Knife World's Biggest LIE: "Super Steels" 

What steel do they use in their mower?

When was the last time you guys tested yourselves with a 3 night Bushcraft trip ?

That! Until true Damascus is reinvented

Comment for the a…

@@britishbrodog5473 uhhm. I guess your lady is a bushcrafter as well.😂 Mine prefers a mowed lawn

1095 continues to be one of my favorites.

Not the most entertaining but definitely your most thought provoking

Def check out 52100, as simple but better than 1095. Also read the UltraApex article by Larrin, it seems to be the best smithing steel.

@@sabelfechter7136 interesting I'll do some research thank you.

Heattreating supersteels is not hard at all. You cant really forge supersteels that is true, but making knives out of super steel is not complex at all. You just want to get an electric oven. You can diy one for very cheap. Also you will want to airplate quench the blades. Getting the right equipment might be a little investment, but no more than a proper propane heattreating setup would cost.

It's nothing but fish baits.

Agree Tony, I believe we should receive a 'free gift' from these young fellas, see how we made it to 56yrs.of age.🥳👍 I agree with your take on knives, I believe I've actually forgotten more than some even know of steels. Thankfully, I've wrote down my observations of my different steels over the years. 😄

Being a youngster at mere 54 years old i have to say that VG10 is my favorite steel by far. It is easy to sharpen and gets a very good edge that is fairly durable ( atleast if you treat the knife as a knife and not a crowbar or masonry chisel). But i am not a steel snob so anything that can get a good edge and keep it is okey by me.

1095 is allright, even great when it's been heat treated correctly. But 440C? I've never seen a 440C blade that holds an edge nor one that isn't ridiculously prone to corrosion. In my opinion, it's almost chinesium at this point. VG-10 beats it on all scales in my opinion and experience. And if you want something really stainless, I still haven't found anything better than H-1 steel: 6 weeks of scuba diving daily without rincing a spyderco fish hunter and it remained in pristine condition. Before knowing this steel, I only thought that some good 316L steel could achieve this level of rust resistance...

@@eddieguyvh4765 our ancestors survived with what was a lot less quality than 440c and they actually had to live off there tools. Why should anyone feel like they need some type of godly edge retention to get things done of you know how to sharpen a knife, edge retention shouldn't matter, to a extent.

If you can't bite it with a file then it's useless.

hahaha! kiss my 14C28N you, tycoon!

They seem good, I just wish they had a name I could pronounce or even just remember.

I wish they'd ship to England or find a distributor in UK.

@@TAIL313 Varusteleka? I live in Austria and no problem getting it shipped from Finland. Is this a new out of EU problem or are they too long/ forbidden in the UK?

@@AllTheGoodNamesGoneReally Yes, they didn't say when I asked them on the webchat on their website.

@@TAIL313 They should ship to UK. Unless it's illegal to order knives from abroad to Britain? This is what they say about ordering from UK: "How does Brexit affect ordering from the UK? As dictated by UK officials, UK VAT 20 % will be added to orders with a VAT excluded total of under 135 GBP. We will settle these taxes to the UK Gov. For orders with VAT excluded total of over 135 GBP, prices will be VAT free and you have to pay your local customs fees, taxes and duties when the item is delivered. Logistics companies, e.g. DHL Express, might also add a service fee for declaring your item on your behalf. Yes, we know that this is bat shit stupid."

Agree. I´m a Blacksmith from Germany and I like Buck knives, a lot. The blade geometry is also important. Buck does a great job. A knife has to be sharp and Buck does a great heat treating job.

How true, how true!!! I remember when I would purchase specific pieces....holding my breath and hoping everything was done correctly. I could always tell within one month of serious use and stropping, just trying to get that apex back together. If it wasn't good enough, send it back and try again. That's all you can do IMO.

❓ As a non-expert in steel heat treatment, I have some curiosity about the point you and the other ↓commenter alluded to: You mentioned that it can be a problem when a knife manufacturer sharpens the blades _after_ heat treating them, which you said can adversely affect the heat treatment at the knife's edge. Then, is it a viable option for the manufacturer to do all the sharpening _BEFORE_ performing the heat treatment

hahaha

Take care!

You can definetely make your own blades and it doesnt have to be expensive! 14c28n steel is very cheap, but if you want the best you can also buy magnacut stock. You will want to diy an electric heattreating oven, an airquench setup and something to grind out the blades. A 2x72 belt grinder would be best. You can diy one or buy one. Best would be to also get a surface grinder attachment, to make it perfectly flat, but you can also wing it by hand. What you want to do is flatten a piece of bar stock and get all the scale of the stock until you have a flat clean piece. Trace out the blade and grind it out, then work on the bevels (easiest is to do this with a jig), leave about 0,02inch on the edge of the knife because otherwise this part will warp during heattreat, drill the holes for the handle pins, start sanding it till you have a nice finish, put the knife in stainless steel foil and put in the heatreat oven and follow the heattreatment instructions on the datasheet of the steel you bought, airplate quench the blades, clean up the scale on the knife, grind in you final bevels, handsand the blade, make the handle pieces, attach the handle pieces the blade with pins and epoxy/bolts etc. Clean up the handle material and sand/grind flush with the blade. Sharpen the knife. Thats about it. If you are smart about it you can make a proper setup for less than 1000dollars

stop lying... you never skinned anything other than your knee.

​@@MovieGuy666 I killed my first chicken with a rusty knife (didn't have a hatchet) when I was 9, the world is a bigger place than the US and Western Europe, people still live like 100 years ago in many places. Hunters still exist, and yes they do have RU-vid lol.

Watch Destruction tests of F1, they break and chip very easily...

I’ve put mine through hell and I’ve had no issues, but saying that, I’ve only done that in the forest. I can imagine it would chip a bit in the urban jungle cutting through man made materials.

I have the brakimo and it's a beast. I found my lost BRK Aurora Scandi in cruwear the other day so I'm stoked to get it out and see how it performs.

I disagree with that, I have all sorts of fancy "super steels" and still my mostly used and favourite knives are made from well heat treated o1 tool steel, and my every day carry folder is bohler n690co.. never once had an issue with edge retention, corrosion or chipping with those like I have with the super steels which microchip and have nowhere near the same toughness, super steels have been nothing but a pain in the ass in my opinion, everyone is obsessed with edge retention these days and it's silly, it's really not at all hard to sharpen a knife and an edge that lasts ages generally is a very brittle edge. I'd much rather have a dc3 tucked away in my back pocket where it's barely noticeable and carry an o1 tool steel over a super steel that might last a long time, assuming you don't need to do any kind of minor prying and clean snap the tip off, or cut into a slightly sandy piece of wood or slightly knock it on something hard and chip the edge causing an hour plus worth of sharpening to fix lol worst I've ever had with my main users is a slight roll which takes minutes to fix anywhere any time with a dc3 of dc4. Super steels are overpriced, over hyped, and harder to maintain while being able to take less abuse, there's a reason the old steels have been used for over 100 years, it's because they work, and they work well. The best part is the majority of people don't even use their knives like I do and constantly put them through their paces, they literally spend crazy money on a fancy steel to do nothing more than open packaging and letters and think a super steel will be better because they're crap at sharpening knives.. so when that super steel loses its edge or chips on them, they haven't got a hope in hell of being able to sharpen it since they're far more difficult and less forgiving to sharpen lol

Yes thats a good way to explain it. One also sees this with thomas larrins test data on knifesteelnerds. And then people that know nothing about knifes (see the person with the comment above me as an example) get confused when e.g. a maxamet breaks but dont realize that there the "points" mainly went into edge retention. while with 3V it mainly goes into thoughness and magnacut has a very good balance.

I will take high carbon tool steel for outdoors use. Can't beat a oldie.

Yeah, and the company that does the blades for varusteleka makes ton of blades to different companies. Thats actually where most finnish small knife company blades Come from, but you can buy loose blades for like 5-20€ put your own handle on it instead of buying knife for like 50-150€. That company really is like mora just churning out quality blades. Especially they seem to have nailed the 80crv2 steel.

I've had several Moras over the years. The only reason I've had more than one is because I keep passing them onto other people in need of a good dependable blade. I've definitely "abused" them more than i deemed necessary, but they never failed me, and they kept an edge for quite long. Sure, I could have kept those knives, but it was more important to me to make sure someone else had a dependable blade... And hopefully, in using that blade, their eyes were opened a bit more to the vast world of quality knives. I'm always about raising my own and other people's standards if I can lol

@@Elektroslag If you look up Mora Companion on Amazon you will find it listed as being sold by "The Mora Store." In the product description is the following: "The Morakniv Companion is an all-in-one knife made for outdoor enthusiasts. Equipped with a patterned, high-friction grip, it’s comfortable to hold and easy to handle. It also features a 4.1-inch (104 mm) blade made of 1095 carbon steel that reaches a hardness of HRC 58-60."

@@Elektroslag I think it can vary. When I looked at the Mora site it says its "carbon" blades are made from C100, and elsewhere I found that C100 is similar to 1095. Another site says that C100 is essentially identical to Sandvik 20C Shock Absorber. My main point is that Mora is NOT using "super steels."

In dbk shorts they held it already. But No Video yet

there is literally zero reason to make powder metallurgy versions of basic carbon steels. like literally none. it will not make any difference to their performance.

I have a SURVIVE! GSO 7/7 (now discontinued unfortunately) and it's an absolute beast. I highly reccomend anything they produce. They're basically indestructible 😂

Nah gold titanium tungsten alloy

I own loads of knives and made a lot over the years, I actually hate most of the super steels I own and find them brittle, fragile and more hassle than they're worth as well as massively overpriced, my most used, and cherished blades are made of o1 tool steel and it's never let me down, people complain about rusting, but I hand sand my finishes and let them naturally patina because I use them for literally everything skinning, gutting, carving, prying, splitting, cutting both acidic and non acidic foods etc, and I live on a tiny island surrounded by salt water where it's raining most of the time all year round and even when it's not raining and the suns shining in summer it's still damp, worst rust I've ever encountered is literally a couple of tiny surface spots which I don't worry about until I get home and rub them off with a little 1000 grit sand paper. People just need to learn how to take care of a tool steel and it will reward them with toughness and reliability far beyond any of the super steels I've bought and used. And even if you roll the edge or it goes dull on you, it takes no time at all to get it back to shaving sharp unlike the super steels which need expensive diamond stones or 300 plus worth of sharpening jig set ups because most people got no chance of free hand sharpening them and most stones aren't hard enough to do the job. Old school steel is the best, it wasn't broke so I don't know why anybody tried to fix it.

@@MDM1992if your ‘super steels’ are brittle literally stop buying steels specifically intended for edge retention then. get steels made for high toughness, such as cruwear, 4v, 3v. those steels literally double and in the case of 3v more than TRIPLE the toughness of o1 steel.

yeah, nitrogen is really interesting, makes it stainless and also tough like non stainless steels

Any particular knives good for batoning and generally decent all around, made out of this steel?

@@justinw1765 have a look at Mora

Maybe it's obvious but the Mora Garberg (stainless version) is made of that steel

you’re objectively wrong. magnacut beats 14c in basically every category. 3v is tougher AND has almost double the edge retention, only downside is less corrosion resistance but 3v is still plenty rust resistant. 4v and cruwear are much tougher with better edge retention, and none of these 4 steels are even close to hard to sharpen. 14c is fine if you refuse to actually spend significant money, but it’s not the most balanced nor the best choice.

Also keep in mind, that most super steles on "Factory" made knives, won t come heat treated properly. it will have a medium quality heat treatment at best, if not a low quality one. If you want a real proper user knife, that will also last and will have way higher value and feel..then go full custom. Semicustom like LT Wright and TRC knives, is also a good choice, and the closest thing, to Custom knife quality, than any other brand out there. My personal favorite for an outdoor knife, is the ballbearing steel on custom knives. (WAY better than any CPM 3V commercial blade out there.;

@@greekveteran2715HAHAHA lt wright literally heat treats their knives like shit. they run EVERY steel soft. also, if a factory edge is done on a belt grinder it doesn’t ruin the heat treat. it ruins the temper on the very edge, and this is literally solved with just a full reprofile of the edge.

The bk2 is a crazy deal for the price. Back in the days it was even more crazy at $50

@@DutchBushcraftKnives Back in those days it was made by Camillus in 3/16" 50100-B instead of KaBar in over-thick 1/4" 1095 Cro-Van, so Camillus BK2 CUT WELL PLUS was/is Still a Solid Knife.

Buck knives model 119 and 124 are excellent and they are 420 hc ss.. Its in the heat treat!!