Chrome vanadium steel

[Rob]

I've just read a promotion for chrome vanadium bench chisels and it suddenly occurred to me I have no idea where chrome vanadium is on the hardness and edge retention continuum

I'm guessing that the very fact it's being advertised as a virtue must mean its meant to be hard right?

So does anyone know the detail, is it closer to high speed steel or closer to carbon steel?  Also is it what the books call an "exotic alloy"?

Many thanks

Rob

[grepper]

Some stuff off the 'Net:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-vanadium-steel.htm

http://www.integritysteel.com/aisi-6150-medium-carbon-chrome-vanadium-alloy-steel.html

5.   Chrome-Vanadium Steel:

       It contains  C 0.26% , Cr 0.92% and V 0.20%.

            Chromium and vanadium are added to low alloy steel to increase its hardenability and to impart a grain structure that is finer than that of the standard chromium low-alloy steels.
            It is used for making axles and shafts of automobiles, aeroplanes and locomotives.

[Rob]

Ah many thanks

[grepper]

Sounds like some pretty tough stuff:

http://www.suppliersonline.com/propertypages/6150.asp

Nothing like throwing in a little vanadium.

[Jeff Farris]

Chrome-vanadium would be classed as a carbon steel.

[Rob]

How interesting...so in fact the notion of marketing it as something special is complete nonsense then?  It's just regular tool steel with a fancy name?

[Herman Trivilino]

It's a classification.  There are different alloys in different types of carbon steel, or tool steel if you want to call it that.  It's just that carbon is the most common and prevalent alloy used in most of the steel that we're likely to touch to our Tormek grindstones.

And there are different processes.  The history of the steel's temperature and the way it was manipulated also affect its properties and the way it behaves.

[Rob]

Right

It's just that the chisels I saw being advertised were really celebrating the fact of the chrome vanadium, you know like it was a product feature. Which I guess it is. It's just it seems a little run of the mill if its actually carbon steel.

Mind you that's hardly a term you're going to see often in marketing collateral is it?

Come buy our product.....it's really average :-)

[Mike Fairleigh]

Ah, marketing.  Include a "special name" on the product that few people understand, and they'll assume it's better.

I can remember seeing mechanic's tools in the 1960's that were marked "Chrome vanadium" and those tools did indeed seem to be very good (at least my Dad thought so, and he "knew").  But then I also remember seeing Buffalo brand sockets in the whatnot aisle of the grocery store in the 1970's with the same markings and those tools wouldn't make good paperweights.  So you can make junk out of anything if you try hard enough.

[Rob]

Youre not wrong Mike

That was a good post on the non squareness trap with the se76 by the way. I missed that first time round

[Mike Fairleigh]

Thanks, I hope it helps someone.  As I've gone on I've come to depend less and less on the registration edge of the SE76, and just used my square with the whole thing held up to a bright light.  It seemed every tool I sharpened had to be adjusted slightly away from the registration edge anyway.

[Jeff Farris]

I'm on a tablet, and typing with 2 fingers, so I can't (won't) delve too deep right now.

C-V is a tool steel that has been around for decades (at least).  It is pretty much the standard for cutting tools. Like a lot of terms, it's been perverted and misused by casual conversations and marketing-speak. It isn't fair to lump it with all carbon steels, but that is what happens.  I do it.  For woodworkers, it would be rare to find a tool that wasn't C-V, unless it were HSS or carbide.  If you read "carbon steel" in reference to a cutting tool, you can assume it is C-V.

[Rob]

Thanks Jeff. I guess it's only those copywriters in marketing departments that have run out of feature ideas that feel the need to use it today

[Herman Trivilino]

Chrome and vanadium are awesome sounding words.  Putting them together is a temptation that marketers just can't resist.

[Rob]

Hehe....like deceptively spacious is to real estate guys trying to sell a shoebox :-)