All About Pocket Knives

Found this on Boker's webpage. Gives chemistry, hardness, and country of origin for current blade steels.
https://www.boker.de/us/index.php?c=1004

Cool rangerbluedog!
Im gonna put that on my Boker Notes site

I've always thought that the Solingen Germany carbon steel was made a little different than USA 1095 steel. I know that when I have a good Solingen German steel bladed knife, it's blade performance is really good. I noticed that the 1095 carbon steel on the chart has a good RC scale rating as the other super steels and the 1095 shows to have the least amount of carbon added to it's make up. Take a look at the carbon added to the other steels like ATS-34, CPM154, D2, S30V, S60V, and 440-C and their respectable RC scale ratings of them. Carbon 1095 rates right up there with the top steels. I know that the main factor for good steel is the tempering of the steel. A person would think that the cutlery companies would use 1095 more often.

Aimus

Hawke, that will be a good addition to your ever growing and informative site.

Aimus, you are correct. The chemistry doesn't tell the whole story. I've worked in a foundry and I can tell you that there is all sorts of "foundry black magic" that goes on. A lot of traditions in the foundry process come about just due to the preference of a single furnace operator. That's why a company can move it's foundry equipment from one location to another, keep the same official written process, and quality goes to crap... (or gets better)
The hardness is kind of misleading in blade quality because the blades are so thin it is difficult to get a good hardness measurement. The measurement is affected by whatever material is supporting the knifeblade when the hardness measurement is taken.

Most of the additives to steel - chromium and vanadium for instance - are there to speed up the creation of desired metallurgical properties. Without them the heat treatment process is extremely sensitive to time and temperature variations. So a lot of these additives, while expensive, help keep the HT process under control with a less experienced workforce. This is of course in addition to the rust prevention properties of additives like chromium.

Nice list, I added it to my stockpile

nice to finally get some details on some of the upper end german steels, and SPGS as well (been wondering about that one).

rangerbluedog wrote:Hawke, that will be a good addition to your ever growing and informative site.

Added a new link in the menu for "Misc Info" which holds that steel info. Thx Mr Ranger

Aimus Moses wrote: I know that the main factor for good steel is the tempering of the steel. A person would think that the cutlery companies would use 1095 more often.

Aimus

At the 2009 OKCA show I had the privileged to meet and talk with Paul Bos for close to an hour.
Paul, for those who don't know, is the Stainless Steel heat-treating guru who discovered a way to heat-treat ss for swords (as I recall), so that they didn’t break.
Paul now does all the heat-treating for Buck Knives.

(Personally, I think Paul Bos could heat-treat a ss soup can to where it would make a good knife blade. The guy is amazing!)

In speaking to him I mentioned I wished that Buck used carbon steel. From what he said, carbon steel, at least on a large manufacturing scale, is heat-treated using a salt bath. Apparently they are not set up for it any more.

At least in the case of Buck, it would be expensive for them to tool up to heat-treat carbon steel.
I do know that Carbon steel is now more expensive than ss. That was why Schrade switched many of their patterns to ss.

Apparently unless you do a lot of carbon steel like Great Eastern, the knives are much more expensive to produce.

I hope this answered part of your question Aimus.

Dale

Yes it did Dale and thanks. It just looks like if a knife company used a lot more carbon steel they could get it at a lower price by buying in bulk. I also see the other side of it to, a USA knife producing company has to compete with all the imports and so they have to cut their costs down as much as possible. I am glad GEC uses carbon steel on their knives. From my experience with GEC they have very good carbon steel blades. I have a few newer Boker knives in carbon steel but I have never used any of them. Boker used to offer a great carbon steel bladed knife. I really should break down and try one of the newer Boker knives to see how they compare to the older Boker carbon steel bladed knives.

Aimus

Boker Knife Gaucho Sodbuster Argentina ???

I wanted to buy one but but but ???

does any one know if this steel is as good of steel used in the Eye brand and Case knives?