- Joined
- Apr 22, 2011
- Messages
- 460
I had a looong talk with some knifemaker friends at BLADE this year about S35VN. Its relatively new to the scene so there were problems early on nailing down the heat treat details but everyone agrees that its the new "Jack of all trades" stainless to beat. There are tougher, harder and more corrosion resistant alloys but nobody currently balances all these qualities as well as S35VN.
S30v can be a bit difficult to sharpen and once you do get a razor edge, depending on the blade geometry, the edge can chip out before rolling. S35VN was designed as a user's steel. It is easier to sharpen, tougher, and will hold an edge somewhere between CPM154CM and S30V. I tend to like bigger bevels in the 22-26 degree range so when I chose to use stainless I wanted something with plenty of toughness to back up the edge. A folded edge can be stropped back to alignment but a chipped edge must be ground back. Either way my knives ship out SHARP, razor sharp. Hell Greg Medford told me at BLADE that the TiTAN's were the sharpest knife to ever come into his shop.
Now the reason I got rid of the thumb stud from Gen1's design was two fold. Firstly I was unhappy about how the Gen1 knives closed. The long lockbar as a blade stop meant there was 10-15 thousandths of vertical lash when you squeezed the knife in the closed position. It felt....squishy. I talked with Greg about it and he made some real good suggestions. I am now using a hardened .25" stainless stop pin. No more titanium and steel meeting for lockup! The second reason for eliminating the thumb stud was utility. The TiTAN design has always been a flipper. It's quite difficult to deploy a 7oz blade without leverage and the thumb stud just didn't cut it.
S30v can be a bit difficult to sharpen and once you do get a razor edge, depending on the blade geometry, the edge can chip out before rolling. S35VN was designed as a user's steel. It is easier to sharpen, tougher, and will hold an edge somewhere between CPM154CM and S30V. I tend to like bigger bevels in the 22-26 degree range so when I chose to use stainless I wanted something with plenty of toughness to back up the edge. A folded edge can be stropped back to alignment but a chipped edge must be ground back. Either way my knives ship out SHARP, razor sharp. Hell Greg Medford told me at BLADE that the TiTAN's were the sharpest knife to ever come into his shop.
Now the reason I got rid of the thumb stud from Gen1's design was two fold. Firstly I was unhappy about how the Gen1 knives closed. The long lockbar as a blade stop meant there was 10-15 thousandths of vertical lash when you squeezed the knife in the closed position. It felt....squishy. I talked with Greg about it and he made some real good suggestions. I am now using a hardened .25" stainless stop pin. No more titanium and steel meeting for lockup! The second reason for eliminating the thumb stud was utility. The TiTAN design has always been a flipper. It's quite difficult to deploy a 7oz blade without leverage and the thumb stud just didn't cut it.
