Elmax Test from the Raffle

Jericoh

Well-Known Member
Afternoon Gang,

I finally got to finish me knife made form the bar of Elmax from the raffle and just got done testing it out. All I can say is holy moly, this stuff is awesome. I didn't get any photos of the bar when I got it to start this off right, but picture in your head a long rectangle of steel, that's gray, and that's what it started as.

As soon I started grinding the bar, I must say I was starting to feel all warm and fuzzy about it. There seemed to be much less cast off and sparks. Heck I was still downright clean after grinding it, relatively speaking. It also seemed to grind much more easily than 1095 or CPM154CM.

Anyway, I got it back from heat treat got it finished and took it out to play today.

Here it is before the work began:

Elmax-Proto-1.jpg


And yes she is hair popping sharp:

Elmax-Proto-2.jpg


So I got down to work. This is a limb off an oak stree that fell in my back property that has turned into my chopping target. For such a light knife, being on 5/32" it chopped surprisingly well:

Elmax-Proto-3.jpg


After chopping for about 30 minutes, I set out to make fuzz sticks and tent stakes. I didn't get a shot of the fuzz sticks, but this knife is so sharp that it made the daintiest fuzz sticks ever. I ended up making about 20 of them. Then I made 4 tent stakes and used the knife to hammer them into the ground a few times each:

Elmax-Proto-4.jpg


Then I got to playing around and throwing the knife. After about the 37th throw I got it to stick:

Elmax-Proto-5.jpg


After about 37 more throws I called it quits. It's freakin' 95 degrees out here.

Gave it another little shaving test and yes, still hair popping sharp:

Elmax-Proto-7.jpg


I found this little fungus out there. Don't know what it is but I thought it was cool

Elmax-Proto-6.jpg



Then when I got back in the house and got myself some sweet tea, I noticed that my wife's new Victoria's secret catalog had come in the mail. Not seeing her around I quickly set the edge of the knife on the catalog at about a 45 degree angle and with not a whole lotta force at all, dragged it across the catalog. All the way to page 89 was cut clean, page 90 had a slight scratch in it. Totally unscientific but the thing is a slicer.

Elmax-Proto-8.jpg
 
Here's a slight addendum. I found some stuff around the shop to cut up. First is a cardboard tube. I just went round and round cutting it down to size. I got to 230 someodd cuts before I lost count.

Elmax-Proto-9.jpg



Then I went on to cutting more cardboard. I sliced up a pretty fair sized box into little strips. Over 150 cuts before I got board with that.

Elmax-Proto-10.jpg


The hairs have learned their lesson, now they just leap off of me to avoid the blade.

Elmax-Proto-11.jpg




One thing I failed to mention in the main post. I usually do my edge bevels at a nominal 30 degrees. For this knife I took it down to 28 degrees and tried some chopping and it held, so I took the bevel to 25 degrees and that is where it is still. If I wasn't having so much fun slicing stuff up, I might try to take it to 24 or 23 degrees, but I'm pretty happy where it is.
 
While not nearly as cool as donning a hockey mask and trying to chop a cinder block, which I have always thought was really a special-education type thing, I did decide to really test the edge and cut a used 36 grit ceramic belt. That little knife actually made 4 cuts through the belt before the belt finally said "I created you and now I'mma mess you up."

P1010372.jpg


All in all I thought 4 cuts was pretty darn good. After the first 2 cuts the edge was still fine, after the 3rd it started getting a little wonky and then after the 4th the knife went running for the sharpener.
 
good test. I need to make a few kitchen knives out of that stuff and give them to my wife. She can dull any knife in no time.
 
Educational and entertaining. Thanks for this thread Jericoh.
What hardness did you HT the knife to?
 
Thanks bjohnson. The knife was heat treated, triple tempered and cryo treated by Peters to 58RC. So not terribly hard for such outstanding edge retention.
 
Sounds cool Jericoh. I like steels that can really hold an edge without being so screaming hard you can't sharpen the dang thing when it does start to get dull. :thumbup:
 
So I took a little vacation with the family to an island off the coast of South Carolina. I took along the Elmax knife and also a knife made from CPM154CM for some high humidity and salt water testing.

07fe3113.jpg



I have to say, the Elmax kicked the CPM's butt in rust resistance. The Elmax knife, which is the smaller one in the photo, spent more time in the surf, went swimming with me, and was basically put away wet, with no lube what so ever, didn't show a single sign of rust. The CPM154CM knife started to develop rust after it's first dip in the ocean. It never got bad, just small rust spots.

The Elmax keeps continuing to impress me.
 
By the way... on the CPM154CM knife on the right, that is Boss's MCAM G10. I freakin' love that stuff.
 
Good looking knife and a good write up on your testing. As someone else said -"educational and entertaining". Thanks for posting this.
 
Thanks for the updates. I like CPM-154 very much, and it's great to see the bar has been raised again. Next we need a comparison between ElMax and CTS-XHP, because in my little bit of testing the XHP is edging out CPM-154, too.
 
Back
Top