_Mile_Knives said:
I am really enjoying this discussion, it sounds to me like while Vanadium carbides are more durable, tungsten carbides offer a more user-friendly hardness. The kind that lends itself to a finer, easier-to-sharpen edge? Maybe for me (cutting boxes all day) the highly wear resistance vanadium carbides make more sense . I've got some CPM 4V on the way and some Vanadis 4e (nearly identical steels) after that . I'm really excited to see how they behave against highly abrasive cutting tasks . Ideally I want a steel that has the impressive edge performance of the Carbide-rich steels, but that can handle being pushed into Staples here and there *cringe*. I think 4V might be my ticket .. Final note, I wonder how the trifecta of Mo, V, and W carbides in M4 benefit or inhibit these characteristics when compared to 4V Wich lacks the tungsten. We shall see!
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4V is exellent!
I made some prototypes with it and while it was a Nightmare to sharpen (that was a few years ago, i have no problem now) it held an edge forever. Forever being, 3 weeks of EDC use, and still shaving sharp. 62HRC was great. Might go to 63HRC on my next batch.
 
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Wowbagger said:
I look forward to farting around with the Rat on monday.
Even if the Rat D2 is only some what useful in the rubber trimming it has proven to be a totally great edge for general use; well above many.
Click to expand...

Well today (Monday) I had only one opportunity to use the Rat D2 to trim hard rubber. Just a tiny job about 1/4 the amount of trimming I do per job. So relatively minute. I washed the surface and rinsed it off with a hose before hand (so not much if any grit on the surface). The rubber was not as hard as some examples.

Just now I checked the edge when I got home and it dulled it right in the area I was using to cut. The rest of the blade is still very sharp. That was the only thing I used the Rat on since my last post.

There was no rolling only dulling. The area isn't rough like the S110V would have been but I don't know how much more cutting I could have done and still had control of the cut.

Wednesday I will, hopefully, use that are of the edge again for more of the same until it won't cut precisely any more and then I will have my answer. This cut went really well; it did just what I needed it to do.
 
DeadboxHero,
DeadboxHero said:
I do :D
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Cool !
But you know me; mostly a folder man.
Maybe I could one day get one of your fixed blades in CPM-D2 about 3-1/2" to 4", relatively narrow like my flat ground Ti Lite . . . maybe make it stupid hard (I'm pretty easy on my knives). What would almost too hard be for CPM-D2? Like 62 ?

Samuraistuart
You said :
My ideal steel would be nothing but carbon and vanadium as alloying (plus a bit of Mn and Cr to make it deeper hardening/easier to heat treat). Like 1.2% carbon and 4% vanadium. The carbon % needs to be matched with the correct vanadium % to make sure there is enough carbon to harden the martensite matrix to 66HRC or so.
Click to expand...

But you wouldn't leave it there would you ? . . . I mean I'm all for it . . . and all about it . . . but some would just chip up a blade that hard . . . right ?
 
samuraistuart said:
4V will be a little "tougher" than M4, but M4 will have more wear resistance, and better for cutting abrasive materials.
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One time I ran into a big old box staple while cutting up a huge box with my Cold Steel 3V Pendleton Hunter (flat ground way thinner) and I couldn't hardly bare to look at what I had done to the edge . . .
NOTHING ! ! !
The blade put a good notch in that staple though !
4 V sounds :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

PS : If I ever ran into a staple with my Para 2 in M4 :mad: I might just have to punch my self in the face. But I never cut up boxes with it so I may be OK there .:rolleyes:
 
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