Jerry,
Is it out yet or have you nuked 'em???

Craig

It's out, but only in small sample quantities. Contact Bruce DiVita at Crucible Steel.

800-365-1168

bdivita@crucibleservice.com

Jerry,

Have you finished any of the S30V yet? I was wondering about the difficulty of finishing it compared with S60V or S90V? Does the lower vanadium content make it any easier, for example, to put a hand rubbed satin finish on it. I am guessing it will not mirror finish? Thanks.

Schuyler

Hey Schuyler! I've just ground the blades and they should be on their way back from Paul Bos today I think. Judging from the grinding, which was a bit tougher than 3V, I'd say these are not going to be any fun to finish, but I'll know better by the end of next week.

BTW, despite the name S30V, it contains 4% Vanadium.

Update. S30V was a real b*tch to finish. It hung onto scratches like it owned them. I finished 2 blades (7 & 10") and they each took me a full day. The problem appears at about 400 grit, and just won't go away. Speaking with Rob Simonich, it was suggested this may be like S90V and needs to be pretty thoroughly finished before tempering. The blades were hardened to Rc60.

Here's a pic of the first one. It's a 10-1/2" fighter with stabilized Black Palm handle. I intentionally made is long thin and pointy for testing purposes. If It's going to break, Mario Dominguez who does my testing will do it.

http://hossom.com/pix5/img14.jpg

Jerry,

I just ordered my first 30V from Bruce and am curious, what grit did you take the blade to before you sent it to Paul and how much of your finish grinding do you do after HT?

Gary Mulkey

I didn't take it far enough Gary. I usually take my blades to 220 and get them dead even, then just a once over quickly with 400. With the next lot of S30V, I'll likely finish grind them to NO scratches left, before heat treating.

Jerry,

That's good to know. Sorry you had to learn the hard way but then again pioneering something new is half the fun.

I just ordered a small amount of it. Enough to make maybe twelve fixed and eight folders. I'm anxious to give it a try.

Gary