|
Reaper,
Good overview, Your spot on about many things in your comments.
It is like trying to hit a moving target to find a tool steel that gives us the desirable performance traits in a knife and it does depend on the job your doing.
Let's stick to tactical knives and please remember:
"The biggest difference between knives is any knife over no knife at all"
(-Bob Loveless 1986, while I was his guest in his shop)
Yes we are guilty of trying to make the best possible knives with the best possible steel and it doesn't come cheap. The better the steel, the higher the price and we pay a premium for the steel alone and because of the properties we desire in the knife this correspondingly makes the manufacturing costs higher because of hardness and toughness to machine, grind and finish correctly .
CPM S-30V is running right at three to four times as expensive as other tool steels that knives could be made from. I haven't gone down the list of alloys and what they do yet so here is a start because it goes to "cost of making"..
CPM S-30V has, among other things, Vanadium in it, enough to form Vanadium carbides. Vanadium carbides are harder than the abrasive grit aluminum oxide. This is why this steel has some very good edge holding and abrasion resistance and it really sucks to grind and finish compared to other tool steels at the same hardness.
World markets are directly effecting the price we pay for steel. There is great competition for iron and all the other alloys that go in it. China is a huge factor in this situation. I'm seeing "surcharges" on my steel bill because of the added cost of getting particular alloys from various parts of the world.
This all goes to cost of manufacturing.
We also think the performance gained, as measured in toughness, edge holding and stain resistance, is worth it in life critical tools.
I would still take the knife forged out of a truck spring over no knife at all.
|