No Love for VG-10?

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VG10 knives have made a lot of kitchen moms happy at Christmas time through the years.They are popular at places like Bed,Bath and Beyond and what have you.I don't get out much and pretty much stay on the farm so I tend to search the web and buy lots of good carbon or ginsanko knives and bookoo stones to sharpen them.Thanks KKF.;)
 
Wouldn't call it chippy. Factory edges might be, but than the steel isn't to blame. What some report as micro-chips are perhaps wire edges or other burr remnants.
 
I believe as stated above, when the likes of Shun became popular, people had no idea how to properly care for them, and the steel took a bad rap. I dont think Shun is any more chippy than any other ots jknife. I do think the initial edge is fragile, and needs a good run on the stones otb.

Also, I would put Tanaka and Saji VG10 against just about any basic stainlesses out there. Takeshi Saji, in particular has some wonderdul stuff out there in vg10.
 
By 'chippy' I mean it within the context of other knife steels. If you compare it to knives made from simple spring steels, you really can't get VG10 to hold the same fine angles as a spring steel without something going wrong. Call it what you will, an inappropriate angle for the steel, or just a chippy edge - It's different sides of the same coin to me. I love VG10, but it just doesn't seem to have as much toughness as many other options.
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Kippington said:
By 'chippy' I mean it within the context of other knife steels. If you compare it to knives made from simple spring steels, you really can't get VG10 to hold the same fine angles as a spring steel without something going wrong. Call it what you will, an inappropriate angle for the steel, or just a chippy edge - It's different sides of the same coin to me. It doesn't seem to have as much toughness as many other steels.
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What's the knife?
 
It's one of my lasers made from spring steel. I can't get this kind of an angle on a VG10 knife, the thing would fail so fast...

Oh and it's not just the spring steels either, I'd be willing to bet that many of the PM steels have a higher toughness than VG10 too, even if they have a higher hardness.
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Don't get me wrong though, toughness is only one aspect of the steel to take into consideration. I still enjoy using VG10 for its other neat properties. :)
 
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I'm an ignorant about metallurgy, but remember photos of VG-10 having quite large, randomly distributed carbides.
 
Mjdavid said:
Th

Where did you see a quartz watch priced at $1,000?
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I have one of these, which is WAY over $1,000 just because I like the styling and materials. Basically an expensive Swatch.

I also have a Shun VG10 Santoku that is actually pretty decent, but goes completely unused. Mostly what I use are non-stainless Aogami Super or #1 or White #1 knives. I do have a 230mm stainless Saji yanagiba that gets occasional use when I don't want to get my larger Yani out. It's too short to be useful as a true Yani.
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Shun vg10 used to be chippy, not just out of the box I've seen many and sharpened many, since for a time these were the jknives to get. To be fair they opened many eyes to what kitchen knives could be. I am with Jules, maybe it's the angle that the steel and that particupar heat treat couldn't take. Tanakas by all the reports don't suffer from the same and they are pretty thin behind the edge with seemingly steep angles.
 
Kippington said:
Oh and it's not just the spring steels either, I'd be willing to bet that many of the PM steels have a higher toughness than VG10 too, even if they have a higher hardness.
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not very likely I'd say.

Almost all powders have 0,5-2% more carbon than vg10. carbon makes stuff brittle. a lot of carbon makes the steel a lot brittle. 1,5% is a lot of carbon.

they put more carbon inside to make the steel harder. harder=more brittle.
They also put a lot of carbon inside to make lots of carbides. And i have feeling this also makes steel more brittle. at least beyond a certain point. And all these steels are full of carbide formers like Cr/V/W/Mo

Vg10 has cobalt inside. Cobalt is tough, and soft. And it does not form carbides. its just hanging around inside the steel doing its own thing. kinda like Ni. Now its not known why they put cobalt inside, it could be to make it more resistant to lose hardness while grinding it. could be something else.


elmax
C 1,7
Cr 18
Mo 1,0
V 3,0
Mn 0,3
Si 0,8

m390
C 1,9
Cr 20
Mo 1,0
V 4,0
W 0,6
Mn 0,3
Si 0,7

zdp189
C 3,0
Cr 20
Mo 1,4
V 0,1
W 0,6
Mn 0,5
Si 0,4

srs15
C 1,5
Cr 13,0
Mo 2,75
V 1,5
W 1,25


s30v
C 1,45
Cr 14,0
Mo 2,0
V 4,0

r2
C 1,25-1,45
Cr 14-16
Mo 2,3-3,3
V 1,8-2,2
Mn 0,4
Si 0,5

vg10
C 0,95-1,05
Cr 14,5-15.5
Mo 0,9-1.2
V 0,1-0,3
Co 1,3-1,5
Mn 0,5
 
inferno said:
not very likely I'd say.

Almost all powders have 0,5-2% more carbon than vg10. carbon makes stuff brittle. a lot of carbon makes the steel a lot brittle. 1,5% is a lot of carbon.
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You make such sweeping generalizations that what you say just isn't true. There are plenty of PM steels that are both tougher than VG10 e.g cpm-m4, cpm-4v, PD1/cruwear, etc and have less carbon e.g 1v, 3v, etc. Not to mention that PM process seems to make steels tougher due to smaller grain and carbide size, so you can't just say PM steels are less tough in general. PM is a process you can make any steel using PM process I would imagine, wouldn't be practical for "simple" steels, but you could.
 
And NONE of those you wrote there above are stainless.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
 
You didn't specify stainless, but even CPM-154CM and CTS-XHP are pretty tough, stainless, and have more carbon than VG10. The point is PM is a process not a steel attribute.
 
well we were talking about the supposed lack toughness of vg10 which is stainless, so why compare that to non stainless?
if we can remove 14%Cr from any stainless they will be most likely 2-10x as tough.

154cm/rwl34/ats34/cts-bd4p is probably around the same toughness as vg10 give or take, because its very close in C and Cr%. powder or not. but none of these steels are very popular for kitchen knives. only the japanese powder grades are popular. the elmax/böhler/s30v i added because those are the typical powder steels used in regular knives.

also, they make a powder version of 12c27 too. its used in damasteel.

and btw i know very well what PM is.
 
inferno said:
well we were talking about the supposed lack toughness of vg10 which is stainless, so why compare that to non stainless?
if we can remove 14%Cr from any stainless they will be most likely 2-10x as tough.

154cm/rwl34/ats34/cts-bd4p is probably around the same toughness as vg10 give or take, because its very close in C and Cr%. powder or not. but none of these steels are very popular for kitchen knives. only the japanese powder grades are popular. the elmax/böhler/s30v i added because those are the typical powder steels used in regular knives.

also, they make a powder version of 12c27 too. its used in damasteel.

and btw i know very well what PM is.
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You say you do, but then what you say contradicts the reality. PM process significantly improves toughness in some steels http://www.crucible.com/PDFs/DataSheets2010/Datasheet CPM 154 CMv12010.pdf

This seems to imply that just looking at C and CR % does not predict the toughness of the steel, since production method matters for toughness. In addition other elements in the steel composition also matter.
 
inferno said:
Almost all powders have 0,5-2% more carbon than vg10. carbon makes stuff brittle. a lot of carbon makes the steel a lot brittle. 1,5% is a lot of carbon.
they put more carbon inside to make the steel harder. harder=more brittle.
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I've done some rough things to ZDP 189 in the past, even smacking it against a concrete step (not on purpose! :oops:). Keeping in mind it's a stainless with 3 times the carbon content of VG10 (with more chromium... and harder too) it still seems to have better toughness than the latter.


But that's my experience without doing any direct testing between the two, so maybe I'm wrong.
 
barmoley this is marketing material from crucible. I'd take it with a grain of salt. its most likely only the transverse direction that is significantly tougher.

C and Cr are good indicators. since C is what is used to produce carbides and Cr severely reduces toughness. and its also the alloying element they use most of in the steel. and its a carbide former.

pm manufacturing only goes so far. its not a miracle method.

also another thing that is very very important for toughness is how it was heat treated. a hrc value for instance is just a value, you can do 10 different heat treats and end up with that same number, and they will all have different toughness, abrasive wear resistance, adhesive wear resistance, stain resistance.

also here is some reading. i think it explains it pretty well.
the text under the micrographs towards the end
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/10/01/super-steels-vs-regular-knife-steels/
 
I'm not saying vg10 is super good steel, but the powder hi C, hi carbide steels isn't that much better, if any at all. thats what i'm saying.
 
Well my very unscientific anecdotal evidence is that CPM-154 is significantly tougher than VG-10*

*I've never compared the two with the exact same grind though so that's a pretty pointless contribution.
 
inferno said:
barmoley this is marketing material from crucible. I'd take it with a grain of salt. its most likely only the transverse direction that is significantly tougher.

C and Cr are good indicators. since C is what is used to produce carbides and Cr severely reduces toughness. and its also the alloying element they use most of in the steel. and its a carbide former.

pm manufacturing only goes so far. its not a miracle method.

also another thing that is very very important for toughness is how it was heat treated. a hrc value for instance is just a value, you can do 10 different heat treats and end up with that same number, and they will all have different toughness, abrasive wear resistance, adhesive wear resistance, stain resistance.

also here is some reading. i think it explains it pretty well.
the text under the micrographs towards the end
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/10/01/super-steels-vs-regular-knife-steels/
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Great I was going to refer you to the site, since i thought you would ignore crucible data

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/05/28/chipping-of-edges/

Look for

"With the transverse toughness specimen the notch and the breaking direction are aligned with the segregated carbide bands. Therefore the crack can grow along those bands of carbides and the toughness with transverse specimens is lower when compared with longitudinal specimens. Powder metallurgy helps to reduce carbide segregation and therefore improve transverse toughness but has a smaller effect on longitudinal toughness [16]:"

and the chart below it, both are improved to different degrees.

You made a blanket statement which is wrong, my issue is with the absolutes, no one is saying PM is a miracle method or that heat treat doesn't matter.
 
maybe you could suggest some non custom kitchen knives (like gyuto/santoku) in cpm-m4, cpm-4v, cpm154, cpm-1v or cpm-3v for me to try out?
 
Having sharpened many cheap stainless (what most culinary students and homeowners use)VG10 seems pretty good in comparison. The grind on a VG10 Nashiji Tanaka is far better than any Shun. When MM Tanaka's stopped using Ginsan to save money & keep cost down went with the VG10 they are pretty easy to sharpen and are good cutters. One of the chef instructors does not like shuns at all and loves his VG10 Nishiji Tanaka says does not have to baby it uses it all the time.

One of the posters in this thread says he has a VG10 knife, but is using various carbon steel knives. That statement speaks volumes:D
 
Okay, I’ll keep an open mind here...could you guys name your fave vg10 knives? I know Jon has a couple of things... and yes who doesn’t love Tanaka at this point, but what else?
 
Also, generally speaking what does “good” vg10 do better than other stainless? Like, why would someone pick vg10 over say swed stainless, ginsanko, etc?
I’ve read that it’s not chippy and the burr isn’t to difficult...okay okay...but what makes you love it so?
 
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Also, for the record my tojiro dp I bought like 7-8 years was to this day still a really great knife for the price. Didn’t suck too much to sharpen.
 
Craig the MM site is sold out of the Nashiji blades that I like. He had some Dammy VG10 blades. The plastic collars on the D handles don't care for at all.

The Ginsan lite at K&S noticed has gone up in price. Tho it is still a nice blade at the price.
 
bahamaroot said:
Kurosaki Megumi, an excellent knife in VG10.
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That's my only VG10 they have gone up in price quite a bit since I bought mine. Have a custom African Blackwood handle on it. Don't use it much the Tanaka Ginsan Lite is the only stainless gyuto use these days.
 
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