Thread: A Talk of Steel.

A subject I know so little about.
I think that I'm like most men, as I like my knives, tools to be made of quality steel. The problem for me is that if someone asked me to explain the difference in the pocket knife that is made in China & the one stamped made in America., I would be hard pressed to give a good answer on the spot. My answer at hand would be mainly based on the reputation of the American company that I would steer them toward.

So my questions are for the men here, who have forged or been around steel manufacturing plants.
I will pick China steel in comparison to American steel, even though other counties forge their steel too.

Why do so many men say that China steel is inferior to American steel?
Is this a political bias or is their steel made differently than ours?

**Note: This thread is not intended to open up political discussions on wages, unions or off shore jobs,,,just trying to find out why steel from China is looked down upon. **

Thanks for taking the time to give your input.

I think one major difference between steels of any country is the quality control. If they don't use stringent standards, then more than likely the steel is not going to be as good as a company that does. Working for a company that melts titanium, they spend a lot of time formulating the blends of titanium as well as checking the product as it is being melted to insure it is correct. That takes time, money, and experience. If a company is selling a .99 knife, I doubt they invest enough to make a quality product.

I do believe there are standards for steel. If it falls within a standards ( like ASTM ) specifications then it is the same.

The problem with standards is...are they checked? I have heard many stories of grade 8 bolts being required and a contractor went cheap with china "grade 8", and after something broke or collapsed, then they found out sure it was marked grade 8 but it wasn't really grade 8.

So are talking about "cutting corners", just to get a piece out on the market?

Well that is an old story and if they do that it is the same as counterfeiting money. There will be penalties. I think China has learned a lot of lessons as far as standards go. Let's face it, would you buy dog food from China or children's toys ? Not for a long time. And that is what they are learning.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

I do believe there are standards for steel. If it falls within a standards ( like ASTM ) specifications then it is the same.

There are standards for minimum or maximum performance and alloy composition, this is true. However, meeting specifications does not require purity to a specific percentage in every case. One of my bladesmith friends learned this the hard way when "spec" steel was delivered and he blew up ten blades during the first heat treatment run. The "spec'd" steel required a complete retest to learn a different heat treatment regime. It was an expensive lesson especially given the initial investment in a large amount of steel that would have been wasted otherwise. The spectrograph testing indicated at least ten additional alloy elements that simply did not appear in the "spec" and so were not even considered an issue by the steel mill. It met spec, it was what was ordered and delivered.

Quality by country is part of steel's history and cannot be completely excluded. Swedish raw ore was always the best and is one factor that contributed to the political neutrality during the wars. Sides in opposition freely purchased ore to make munitions due to this status.

In the end if quality control during production produces a chemically identical material it makes no difference. But each new batch I get, I test, only because there are variables outside the specifications that are simply not part of the quality equation while they remain well inside what I consider the performance equation. The blades from each new batch are just as good as the last batch, but I have to be flexible and adaptable in my shop practice. Sure, it's a pain in the buttocks, but I'm too cheap to throw away thousands of pounds of perfectly good material when I can change a little here or there. I don't have to bellyache that the steel's not good enough.

My take on the problem anyway. YMMV

Many plusses and thanks to MikeBlue on that one. You can be sure that they steel used in the cheap dime store pocket knives are going through very little quality control. The fact is, used steel is shipped by the container load from here, over to china, and then recycled, and shipped back here. I think its a sad state of affairs that its cheaper to ship back and forth across the globe then it is to recycle it right here. But that's the deal. Blades made from unknown and mixed steels vs steel freshly produced.

Looks like a new idea for an exercise machine Wullie.