SG3 steel?

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Kiku Matsuda has some too
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IMG_3850.jpg


Yeah, I have been following this. They posted these as-quenched hardness curves recently showing a peak hardness of around 66RC at (1975F) 1080C which is indeed quite hard for a stainless steel. If this is the industrial "Sub-Zero" treatment and not LN2 it could indeed be capable of even harder than that.

If their sales text has any weight metallurgically (which granted it may not), to me it suggests that the steel has relatively low carbide volumes to maintain easy forging but has been engineered for a strong matrix (high carbon balance for stainless steel? maybe some elements for solid solution strengthening? Cobalt?). With every little bit of info they release we can start to narrow this down.

On the other hand, it could be nothing more exotic than SG 2 with 14% Cr instead of 14-16%.

All will be revealed in time, or if someone wants to gift me a sample.
 
I wonder if they looked at Magnacut and thought "Hey! Niobium AND Nitrogen? 🤔"
 
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New SPG Drop:


The text on this is pretty darn incoherent but that could be a translation issue. Going through some key bits here:

"Conventional powder steel is hardened by adding many elements and dispersing very hard metal carbide particles, such as vanadium carbides. While hardness is achieved, the hard carbides make it difficult to sharpen because when they appear on the surface, they cause the grinding wheel to just slide along the surface, instead of grinding it into a fine and sharp edge. SPG STRIX® achieves high hardness by hardening the metal base."

This seems to reference the MC carbide effect we have talked about frequently. The text implies they are working on a very low carbide volume steel like AEB-L for better sharpenability. This impression seems to be further supported in their later statement:

"Even without the hard metal carbides of conventional powder steel, the hard metallic substrate and high average hardness of the metallurgical structure as a whole make it less susceptible to the effects of hard metal carbides during grinding, resulting in easy sharpening and excellent edge sharpness like that of carbon steel."

Both these statements are rather at odds with the micrograph they shared in the post (see above). The image quality is pretty terrible but their micrograph shows a steel of moderate carbide volume (I'd say 12-16% but it's very hard to say maybe it's lower). There appear to be two different colors of particles in the micrograph but again the quality is so low we can't conclude anything based on that.

Based on the carbide volume and shape (and companies interested in giving the most flattering structural comparison) I think the "Conventional Powder Steel" Is something like PM440C/CPM 154. Which would mean the new steel looks rather like...well...SG2. So based on the currently available information maybe this is another PM stainless steel with a small V addition (V additions tend to shrink the size of Cr carbide in PM steels) balanced towards achieving a bit higher hardness?

I shall patiently await more information.
 
Troopah_Knives said:
New SPG Drop:


The text on this is pretty darn incoherent but that could be a translation issue. Going through some key bits here:

"Conventional powder steel is hardened by adding many elements and dispersing very hard metal carbide particles, such as vanadium carbides. While hardness is achieved, the hard carbides make it difficult to sharpen because when they appear on the surface, they cause the grinding wheel to just slide along the surface, instead of grinding it into a fine and sharp edge. SPG STRIX® achieves high hardness by hardening the metal base."

This seems to reference the MC carbide effect we have talked about frequently. The text implies they are working on a very low carbide volume steel like AEB-L for better sharpenability. This impression seems to be further supported in their later statement:

"Even without the hard metal carbides of conventional powder steel, the hard metallic substrate and high average hardness of the metallurgical structure as a whole make it less susceptible to the effects of hard metal carbides during grinding, resulting in easy sharpening and excellent edge sharpness like that of carbon steel."

Both these statements are rather at odds with the micrograph they shared in the post (see above). The image quality is pretty terrible but their micrograph shows a steel of moderate carbide volume (I'd say 12-16% but it's very hard to say maybe it's lower). There appear to be two different colors of particles in the micrograph but again the quality is so low we can't conclude anything based on that.

Based on the carbide volume and shape (and companies interested in giving the most flattering structural comparison) I think the "Conventional Powder Steel" Is something like PM440C/CPM 154. Which would mean the new steel looks rather like...well...SG2. So based on the currently available information maybe this is another PM stainless steel with a small V addition (V additions tend to shrink the size of Cr carbide in PM steels) balanced towards achieving a bit higher hardness?

I shall patiently await more information.
Click to expand...

I love how they keep talking about how the steel is hardened by adding a bunch of alloying elements? Lol. Anyway, looks to be pretty underwhelming. Shame...thought this could be something fun at first
 
Troopah_Knives said:
View attachment 283392

Yeah, I have been following this. They posted these as-quenched hardness curves recently showing a peak hardness of around 66RC at (1975F) 1080C which is indeed quite hard for a stainless steel. If this is the industrial "Sub-Zero" treatment and not LN2 it could indeed be capable of even harder than that.

If their sales text has any weight metallurgically (which granted it may not), to me it suggests that the steel has relatively low carbide volumes to maintain easy forging but has been engineered for a strong matrix (high carbon balance for stainless steel? maybe some elements for solid solution strengthening? Cobalt?). With every little bit of info they release we can start to narrow this down.

On the other hand, it could be nothing more exotic than SG 2 with 14% Cr instead of 14-16%.

All will be revealed in time, or if someone wants to gift me a sample.
Click to expand...
Why am i always left out of the loop? 😢

Im guessing there still isnt any composition info available.


If not im sure someone could do an xrf scan or something similar.
 
Troopah_Knives said:
View attachment 283392

Yeah, I have been following this. They posted these as-quenched hardness curves recently showing a peak hardness of around 66RC at (1975F) 1080C which is indeed quite hard for a stainless steel. If this is the industrial "Sub-Zero" treatment and not LN2 it could indeed be capable of even harder than that.

If their sales text has any weight metallurgically (which granted it may not), to me it suggests that the steel has relatively low carbide volumes to maintain easy forging but has been engineered for a strong matrix (high carbon balance for stainless steel? maybe some elements for solid solution strengthening? Cobalt?). With every little bit of info they release we can start to narrow this down.

On the other hand, it could be nothing more exotic than SG 2 with 14% Cr instead of 14-16%.

All will be revealed in time, or if someone wants to gift me a sample.
Click to expand...
Would lowering the chromium a bit help promote more mc type carbide?

Ive seem others mention magnacut. Maybe they could take a page from that book, and use some nitrogen, lower carbon, and chromium, and keep the vanadium the same.

Idk.
 
Blank Blades. said:
Would lowering the chromium a bit help promote more mc type carbide?

Ive seem others mention magnacut. Maybe they could take a page from that book, and use some nitrogen, lower carbon, and chromium, and keep the vanadium the same.

Idk.
Click to expand...
Yes, all else kept equal it would.

Based on what they are writing it seems rather unlikely they are targeting higher MC carbide volumes as that would negatively impact sharpenability. Although so far we have already seen some mixed messaging so who knows?
 
Troopah_Knives said:
Yes, all else kept equal it would.

Based on what they are writing it seems rather unlikely they are targeting higher MC carbide volumes as that would negatively impact sharpenability. Although so far we have already seen some mixed messaging so who knows?
Click to expand...
Yeah. I really dont trust much of anything I see in the info japanese steel makers put in their promotional stuff.

Idk if its the bad translations. Or if they dont really care much about accurately describing the steels but they always seem to not really give good info to go off of. Lol.

Like i think it was vg-10. They said a bunch of contradictory things, and basically said nothing useful about it.
 
If it's anything like the PC market STRIX is just code for 'milking the fanboys' and it'll cost a massive premium. :p
 
That was my point... they're not bad products but everything with that name has always been outrageously overpriced.
 
bill_zeng said:
I received a test sample, and based on its performance, I have no expectations for SPG3. Perhaps the manufacturer can provide a new heat treatment solution to improve the situation.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
 
Nemo said:
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
Click to expand...
Compared to SG2. It did not improve the cutting feel, and under the test of small edge Angle, it did not change the brittle SG2 problem. Of course, this is just a comment on the samples I received. I can't publish photos of my samples, it would expose the friend who provided me with the samples.
Because the takefu steel works objected to selling steel to us.
 
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