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Showing 1 of 3 conversations about:
PumpIron
40
Jun 21, 2018
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I'm really not impressed with the steel and the hardness for the price.
PumpIron
40
Jun 22, 2018
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KavikIf it were intended for hacking and chopping, the hardness would be about right in a tougher steel, like 5160 or 12C27. However the blade is short and most of it is hollow ground, so its geometry is completely unsuitable for such uses. Relatively lacking in purity and carbide volume, AUS 8 is neither wear resistant nor as tough as these options. As a slicer then, it'll have to be sharpened excessively often, and that'll be a slow gummy process. SOG is overcharging for the materials.
Kavik
5531
Jun 22, 2018
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PumpIronI wasn't thinking about the hollow grind aspect when I responded to that... My bad, looking at too many different knives at a time lol
Thanks for your response.
My only experience with aus-8 is in a chef knife I have....don't recall it's hardness off the top of my head, but it holds it's edge fairly well and sharpens easily... Maybe harder than this one
My only experience with aus-8 is in a chef knife I have....don't recall it's hardness off the top of my head, but it holds it's edge fairly well and sharpens easily... Maybe harder than this one
Benjabooly
373
Jun 23, 2018
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KavikI am a butcher and use an AUS 8 knife as my main and seconday is vg-10. AUS 8 when heat treated well can be great for a gitchen knife with a good geometry, but still its more of a user that im not afraid to touch up with the store's steels than the other one. Good but not great and for $100 it could be a slew of better steels. Wait for the next kizer or WE fixed blade drop.
PumpIron
40
Jun 23, 2018
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BenjaboolyYeah, there are many cheaper steels that could perform decently if hardened above 60 HRc with a fine microstructure and low retained austenite, but we tend not to see that in the cheaper production knives that use them. I do love the performance of thin-ground, high-hardness, low-alloy fine grained with custom heat treats. By the chemistry AUS-8 and even 8CrMoV series should be pretty tough at any reasonably HRc, but in practice I believe the purity is significantly inferior to Sandvik or PM steels, and corners tend to be cut in HT, with chipping prevented by underhardening, often below even the low-listed ranges.
I think this particular knife is designed to look tactical, to pierce, chisel, and possibly moderately pry at the tip as well as cut with the recurve, but the geometries are far from optimal for these applications either, with the hollow swedge and wide tip. Form appeal over function I guess. Yet Kiku does have many true hard use custom designs in good steel that I do find more appealing and efficient.
I think this particular knife is designed to look tactical, to pierce, chisel, and possibly moderately pry at the tip as well as cut with the recurve, but the geometries are far from optimal for these applications either, with the hollow swedge and wide tip. Form appeal over function I guess. Yet Kiku does have many true hard use custom designs in good steel that I do find more appealing and efficient.
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