Whatever happened to Stellite 6K?

[Brad]

I don't see many blades made out of it, but I've heared that it's one of the best 'steels' available.:confused:

[Don Cowles]

Talonite, which is pretty much the same thing, sort of took over the limelight for a while, but, in truth, you can't beat a good alloy steel for a knife blade.

[J.Arthur Loose]

Good old steel.

Everything else is a flash-in-the-pan bit of marketing, if you ask me.

[Brad]

Pardon my ignorance, but what makes alloy steel better?
Machinability?
Durability?
Edge-holding?
Thanks

[Jerry Hossom]

Originally posted by J.Loose
Good old steel.

Everything else is a flash-in-the-pan bit of marketing, if you ask me.

You serious?

That's more than a little bit offensive...



Alloying is usually used to increase the carbide content to make a steel more wear resistant, or to refine the grain structure to make it tougher, or to add chromium to make it corrosion resistant, or to make it more heat resistant, or some combination of all of those. Stellite/Talonite provides high carbide content in a heat tolerant cobalt matrix that won't rust.

[J.Arthur Loose]

I didn't mean to offend.

A. I'm stuck in the Dark Ages. It's just my personal take on the gains to be had by new materials.

B. It isn't the materials that are to blame. It is the marketing that accompanies the materials. And I'm definitely not singling you out, Jerry... you don't really do the kind of marketing that bugs me, which, again, is just a personal thing.

C. I'm personally more interested in the beauty of materials than small gains in performance by various materials. That doesn't make my knives or knives that I like objectively 'better,' just as a knife made with newer alloys is or isn't 'better'. A good knife is a good knife, until you have specific needs. Corrosion / heat resistance for a knife being used in those environments is a good thing.

D. So to answer the question of what makes the good old simple alloy steels better... it's just a personal thing. A Ju-Ju thing. Don't mind me.

[HJK]

I think that price and availability really became a problem. I have a few stellite 6k and talonite blades and they're very good, especially in corrosive environments. But i do like my knives a little harder and I'm wary of the edge rolling under high impacts. That might be a factor too.

[Jerry Hossom]

NOBODY has greater contempt for some of the mystical BS some people ascribe to their miracle steels than I do. I won't name names; it's probably not necessary. The best of steels can fail and the worst of steels can do the job if they're used properly. The difference is not in the alloy, but how it's used, how it's processed and fashioned, and for what it's used.

Because a steel rusts doesn't make it better. Because someone heats it and beats it doesn't necessarily make it better. Because it comes out of a highly sophistocated process using a largish number of alloying elements certainly doesn't make it less. A few highly respected knifemakers panned CPM-3V when it first came out, and none (I'm aware of) bothered to later admit their heat treating process failed to harden it properly. I'm aware of a very highly regarded Mastersmith whose personal blade chipped out while attempting a cut that had already been made several times by an S30V blade from a competent stock removal knifemaker. Success or failure wasn't defined by the steel, but how it was used and the purpose for which it was made.

There are a goodly number of smiths who seem to think that because their steel is forged it is necessarily better, ignoring those unfortunate instances where it simply breaks when it's quenched, as though the flaw that caused that somehow disappears when the steel is tempered, or that an edge hardened blade does little to keep that hard edge from chipping. That's as much BS as the luney high alloy guys who claim their mystery steel is superior simply because they say it is or because it outperformed someone else's factory blade, or because it has more vanadium or more of anything else for that matter.

This is the high performance knife forum. It about knives that perform the task for which they're designed better than others. It doesn't matter what the steel, or non-steel, or how it looks, or who made it. It only matters that it performs, whether that is cutting rope and slicing cigarette paper or opening ammo cans and digging through mud walls or quartering and skinning out a moose. Personal preferences don't matter. This isn't a beauty contest; it's about p-e-r-f-o-m-a-n-c-e, and all the ways in which that word is reflected in a knife blade, nothing else matters...

Back to the point of this thread. Stellite/Talonite makes some very useful small blades, but it isn't generally tough enough to handle heavy chopping, prying, etc. That's primarily due to the fairly soft cobalt matrix, somewhere in the high '40s Rc. I've carried a Talonite blade for three years, using it most everyday for whatever was needed. I've sharpened it once, though I admit it's a bit overdue for a touchup. Some nice things about it: It can't rust - no iron, it's non magnetic which is very handy sometimes, and it holds a serviceable edge for a very long time, longer even than some of those mystical steels.

[J.Arthur Loose]

Jerry,

I didn't certainly mean that new alloys don't actually have performance advantages... they do; I was just being flippant about marketing claims that some things are better than the last thing, when in fact, as you point out, different materials are better for different purposes.

Does obsidian still hold the record on sharpness? I know it's close... ( Serious question... I read an article about surgeons using it... but I do think it funny that our most ancient knives just might have been our sharpest.)

And in deference to your position in this forum, if I had noticed that it was the performance forum when I first posted I would have spoken less tritely. I knew I was kinda being a smartass... sorry 'bout that.

[Jerry Hossom]

No problema. I get in trouble with one liners myself often enough.

You're right about obsidian and similar blades. They used in medicine for slicing tissue specimens where the cutting edge needs to be fine enough to slice through a single cell without distorting it. That's FINE!

On the other hand a fellow named Cortez pretty clearly established that obsidian sucked for sword blades...

[Don Robinson]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jerry Hossom
[ The best of steels can fail and the worst of steels can do the job if they're used properly. The difference is not in the alloy, but how it's used, how it's processed and fashioned, and for what it's used.

Because a steel rusts doesn't make it better. Because someone heats it and beats it doesn't necessarily make it better. Because it comes out of a highly sophistocated process using a largish number of alloying elements certainly doesn't make it less. ]


I'm with you, Jerry. I'm a true custom knifemaker. I select the steel type with the buyer's primary usage in mind. The way the knife will be used determines the steel type, thickness, size, length, etc., then the heat treat and hardness must be varied to suit the use.

Proper heat treating and metallurgy, along with edge geometry are the most important factors, not the latest fad.

In my opinion, a knifemaker who uses his favorite steel for everything isn't keeping his customer's best interests in mind.

I admit, though, that I'm highly partial to air hardening steels.

For me, function and performance come first. Looks and pretty thingies are last. If it won't function as intended, it's just a knife-shaped object, and it may be a beautiful work of art, but it ain't no knife.

[J.Arthur Loose]

For me, function and performance come first. Looks and pretty thingies are last. If it won't function as intended, it's just a knife-shaped object, and it may be a beautiful work of art, but it ain't no knife.

I know we're getting sidetracked in the Performance Forum... but I don't think this has to be an either-or issue. I think the Japanese attitude toward swords is a good example.

I think it is possible for looks & pretties to have the same emphasis as performance; which is to say that I make a blade that will most definitely fulfill its functional requirements... but at what point is a knife over-engineered for its intended purpose? I think in some ways the creation of the "ultimate blade," is just as much of an esoteric statement as the creation of the most "beautiful blade".

[Jerry Hossom]

There's always a balance between form and function, but I've found that form usually follows function anyway, so if you make the knife with a careful eye to performance it usually looks fairly appealing.

"Over-engineered" sort of depends on its purpose. Some certainly are, and some are just heavy chucks of steel that do little more than an axe. They're not over-engineered; they're really under-engineered for the purpose. Some blades are too pretty to justify hard use, simply because doing so would mar the art.

Sometimes the quest for beauty loses its purpose. A drop dead beautiful hamon might well leave the edge too hard and/or the spine too soft to make the resulting blade useful in a practical sense. And sometimes the search for performance loses its purpose because the maker focusses on values that apply to other knives than the one he's building, like a blade-heavy fighter or a chopper with too fine an edge, even though it pops hair like the maker wanted.

In the end, the perfect knife is the one the person who uses it decides is perfect based on his individual wants and needs, which may in fact have less to do with performance than it does his ego. As I recall, we tried this exercise on here, asking what were the measures of performance that people sought. I think ease of sharpening ranked number one.

[Don Robinson]

I don't want to seem argumentative, that's not my intent. To each his own.

I admire embellishments and beauty as much as anyone, but first, for me, the mechanical requirements are of primary importance.

If the mechanical functions are provided, and the knife will perform in the best way for the application as intended, for the knifemaker and the buyer, then any embellishments that are added increase the value in my eyes.

I'd love to be able to sculpt and engrave like others on the forums.

I'd also like to be a better photographer.

[J.Arthur Loose]

I'm not looking for arguments.

I'm just in a wierd, introspective, art, beauty, form, function, craft, excellence, performance, design, purpose-in-life questioning place.

I've been asking lots of difficult questions of myself and of others. I'm trying to figure something out but I'm not sure what it is yet.

It's all tied in though.

Thanks for the thoughts and thanks for putting up with me!