Cost of goods per knife?

[Radar]

Did a quick search and didn't find exactly what I was looking for...

So, including consumables: steel, belts (one thing I'm looking for in particular is how many knives can be expected per belt,,, difficult question due to different stages of grinding and multiple grits), sandpaper, chemicals, pin and bolster material, scales (no hyper exotic stuff) etc., how much do you think you have invested into a knife? I realize steel is a huge wild card, so assume moderate to low priced steel, say, D2 being the high water mark. As for size, approximate a fixed, 6" blade, maybe 10" overall and 1 1/2" in width, 1/8" thick. Exclude the value of your time spent working on it and outside services for heat and cryogenic treating.

Thanks

Radar

[BigCountry86]

Its hard to say. I've spent as little as 5 bucks to make a knife all the way upwards to about 100. That's just materials. On average is say one knife with a sheath should be in the 15 to 25 dollar range.

[Doug Lester]

On the question of how many knives per belt that is going to vary. You will use the coursest grain the most. Figure one to maybe two knives at the most if they are small. You may be able to get a few blades from your fine grit belts that are doing more polishing than shaping. Either way don't try to get that last bit of use out of a belt. Treat them like they're $10/100.

Doug

[Ray Rogers]

Generally, about $75 for a fixed blade knife for me. As Doug said, use at least one coarse ceramic belt per knife (I use 60 grits) and you might get two or three knives off the finer grits. Treat belts like they are free or you will waste more than their cost in time and lost blades due to losing control of your grind and screwing it up beyond redemption. Also, if you're asking this question then definitely take D2 off your list of desirable blade steels. There are much better steels available now that are much less trouble ...

[Radar]

Thanks for everyone's input.

Ray, will you please expound on your D2 comment? What about it makes it less desirable to work with than other materials? I hope to do my own heat treat, so for me, easier to work with, but more troublesome heat treat may be a trade-off I need to consider.

Thanks.

-Radar

[Ray Rogers]

First let me say that D2 does make a good blade, there's no question about that. But, it can also make a not so good blade very easily. For a knife there is basically only one very narrow heat treatment that will produce good results so if you don't have your own electric furnace you will likely end up with a poor heat treatment (and that includes at least some of the commercial pros). D2 cannot be heat treated in a forge correctly as it is essentially a stainless steels (I know, only 12% chromium but tell that to the heat treat process). Also, not all D2 is equal - different manufacturers make slightly different versions and they don't HT the same. For this reason, I have made D2 blades that seem great and functioned well for over a year and then, for no apparent reason, cracked. Never had that happen with any other steel.

It has a peculiar 'orange peel' look to it when finished. If you have to grind on it post HT it can be a super bear to work with. Forget about polishing D2.

Let's say you solve all those issues with D2 and you get a nice blade. Granted, it will cut well and hold an edge well although most people would find it difficult to sharpen by hand. I have heard it said of D2 that "it takes a crappy edge and holds it forever". The other side of the coin is that there are other steels like S30V that are cost competitive with D2, easier to work with, no worse on the peculiarities of getting a good heat treatment, and will out perform (or be darned close) D2 in pretty much every category.

Personally, I don't need the aggravation ...

[racjarrett88]

Materials for me range from $20 up to say $70 or more if I want different steels which I will soon. For belts Trugrit.com is your best friend Thanks to Ray for recommending them to me.

[Gary Mulkey]

Originally Posted by Ray Rogers

The other side of the coin is that there are other steels like S30V that are cost competitive with D2, easier to work with, no worse on the peculiarities of getting a good heat treatment, and will out perform (or be darned close) D2 in pretty much every category.

It's funny how everyone has a different take on steels. I was one of the first to use S30V and went back to D2 because S30V had so much vanadium (4%) that my customer's started complaining that they couldn't sharpen it. I also felt that it was more demanding with the H/T than D2. (I no longer use D2 either as I have gone to forging all of my blades now and
D2, like most high alloy steels, doesn't forge well.)

I am a believer that your H/T'ing skills with a particular steel are much more important that the type of steel anyway. I use 1084 for my main steel now and don't feel that I have lost anything in performance. Everything has both good & bad sides and what you gain on one end you usually lose on the other.

I hope that I don't sound argumentative as that's not my intention here, it's just funny how everyone has a different take on things. The main thing is test your knives and know how what to expect from them.

Gary

Gary

[Ray Rogers]

Not argumentative at all and I agree completely with your basic premise. It took me quite a while to find the right way (for me, anyway) of heat treating S30V but I don't think my problem with D2 was the HT as much as variations in the steel I was buying. Of course, I could have made sure to buy the same version of D2 each time and worked with it until my results were acceptable - that's basically how we should always handle our steel but D2 in general didn't seem to suit me and I really believe that there are other steels that will produce as good a blade without the risks that seem to go with D2 (risks for someone who doesn't take the time to iron out the peculiarities of a particular brand of D2). Steels like S30V that are only produced by one manufacturer are inherently more likely to be consistent in their composition.

OK, well now maybe I'm being argumentative....

[Gary Mulkey]

When I was using a lot of D2 I also noticed quite a difference in the steel from order to order. Some good and some bad. I think the secret to the H/T was doing sub-critical stress relieving soaks at both 1200 & 1400 before H/T. That seemed to reduce the size of the carbide boundaries.

The only way I finally got what I wanted out of S30V was to talk with Ed Severson (who engineered it) about the H/T. The S30V also varied a lot from batch to batch. [One had so much vanadium migration that I sent it back.] I was using it in it's infancy though and they may have perfected the CPM process by now.

Gary

[Ray Rogers]

I'm sure you're right. I bought enough S30V at one shot to last me a few years so my process is secure for a while. Same thing could be done with D2, of course, but I wouldn't think it likely with a new knife maker like Radar.

I tried all the variations of the HT processes suggested by Crucible for S30V. They all worked but most only made an adequate blade. When I finally used the interrupted quench and a fast pro oil followed by cryo I finally got the kind of performance that they say an S30V blade should have. Anyway, S30V is not trivial to use and neither is D2 and that's the idea I wanted to get across to the new guys on this forum....

[BigCountry86]

All the cowboys down here don't buy stainless so I don't make many. I use mostly 1095 and 52100 due to what cunsumers like down here. It keeps my cost lower per knife

[Gary Mulkey]

Originally Posted by BigCountry86

All the cowboys down here don't buy stainless so I don't make many. I use mostly 1095 and 52100 due to what cunsumers like down here. It keeps my cost lower per knife

Two more steels with a tricky H/T, especially 52100. Good steels but not for the beginner.

Gary

[Radar]

Wow, thanks for all the replies. The costs mentioned are in line with what I expected.

Good information on D2 and S30V too.

I do have a heat treat oven, so temperature control should be pretty good, but the intricacies of the more complex steels may still be a challenge. I've seen it mentioned a couple of times that quench plates don't really work on tapered tang knives, which makes sense if good surface contact isn't maintained. But that raises the question of whether adequate contact is maintained on the grind as well. Or, does the tang conduct enough heat from the ground portion of the blade to cool it quickly enough to get good martensitic transformation?

Thanks again for all the information.

-Radar

[Ray Rogers]

Well darn! Seems like it's my lot in life, at least for this week, to be a lightning rod - first with my attitude about D2 and now with quench plates.

There are steels that like quench plates and there are many more steels that don't do as well with plates as they would do with some other process. Basically, any steel that can get properly hardened in still air (like 440C for instance) will do well with quench plates. That said, most steels will do better using oil than plates (even 440C can be done in oil although still air gives excellent results especially if followed by cryo).

When speaking of plates most people think of steel, some of aluminum. When quenching we want the heat to move as fast as possible since quenching is all about hitting the proper cooling rate. Steel plates are slow. Aluminum is faster, copper is faster still - but who has 1" thick copper plates? Not many, I'd guess. So, what you're doing with plates works but there is room for improvement.

Now, as to your original question, there is only one way to quench with plates that will give you the best results that you can get with plates and that is to quench the profiled blade and do your grinding afterwards. Lots of guys grind post HT anyway because it helps avoid other problems but with plates not doing so is a deal killer. That's my opinion for what it is worth and I'm sticking to it at least for the rest of the week ....