About a year ago I decided I wanted to have a pocket knife to pull my pants farther down my butt. I recounted the experience on WC about the time everything electrical went hinky on WC. I managed to post a truncated version of my masterpiece article, and forgot about the matter. Well, I am back to report on the winners. I selected two knives to buy. They were not cheap experiments.
I think Boker and Case were in a competitive mood and surprised the world with actual carbon steel blades on a couple of their models. Both brands peddle the 'Made in China' dining table stainless I've sneered at for over 50 years. As a matter of fact that is nearly all that is available from Smokey Mountain. I got a Case ?peanut? in "VC" steel; it looked so fragile, I use it to breakdown cardboard boxes for recycle. It's like having three quarters in my pocket. Maybe, two. The peanut is a delight to touch up on a leather strop. I understand it is made in the USA. Other than cardboard I use it to shape tooth picks from coffee stir sticks. The sturdiness is frightening.
The Boker is made in Solingen, Germany. Oddly, Boker was a USA made brand. Then at some point made in both countries. Unlike the peanut, it is twice the size and three blades rather than the two peanuts. I still have one of the Boker blades to finish shaping to my desire. The steel feels harder than Peanut, but that could be difference in mass.
My experience with pocket knives from before China trash was rust. Not so with these two knives. I am suspicious of their provenance. There is a tiny tic of discoloration on one blade, but the verdict is original polish where sharpening stones didn't touch. Of course, polish is a way to postpone rust. However, these steels are mostly reworked on water stones; and no discolor.
It seems I should identify the steels used in these two brands. All I have for the Case is "VC", or what I call Vanadium Carbon. The VC is wickedly keen after slapping leather a few times. It will easily slice thin fleshy strips of skin. The Boker uses a common (to Germany) steel, and can't be reprimanded any more than the Case.
My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
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Re: My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
#2Case CV used to be something called Sharon 50-110B or 50-110B or something. Also referred to as Carbon V. It's not something you or I can just buy, but it stands out to me because the alloying (chromium and vanadium) sequesters some of the carbon so it's not as brittle as full hardness 1095, and hardenability and slowing of grain growth is improved.
By the way, they would sometimes refer to it as 1095 or 1095CV, but it isn't the same steel as literal 1095 that you can buy as bar or as spring steel.
If carbon is in surplus in the steel matrix, you won't get something that is resistant to breaking while prying. So I googled around and see that the speculation is the steel is now .85% carbon version or something. What that does to hardness, I don't know, but it will improve a blade's ability to avoid breaking by a factor of probably 2 or 3. And the edge will be fine enough - should make a great knife, and at the temper knife makers use (again, preventing breaking is top job number 1 because the optics of breaking blades and the flow of returns according to larrin is high when a knife breaks - even long after any warranty is gone).
I know less about the boker because there are so many boker products from so many different places. I've got a stockman from china and I had one from germany (that one is gone - tree brand or something?...or maybe still have it). The chinese made stockman has some kind of lower carbon carbon steel blades, but it's a decent knife otherwise.
Out of curiosity, I went out to see what case uses for stainless. A couple of references say they use a fancy name for steel that's just 420HC, which is just about everywhere. 420HC is a good steel, ultra fine in terms of the structure but with a ceiling on hardness that knife tests suggest lands around 56.5 with buck knives. You can buff it or hone strop the apex off and then the lack of chisel hardness isn't that noticeable. The key other than it being widely used is it's really hard to break compared to something like 440C. Again, probably 4 times as much prying force needed to break it.
If you're stropping the edge with compound, there's probably enough fat/oil in your regime to prevent rust.
(fwiw, the boker tree brand knife that i have or had has much less good action opening and closing than the chinese knife, and it seemed really inexpensive for something from Germany. I think it's just being made and put together and not with the care that goes into a typical case knife, let alone something like tidioute).
Ontario and others moved away from 1095CV/CarbonV, sharon whatever. The reason they did is right down the alley for this subforum - it's more difficult to get a 1% carbon steel to have good toughness even though we really like the edges a steel like that has, and we're in the era of the internet, people returning things and much less care than my relatives would've had. they'd have protected a $50 knife like they'd spent their last nickel on it.
Re: My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
#3Peter must have moved my post to Metallurgy (Toolmaking?)
David, the Boker is a "Tree Brand" and priced to give bloody noses. It really should have gone back to Germany . . . and, been finished. I shaped everything to remove sharp corners (which happened to match the marketing photos) and get the blades where I want them in sharpness. Its metal is also softer than the Case. To add irritation, the big blade's edge smacks into the spring? back-plate(?) when closed. A chunk of leather was stuffed into the liner and protects the edge temporarily.
Re: My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
#4
Opinel no 8. My daughter stole it.
It's nothing super special but I used it all the time. Not really in to knives except kitchen knives and my favourite marking knife which is almost worn out.
My daughter collects knives. She did let me keep my cudemon folding knife. I use it open feed bags for the chicken's mostly.
Re: My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
#5Hmnmmmmm???
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Re: My adventure with recently produced carbon steel pocket knives
#6
@Bruce McCrory,
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If you see a message about an expired token, just select Preview and it will create a new one. I wish the message were clearer, because it implies everything you typed lost, but that is not the case.