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In selecting steel, what we really need to do first is to determine what we want the blade to do.
The use of the item, and the characteristics we need will decide its optimal composition.
A soldier, a butcher, a surgeon and a gift-wrapper may all use knives, but what they are doing with them are completely different, as are their ability to maintain them. A surgeon may toss a multi-hundred dollar instrument, the soldier spend it reluctantly, but be unable to care for it and maintain it like the butcher, where the gift-wrapper will not spend over $10 for one, and will probably throw it out (or change blades) when dull.
The best steel is always going to be a compromise between multiple factors, only the user can decide whether a particular product is worth the price. For the soldier, I believe that the primary characteristic sought is toughness. For the butcher, it may be edge-holding, for the surgeon, it may be sharpness, for the gift-wrapper, it may be price.
Speaking of price, I know that steel prices are a portion of the finished product's costs, and that the time and abrasives it takes to prepare the steel is another portion of the cost. Clearly, CPM S-30V is a great steel for those serious users who can afford it, but is may not be the right steel for a knife going on the shelves at your local Wally-Mart.
Bill (or Mick, or any of the other makers here), can you elaborate at some point on the relative prices of the steel, the abrasives, the heat treat, and the time spent working it to the final cost of the knife?
Thanks much, great thread.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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