High performance steels and blade materials

I use carbide now.......never have that problem.....I only tried the other way once.............how about you?

What about BG-42? Is it hard to drill and grind? what about milling a blood groove in it? ATS isn't fun to mill.

If you use the right abrasive or tool bit material for the job, none of the available blade materials poses any great difficulty, IMO. Stellite and Talonite drill easily with carbide drills, either spade or straight flute, and grind fine with caramic belts at moderate speed.
The more wear resistant alloys (S30V, 3V, 10V, 15V, S90V) are difficult to obtain a fine finish on, due to their wear resistance. (Vanadium content)
If you want a fine, "collector type" finish, I'd suggest BG42-It finishes beautifully, right down to a mirror finish.

RJ Martin

I haven't used S30V much, but I already have one major complaint. It heats up much too quickly. S90V is a pain to finish, but it's very resistent to heat buildup.

Brett

S30V likes to be ground at lower speed. It's not so much a heating problem; it just loads the belt less. I've not had any problems with it getting hot, but it is fussy with the belts that work best.

Thanks, Jerry. I'll give that a try. It's kind of funny, I actually increased the speed over what I normally use. I suppose I was anticipating something more similar to the hard grinding CPM steels.

Brett

I use 3M #967, 40 grit, for rough grinding S30V. They like to run slower. The steel ate #977's. No question though, it is very gummy stuff and loads up belts in a hurry.

I used the Norton belts on it, and they worked great! and the Norax's. I did 2 kitchen knives, full flat grind on the contact wheel and it worked really well. I am also working on some normal flat grind pieces.

Well, I discovered my problem. I was trying out some Zirconia belts (just to satisfy my curiousity) and, while they seemed to remain sharp, they weren't cutting the steel very well. Back to the 967's and 977's. Thanks for the input.

Brett