Any person who is interested in knives has at least once heard of the exceptionally positive properties of powder steels and knives made from it. And given the banal ignorance of such a thing is very easy to believe. It is worth recalling how, several centuries ago, rumor attributed to Damascus steel blades amazing strength, razor sharpness and a whole series of qualities that actually turned out to be pretty exaggerated. In order to prevent this, let's briefly but informatively study what powder metallurgy is, consider at least one, but very indicative example of steel produced by this method, and also find out if the knife is made of powder steel.
Powder steel
What is it? As promised above, we will only briefly describe the main stages of the manufacture of a powder alloy so that you understand the main essence of this process as a whole.
As the name implies, the technology involves the use of various powders as raw materials. In particular, powders of steels, including highly alloyed carbides, as well as chemical elements that are designed to become alloying, are used.
Powders are placed in a mold and mixed until all elements are evenly distributed. However, for the manufacture of namely knife steel, manufacturers can afford not even, but zone distribution of various components. For example, the outer layer of a steel billet may be slightly more saturated with chromium than the rest of it, which will significantly increase the corrosion resistance of the product.
The mold is then pressed and sintered in furnaces without access to oxygen. At this stage, scattered grains of sand turn into a single material.
Steel Elmax
Above is the promised example of a powder metallurgy product. And, as it seems to us, Elmax is one of the most common powder steels in this role. Therefore, in order to roughly understand what miracles a knife made of “powder” is capable of, it will be enough to study the characteristics of Elmax steel.
The main factor affecting the characteristics of any steel, and hence the knife made from it, is the ligature. It is the chemical elements in the composition of the steel that give it certain properties, be it strength, corrosion resistance, impact strength, resistance of the cutting edge, and so on.
Elmax steel is characterized by the following composition:
- 1.7% carbon, which allows us to classify steel as high-carbon and gives it increased hardness and strength.
- 18% chromium, which gives exceptional resistance to corrosion and increases the strength of steel, as well as impact strength with elasticity.
- 3% vanadium, which improves the structure of the steel, making it denser and giving it hardness and strength.
- 1% molybdenum, which slightly increases the resistance to corrosion, as well as strength characteristics, including elasticity.
- 0.3% manganese, which also positively affects the strength of steel, its wear resistance and hardness, while not reducing ductility.
Operating parameters
For those who want to personally make a knife from Elmax steel with their own hands, it is important to know how to do it right. Therefore, we consider it our duty to help you with this.
Steel must first be annealed. This is done at a temperature of 960 ° C for two hours, after which, lowering the temperature by 20 ° C per hour, bring it to 850 ° C and keeping it at this temperature for 10 hours, slowly cool down with the oven for another hundred degrees. And all this with protection against oxidation.
The forging corridor, alas, is not known, but steel is generally not forged, because it is sold in stripes. Quenching is carried out at a temperature of 1080 ° C followed by cooling in oil until it stops. Steel is tempered at 180 ° C for 90 minutes. The working hardness of the knife is approximately 61 Rockwell units.
Pros and cons
Let's start with the nice part:
- Knives from Elmax are not prone to corrosion, and almost completely.
- The blade of this steel is very resistant to lateral loads and bending.
- Powder steel has an almost perfect internal structure.
- Absolute purification from harmful impurities.
- Amazing edge stability and relative ease of sharpening, provided that good grinding stones are used.
- Steel is well grinded and even polished without developing a pattern. It is possible to achieve a completely mirror surface.
Of the minuses:
- Inaccessibility of steel. Powder steels are rarely used for the manufacture of various parts and tools, and such as Elmax are almost completely used only for the manufacture of knives.
- Cost. Steel is very high, so buying it even in small wholesale will cost you a considerable amount of money. One can only hope for numerous online stores where it is possible to purchase a strip of steel at a price of 3-4 thousand, including taxes, delivery, etc. But you should beware of commonplace fakes.
- Difficulties. Annealing technology involves protection against oxidation, which is difficult to achieve without professional equipment that not everyone can afford.
Summing up, we can conclude that Elmax steel is justifiably recognized as one of the best knife steels today. If you have long thought to take a knife from this material, it's time to decide. He will serve you long and faithfully.