CPM-440V

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CPM-440V (aka CPM-S60V) consists of:

Carbon Chromium Cobalt Copper Manganese Molybdenium Nickel Nitrogen Phosphorus Silicon Sulfur Tungsten Vanadium
2.15 17.00 / / 0.40 0.40 / / / 0.40 / / 5.50


History, mentionings from the forums etc.

In this post on the Spyderco.com forum, from 11 June 2022, Sal Glesser shares some of CPM-44V0's history with Spyderco:

In the mid 90's just after we had launched our US factory. I made some decisions about steels. I was a member of the US custom knife-makers Guild since the mid 80's and I learned a lot from the custom makers each show. I was also a member of the ABS (American Blade-smith society). I had been to the original "Hammer In" in Dubois, Wyoming, in 1983, and I had already began forging knives.

Some of the makers in the Guild were using powdered metals and I got a great education from them. Some of them were using CPM powdered metals so I was game. I thought the concept was great and it would be the future of blade steels.

I contacted Crucible Foundry, told them I wanted to use their powdered metals in our pocket knives and we'd be there on Tuesday. We showed up and they said; Who are you and what do you want?

I told them we wanted to use their powdered steels in out knives and we'd use their name in or advertising. We got the first tour of making powdered metals that they had given since they began making powdered steels. (20 years). We ended up selecting CPM 440V, now called CPM-S60V, ordered bunch and that's what began the use of powdered metals in production knives. Vince Ford and his dad, Ron Ford, were very instrumental in this introduction. They were running our factory. We had relocated them from Portland to begin Spyderco's US factory.

At the time, we had Gingami 1, ATS34 (another story for another time) (both Hitachi steels) and that was it. The Military model was introduced as being made from "Crucible's CPM-440V and Hitachi's ATS-34. This is what brought Crucible into the blade steel market and the rest is history. Crucible began working Blade shows and now they are a significant part of the Blade industry, making some of the best Blade Steels in the Industry.[1]

Statement from Sal Glesser on the Spyderco forums, from 14 June 2018:

"Spyderco was the first production company to use Crucibles particle metallurgy in production knives. I personally went to Crucible with crew to begin the project in the mid 90's. We began with S60V while is was still being called CPM 440V. We had no problem getting it hard, but in a hi 50's to low 60's it was so brittle that it would crack if dropped on concrete. We continue to experiment until we reached the conclusion that 55/56 worked best for the steel in knife blades. In the end, we dropped it. It was too hard to sharpen for customers, though edge retention was good. I don't think we would use it again." [2]

References

  1. From the Spyderco.com discussion forum thread | 'What was the first contemporary "super-steel" to see mass distribution in the knife industry? M4? 10V?'
  2. The entire thread containing Mr. Glesser's comment can be found here.


References