Vanadis 4 extra - any thoughts

Hi guys,

I'm looking to purchase a plate of Vanadis 4E for my razors, anyone ever worked with this PM steel? Just wondering what your thoughts are on it - I think it will produce a fabulous razor...

- Mike

What supplier are you getting it from? By the sound of it, it has a lot of chromium in it. I'm a biker...love chrome! Good stuff for wear resistance too.

Hi there,

I'm getting it from Bohler Uddeholm here in SA, the steel is manufactured by Bohler. If you google around for knives made from the steel you see quite a lot of love for it, and yes it's regarded as wear resistant yet machines well and polishes wonderfully. It can be hardened way past 63 and so should take a lovely edge and truly keep it for some time. It's a high carbon PM steel - here's the spec sheet on it for those interested: http://www.bohler-uddeholm.co.za/eng...ish_040403.pdf

I don't see any razors made using this steel, as indeed there are hardly any custom knives made with it either, but so I'll report back on how it works out for me little down the line. I'm currently working with N690 stainless, and so this will be a nice carbon steel to throw in the mix, will see how it goes...

Cheers,
- Mike

I've made one blade from V4 (BU). A simple scandi ground hunting knife. So, hollow ground like a razor but not officially so.

I would not consider this a regular high carbon steel. It's a variation on the high speed steels used for cutting other metals, like milling cutters. For a very fine edge like a razor's, you can expect it to behave the same as an M-series steel. But the metal engineers write their specs for things like milling cutters not razors. They cannot give you an opinion, only a guess, about how it will perform.

I did some things to that blade that the engineers said I couldn't and ruined a pair of power hammer dies finding that out. Even with the better than average heat treatment equipment I have, I had to approach the recommended heat treatment recipe by leaving a few items off the list. No matter how well it's heat treated there will be approximately 25% retained austenite. This could increase the brittleness of the steel.

Normally, belts grind steel. In this case, the blade polished the grinding belts.

I kinda wish sometimes we hadn't gotten so enthusiastic about taking that knife through the destruction ritual. It performed far beyond what we guessed it would. It made a very good knife that would probably survive far more than a normal person would put a knife through in their lifetime and cut everything we tested it on, including steels.

I'd put it in the category of blades steels you-might-make-a-few-of in your career, but the price to your tooling and the heat treatment ritual will be expensive. I'd give a high cool factor to V4, a lot of respect to a maker who could pull it off, but practically there are far easier steels to work and the profit margin on such a blade would be low compared to good old fashioned cheap 10xx's and the basic tool steels.

Thanks so much Mike, always really appreciate your insights on these matters. The steel is affordable enough where I'm based so I wouldn't say that its prohibitively expensive, also the Bohler plant is practically in my back yard so I'll employ their state of the art heat treatment facilities to make sure HT is spot on for this steel for my requirements. But, certainly the steels' capacity to chew through tools and equipment is something to consider for sure, though some custom makers exclusively use this steel for their knives Haakonsen knife and tool and I'd imagine based on this that it's at least doable, even profitable - if even for a small run of custom razors.

I think I'll buy some, see how it works out and maybe even garner some Mr. Blue respect if I can craft a few quality custom razors from it :) At least one for my own keeping ;)

Again, thank you for your thoughful reply, very much appreciated indeed.

- Mike

I tend to use the concept "practical" as the dividing line between ordinary shop capabilities and those that are cool or neat to do, but expensive, or perhaps push the envelope for materials where ordinary tools and materials will do the job just as well. It's good for beginners to understand that dividing line. I don't fault anyone for doing extraordinary things.

Now if I lived just down the road from a major Bohler Uddeholm plant... I'd practically be a pest if I had access to their goodies. ;) I took a look at Haakonsen's site. He's got a PhD in metallurgy and probably access to a lifetime supply of real exotic materials and toys to play with. I'd be willing to bet real money he doesn't make his V4 knives, with a hammer, like I did. :)