Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Question for the knife makers

I often see a nicely made knife as to design , fit and finish only to find it is made from lower grade440 steel or even 420 steel. It leaves me wondering it's a nice knife why didn't they spend the extra $ for at least 440c steel. My question to you knife makers is how much additional material cost is there betweentwo blank pieces of steel say 10"x2"x3/8" one 440a vs 440c. I would think for a company buying in volume it would be a matter of a few dollars if not cents.

The steels I work with are simple forging steels and very inexpensive. Some of what you are seeing may be from pre made blade blanks which often come in very cheap steel. I don't know the difference between 440a and 440c in price. You might check some knife makers supply places. I can tell you that a 10"X2"X3/8" piece in some super steel might cost me $150 VS less than $20 in something like 1095 or 5160.

because in a volume business, anytime you can cut corners you make more profit. It's that simple. Big knife makers who's products are made in China, do so at the lowest possible price. Most of the time the material is suspect and the labor is high school age kids.

A private maker might cost more but at least you know the materials are to spec.

Material is only suspect if the manufacturer doesn't test it - incoming inspection is the standard process. Big manufactures know selling a low quality product is more expensive, it's the little guys that cut corners and sell the junk. The Chinese make some good steel, it's not rocket science (getting pretty good at that too).

FWIW, China's ideal worker class are the 18-23 year old females. That is exactly what I found while working for a large international manufacture. During a factory tour I commented all the workers appeared to be the same demographic and was told, by top management, they only hire young females and terminate nearly all workers upon reaching age 23.

Now this may sound awfully harsh but from the worker's view it also made sense. These girls were recruited in rural areas, put up in nice dorms and saved up for their return. Upon return they had enough money to purchase a farm and that made them an excellent prospect. Girls need to be engaged before 24 for some strange Chinese custom or maybe that was just what heard. One gal in the group was over 24 and said she decided to be a career worker. Learned most of this from an unsupervised discussion with some of the workers. Required a meeting with the workers to discuss this very issue knowing my management team's collective heads would explode if they learned all this on their own.

I like 440C knife blades, they sharpen nice, don't seem to chip, and are very corrosion resistant. My favorite kitchen knives are 440C. My Kershaw Elk Spring is of 420 and takes a fiercely sharp edge that last through a bear or elk; I have never boned out more than one in the field without returning to camp so edge retention suffices for my use.

Boise I too worked for a Fortune 500 company and the work force dynamic/ profile in their China operation was the same as you described. I like you have some pretty decent knives made of 440a and have several Bucks made of 420 and thy have served me well . Go hunting field dress and skin a deer come home wash it off 10-12 licks on the steel and they will pop the hair off your arm. And to Mr Clarks point I have several of the Chinese made of 8cr/13mov , Aus8 or what ever designation they use that too serve well. Stlll with so much hoopla on the internet of the various steels today in knives in say a $25-$30 plus price point spending an additional $2 in material cost to jump from a 440ato 440c blade would enable you to bump your price point $5-$10 and also improve your reputation as to consistent quality.

440a isn't as good as 440c isn't as good as 154c isn't as good as... etc. etc. etc. but it is probably a pretty incremental difference and you lose a lot of those differences depending on who does the heat treat and quench and grinding etc. and so forth. I have never bought 420 or 440a (nor have I even priced it). I like 440c and with a full blown heat treat and cryo quench process it is excellent steel. Done right it is just as involved to get to that level as it is to do any of the other steels maybe more so than some. Cost is a little lower, but on a per knife basis I wouldn't try to save 3 to 5 bucks on a custom blade just to use 440c. I personally like 440c for certain purposes and think it is excellent steel and most guys would be shocked at how well one of my 440c blades will perform in the field. It has gotten a bad rap because of all the cheap china crap dumped on the market made in bulk outa what is claimed to be 440c but it can be excellent steel if done properly.

mm1 I agree with you 100%. I'm not a exotic steel fan and really not a high $ knife person but and I'm primarily talking production knives vs custom here. I really think that there is an incremental value in the minds of consumers to buy a knife made of 440c vs 440a or 420 steel and that they would be willing to pay $35-$50 vs $25-$35 for the same knife. What I was trying to ascertain here was what the raw material cost difference really was. I'm guessing it is pretty low. I mean you can buy a mora knife for $15 or less so the cost of steel has to be pretty low unless of course like someone mentioned above you are getting into some of the more exotic stuff. So I guess I'm thinking some of the branded knives such as Browning, Colt, Boker Magnum which are really value priced knives would be much better off to spend just a pittance more for the steel mark and certify the steel as 440c and then charge another $5 . I think it would lift their perceived value in the mind of the consumer instead of leaving them wondering just what exactly they are getting.

It has been my experience that the average Joe buying a Buck,Kershaw, Browning ,or Case knife doesn't have a clue about what steel it is other than stainless or not. He mostly buys it because someone he knows has one and told him it was a good knife.

So there you guys go with more truth than sales hype.
The real difference is------
Most all production knives are made in an organization run by cost accounting thinking.
Most all custom knives are made from a deep pride of workmanship and performance.
The steels used may overlap.

The real difference in blade performance is more related to geometry, heat treatment and ability
to sharpen than it is to the wide variety of very good steels and its cost.

My opinion only, cause there are many opinions out there.
Tim

Not only does Joe not buy because of the steel, he doesn't give a chitt. If the knife does well by his standards, he has a good `un and is happy. I have seen many instances of guys working with tools the "elite" would not touch. And doing better work than the elite also.

There are a lot of knives out there functionally well worth their cost.
-----From $19.95 batch knives to $300 customs.
Not too many are worth more than their cost.
There are also some not worth owning at most any cost.
And as always, to each his own.
Tim

You need to factor in not just the cost of raw materials, but also include labor and consumeables. As you choose tougher steels, they require more time to grind, and you wear out your grinding belts faster. And wearing out your grinding belt faster isn't just the cost of additional belts, it's the time it takes to change out the belt and the time that machine isn't being used to grind blades.

Most people who purchase knives have no clue as to the difference in alloys. Most people don't know what a sharp knife is, are abusive to knives, will cut with a fairly dull knife, and don't know how to properly sharpen a knife. Small differences in edge holding between blades means little to them.

For the custom knife maker, his reputation is on the line, so he's going to generally use a higher grade steel to produce a superior product to a factory blade. Honestly most consumers aren't going to pay $250 for a custom knife that uses the same blade material as a $100 factory knife, but they will pay $300 for the custom blade that holds an edge longer than a factory blade.

Good points, well said.

hopefully most of the crew hanging out here know more about knives and steel than "joe".

Goin' the other way, I've seen production knives braggin' up exotic high end steels and then using poor processes for heat treat/temper. The results are less than ideal, but the customer thinks he's getting some miracle blade because it was claimed to be made from an exotic. Just because they use S30V, Elmax, S90V M390 or whatever your favorite flavor is doesn't mean chit if they don't follow the right practices for heat treat and temper. You can use the premium steels to draw in the crowd, but if it isn't processed right, it ain't gonna perform.