Uddeholm is a large steel company that puts out massive amounts of steel. The problem is they haven't made much headway into the custom knife market due to not having a distribution method geared for us. I talked to them three times at the Blade show last spring. They made some changes to their distribution process and I made some concessions to my "asks".
These guys have some fantastic steels that would be good for the custom knife market. I finally got hooked up with them, worked out some logistics issues and have several hundred pounds of assorted steel shipping next week.
I also asked them to give me some Elmax steel to hand out for testing.
They came up with 50 bars of .148"x1.5"x10" to give away! :biggrin:
(I am holding back 10 bars for testing myself:nothing
but I need some help figuring out a couple things. :confused2:
1. How do I get this steel out to makers that will make a knife out of it and test it? We need to see how tough this steel is and how well it holds an edge.
2. Since this is new and we need to make a little noise about this stuff to help get it off the ground, how do we do that? Marketing baby. The best steel in the world isn't any good if no one knows about it.
What if we gave out one (or two) bars and (one) came back as a finished knife to KnifeDogs and was raffled off with all proceeds going to prizes for the build off winners?
Can we have a tough knife contest?
What else can we do?
Some back ground on this steel.
It is double vacuum smelted particle technology steel. Very much like some of the CPM stuff.
Composition is: C 1.7, Si 0.8, Mn 0.3, Cr 18.0, Mo 1.0, V 3.0
Lots of chrome for corrosion resistance. 3% Vanadium fine grain, tough carbides. Plenty of carbon.
Talking to the factory VP, he says to get this to 62RC since it is so tough it shouldn't chip out. That hardness gives it huge edge holding. Drop it to 59RC and it's tough as heck.
I'll attach two files here. One is heat treating information, another is a general information brochure. Download it and save a copy for reference.
So, how we going to do this?
Suggestions?
These guys have some fantastic steels that would be good for the custom knife market. I finally got hooked up with them, worked out some logistics issues and have several hundred pounds of assorted steel shipping next week.
I also asked them to give me some Elmax steel to hand out for testing.
They came up with 50 bars of .148"x1.5"x10" to give away! :biggrin:
(I am holding back 10 bars for testing myself:nothing
but I need some help figuring out a couple things. :confused2:
1. How do I get this steel out to makers that will make a knife out of it and test it? We need to see how tough this steel is and how well it holds an edge.
2. Since this is new and we need to make a little noise about this stuff to help get it off the ground, how do we do that? Marketing baby. The best steel in the world isn't any good if no one knows about it.
What if we gave out one (or two) bars and (one) came back as a finished knife to KnifeDogs and was raffled off with all proceeds going to prizes for the build off winners?
Can we have a tough knife contest?
What else can we do?
Some back ground on this steel.
It is double vacuum smelted particle technology steel. Very much like some of the CPM stuff.
Composition is: C 1.7, Si 0.8, Mn 0.3, Cr 18.0, Mo 1.0, V 3.0
Lots of chrome for corrosion resistance. 3% Vanadium fine grain, tough carbides. Plenty of carbon.
Talking to the factory VP, he says to get this to 62RC since it is so tough it shouldn't chip out. That hardness gives it huge edge holding. Drop it to 59RC and it's tough as heck.
I'll attach two files here. One is heat treating information, another is a general information brochure. Download it and save a copy for reference.
So, how we going to do this?
Suggestions?
Attachments
Last edited: