So I got another Hezhen, this time I really want to try their powdered steel, 14Cr14MoVNb, their listed composition is basically S35VN. (Tho funnily Xinzuo listed it with different Vanadium content, tho that might just be a mistake)
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The knife it self is ok, actually pretty good balance for a santoku, the ABS esque handle feels good in hand. The grind is pretty fat, I took 2 different choil shot so not to be too biased. It has a good blade road so you can thin it.
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But I am still bit skeptical about the 14Cr14MoVNb thing, the factory that supposed to produce it is a small one with 4 million rmb fund, which is not alot for metal production. And kind weird only these 2 brands are using it, usually the vultures in EDC circles will sniff any winds of new steel development and take the lead. So doing what any sensible person will do, I sent it to a lab for metallograph and hardness testing... The result is very mixed... Since the blade is cladded so take the composition and hardness with grain of salt, they try to polish the blade so the test area is exposed and as flat as possible but it could still be hitting the cladding material or layers with carbon migration, but the metallograph does look bit weird.. the graph is in order of 100, 200, 500 and 1000 times of magnification, maybe someone with more qualification can analysis it... So
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