Duragrouch

I used to use 3 in 1 until I realized it doesn't have anti-wear additives, a lube test I read years ago said that's what made the biggest difference in their wear tests among various lubes.

Knife steel: Not to get off on a tangent... used to be, you either had high hardness and edge retention, or high toughness, but not both. Often had to accept moderate on both. Powder-metallurgy steels have changed this, especially among stainless steels. This metalurgist theorized that there was too much chrome, which has an affinity for carbon, would form chrome-carbides, decent hardness but not great; He figured if he could cut back on the chrome to *just barely* "saturate" the iron for excellent corrosion resistance, there would be no excess chrome to link up with the carbon, which would then make the carbon link up with vandium, and vanadium carbides are VERY hard, much harder than the surrounding matrix, think stones in concrete, you can't even use a cheap aluminum-oxide sharpening stone because it's not hard enough, you need to use carborundum or a diamond-dust plate. So he runs the numbers in (Thermo-Calc?), predicts excellent results. Problem is, if you make it like normal steel, liquid metal poured into a ingot mold, it doesn't work; The ingot hardens from the outside to in, and as the outside hardens, the chrome "steals" carbon from the liquid metal further in, and the mix does not stay homogeneous. So, here's what they do: They take the molten metal and spray it out, atomize it using air jets, into *tiny* particles, which immediately solidify in perfect homogeniety, and fall into a bin. Then they take the powder, put it into a mold, squeeze HARD from all directions, and heat up to the forging temperature, and the particles all fuse, in that perfect mix (and no porosity, like a sintered bronze fuel filter). Hot Isostatic Pressing, or HIP. Then they send to the rolling mill to make into plate, and knife makers cut out knives. This alloy is not suitable for forging, that screws up the mix. Metal removal process only. Then it requires very careful heat treating, not small-shop stuff, real pros. The result is a stainless steel almost as corrosion resistant as saltwater dive knives (9/10), RC65, and very high toughness. Very hard to get this combo. But the process drives the cost way up, not what's in the steel. By the way, there have been other powder metallurgy steels for decades now, showed improvement, but not this good. This steel is known as MagnaCut. This guy could not do a test run himself, he had to convince a big P-M company to do it, but they liked what they saw on paper and agreed. Took like a year to get the melt/powder/HIP done, then like another 6 months to get it rolled to plate. But he nailed it on the first try, again, big help from Thermo-Calc (I think?) software.

I don't want to spend $300 for a small outdoors knife. So I search on the site, "best ingot steel" (conventional processing), and he has already written an article, "What's the best budget knife steel?" And the first criteria is, conventional ingot process. Next, he wants good corrosion resistance, and good combination of edge retention (hardness) and stability (toughness). A number of good steels, but one was a standout, 14C28N, an alloy developed by Sandvik (Sweden), and another close substitute. RC60 (a good deal harder than my Wusthof and Henckels kitchen knives), 6X the toughness of same (really helps reduce edge chipping, upon close examination of my knives I see a ton of tiny half-circle chips, no abuse, very careful treatment, probably overly large carbides popping off), and good corrosion resistance. I do a search for kitchen knives in such, where? CHINA. My German knives were a premium steel (X50Cr15MoV/1.4116, commonly referred to in cutlery as "German" steel it is used so widely) perhaps 40 years ago, but man, have they gotten lax, for China to be producing knives of a better steel (haven't seen the finishing quality of them yet).

The website is knifesteelnerds.com, I have no association with it, but I've been very impressed. One commenter said he was hyping his own creation with MagnaCut, but everyone else said he backed up claims with test results. He also reveals a ton of detailed process information, that's generous. And again, tons of valuable info about other alloys. He's put a lot of work into tests and the website. Trust me, you'll be impressed.