Knives and Steel – SAE/AISI Numbering Designation System

Abstract:

The SAE system uses a basic four-digit system to designate the chemical composition of carbon and alloy steels. The first digit (1), of this designation indicates a carbon steel; i.e., carbon steels comprise 1xxx groups in the SAE-AISI system and are subdivided into four categories due to the variance in certain fundamental properties among them.

Table 1: The SAE/AISI steel numbering designation system

Carbon steels	10XX	Plain carbon, Mn 1.00% max
	11XX	Resulfurized free machining
	12XX	Resulfurized/rephosphorized free machining
	15XX	Plain carbon, Mn 1.00-1.65%
Manganese steels	13XX	Mn 1.75%
Nickel steels	23XX	Ni 3.50%
	25XX	Ni 5.00%
Nickel-chromium steels	31XX	Ni 1.25%, Cr 0.65-0.80%
	32XX	Ni 1.75%, Cr 1.07%
	33XX	Ni 3.50%, Cr 1.50-1.57%
	34XX	Ni 3.00%, Cr 0.77%
Molybdenum steels	40XX	Mo 0.20-0.25%
	44XX	Mo 0.40-0.52%
Chromium-molybdenum steels	41XX	Cr 0.50-0.95%, Mo 0.12-0.30%
Nickel-chromium-molybdenum steels	43XX	Ni 1.82%, Cr 0.50-0.80%, Mo 0.25%
	47XX	Ni 1.05%, Cr 0.45%, Mo 0.20-0.35%
Nickel-molybdenum steels	46XX	Ni 0.85-1.82%, Mo 0.20-0.25%
	48XX	Ni 3.50%, Mo 0.25%
Chromium steels	50XX	Cr 0.27-0.65%
	51XX	Cr 0.80-1.05%
	50XXX	Cr 0.50%, C 1.00% min
	51XXX	Cr 1.02%, C 1.00% min
	52XXX	Cr 1.45%, C 1.00% min
Chromium-vanadium steels	61XX	Cr 0.60-0.95%, V 0.10-0.015%
Tungsten-chromium steels	72XX	W 1.75%, Cr 0.75%
Nickel-chromium-molybdenum steels	81XX	Ni 0.30%, Cr 0.40%, Mo 0.12%
	86XX	Ni 0.55%, Cr 0.50%, Mo 0.20%
	87XX	Ni 0.55%, Cr 0.50%, Mo 0.25%
	88XX	Ni 0.55%, Cr 0.50%, Mo 0.35%
Silicon-manganese steels	92XX	Si 1.40-2.00%, Mn 0.65-0.85%, Cr 0-0.65%
Nickel-chromium-molybdenum steels	93XX	Ni 3.25%, Cr 1.20%, Mo 0.12%
	94XX	Ni 0.45%, Cr 0.40%, Mo 0.12%
	97XX	Ni 0.55%, Cr 0.20%, Mo 0.20%
	98XX	Ni 1.00%, Cr 0.80%, Mo 0.25%

Work Cited

“Articles – KEY to METALS Knowledge Base.” KEY to METALS. N.p., n.d.

Knives and Steel Series – Sharpening

That doesn’t mean that significant performance advantages can’t be had by choosing the right steel for the job. In fact, choosing a steel can significantly impact the performance of a knife. But, to really bring out the performance of a particular steel, you need to take advantage of the better steel in your sharpening plan. If a weak, brittle steel can perform the job when sharpened at 25-degrees-per-side, a strong, tough steel might give you some marginal performance improvements if it, too, is sharpened at 25-degrees-per-side. However, to really bring out the performance of the better steel, trying bringing it down to 20-degrees per side, or less. The advantage of the better steel is that it is strong and tough enough to hold up with a small edge angle — and smaller edge angles radically out-perform bigger edge angles. It’s easy to get a 10-to-1 perform advantage for certain cutting jobs by cutting 5 degrees off your sharpening angle.

This leads to the general rule:

To really see the advantages of a better steel, exploit that steel in your sharpening program. If you’re going to sharpen all your knives at the same angle regardless of steel, you might de-emphasize steel choice somewhat.

On the internet, I’ll often see someone posting about wanting to upgrade from their ATS-34 folder to one that has S30V, and then in a different post, declare that they sharpen all their knives at 20° per-side. Why spend all that extra money for S30V, just to get some marginal wear resistance advantages but no other performance advantages? If that same user would take advantage of S30V’s superior toughness and drop the edge angle to 15° per-side, they would see a large leap in cutting performance, along with the extra wear resistance. Because of choosing the right sharpening angle, the more expensive S30V knife now gives an impressive return on investment.

*Now* you can see what all the fuss is about!

All Information from http://zknives.com/.

Acuta and Social Media – Twitter 2 of 2

 I must say for one, some interesting partnerships have come from Twitter at the same time I have NOT taken advantage of the “Possible” parternships available via Twitter. As the BigAcuta I’ve made direct parternships with @MYUSOC and @Women_Hunt_Too. In both cases we probably would never had known about each other it if wasn’t for Twitter.  I KNOW there are many many more I SHOULD be contacting but I just haven’t taken the time to do it…

I’m going to focus the @MYUSOC relationship.  Jim Hanlon and Dan Leonard have been outstanding to work with.  MyUSOC (US Outdoorman Cental) was Acuta Knives very first partnership.  Dan and Jim called my if I remember correctly on or about April 30, 2011. We had “Followed” each other Twitter.  They took the initiative to call me. They were interested in having and knife sponsor and won’t you know I was interested in ANY kind of sponsorship.  Through our joint partnership I’ve given away knives on almost on a monthly basis.  I’ve also been “THE” knife sponsor on several of their hunts.  One in particular was a televised bear hunt provided Fox Harbour Outfitters  in Nova Scotia.

You might ask why give away knives?  Lets look at one of the knife give aways with US Outdoorman Cental. One of the monthly giveway winners was Roy Langley or as I like to call he “The Most Interesting Acuta Man”.   The knife Roy won was “The Blue Whale”.  In a short amount of time,  Roy and I made contact with each other. I was working in Washington State at the time.  Since I was so close, I made plans to spent a day traveling up to Canada (right acroos the border) to have lunch with Roy.  Spending time with Roy was far more interesting for me than for him.  I can’t say enough about the time I spent with Roy.

Roy has become a key person in Acuta Knives.  Just what has Roy done?

• He’s purchased several knives
• He’s designed new knives – Which are awesome.  I just haven’t been able to bring most to market as of yet.
• He’s provided valuable insight into what is going right and how we can improve
• He’s enabled expansion of Acuta Knives into Africa (Ghana for example)
• He’s basicallly always there!
• Most of all he’s just a great person.

As Forrest Gump would say “Giveaways are like a box of Chocolate.  You never know what you’re gunna get.”

Knives and Steel Series – Introduction and Best or Worst Steel

“What type of steel is the best or worst for a knife?”

“Do your knives stay sharp?”

“Is your knives hard to sharpen?”

“Is this knife stainless?”

“Is this funny pattern on the blade Damascus?”

On and on and on……

I hear similar questions all the time.  The truth is, the answer to most of the questions above is “It Depends”.  Do I have all the answers?  NOPE. Not even close.   I will in no way say I know the correct answer to most of the questions.  You can get “good enough” answers (for your and me anyway) on the internet via Wikipedia or I use “http://zknives.com/”. I use the ZKnives website A LOT when I want to learn about steel and knives, etc. I find ZKnives to be a wealth of information.

With that in mind, I want you to know that most MOST of the information in the “Knives and Steel Series” of articles will come from the ZKnives website.  You can check them out for much much more detailed information.

In the “Knives and Steel Series” we’ll cover a wealth of knife and steel information. We’ll begin by focusing on “The Steel” for the first few articles.

What is the Best or Worst Steel?

It Depends! Now that wasn’t much help was it?  The question of “What is the best steel” or “Rank the following steels in order from best to worst”, depends on a number of factors. For example:

• What is the job of the knife?
• How much are you able to spend?
• What is the required blade geometry?
• Does the knife need to be easy to sharpen?
• Does the blade need to be stainless?
• Does the steel need to be made in the USA?
• etc, etc, etc

Basically the requirements and qualities of the steel as you’ll see through out this series can go on and on and on.

Steel is at the heart of the blade. However steel by itself isn’t the sole determiner of knife performance You can’t tell by looking at it how well a blade has been heat-treated, and you can only make educated guesses on how well the blade and handle geometry will work. With steel, however, you can get a full listing of its alloying elements, something measurable and somehow satisfying. As a result, it’s easy to fall into the trap of putting too much emphasis on the steel itself. A knife is more than steel, and it’s important not to forget that. In addition, many modern steels perform so well, that knife decisions can often be made based on other factors than marginal increases in steel performance.

So To Sum It Up… It Depends!

Acuta and Social Media Series – Facebook 2 of 4

Well Oct 26th, 2011 has arrived now….

Now comes “The Now What do I do?”.  I started of course by posting a couple of post on my own.  Here was the very first post I made.

First Post on Oct 26, 2011 

“Just starting on the Acuta Knives Facebook page. I’ve been meaning to do this for long time. The page will change quite a bit over time as I learn more about how to create a great Facebook page. I hope you enjoy it.”

The first post not from me was from my Mom!  Isn’t that special.  I had just sharpened some knives for her.

My Mom’s post on Oct 26^th, 2011

“I cut myself with the knives you sharpened. So what’s new?

Ah the memories!

Next thing to do is get some fans quickly.  I paid for a couple of advertisement with “The Big Buck Club”.  Big Buck Club had 450K followers at that time.  Now they are almost up to 600k.  How do they get so many followers? Something for us to think about in the future!   If I remember correctly Acuta Knives gained about 750 members from those first couple of ads.   With each of the promotions we had knife giveaways.  And Bob Hinchman was the first of many Acuta Knives contest winner.

During the first promotions we gained some loyal fans that are still very active today. Fans like Elgin Elledge, Tammy Smathers, Jayla Spotted Bear, Eric Webster and Dean Hardison to name a few.  Pretty awesome!

Shortly after the first ads we started to offer Facebook auctions.  FB auctions at that time was unique.  We were one of the first to have FB auctions.  We also were one of the first to have giveaway contests. A few others were having giveaway contests before Acuta Knives, but not many.  I just love the fact Acuta Knives was able to get our knives in the hands of people link Bob Hinchman.   I like to think we continue to push the envelope of new things.  We continues with periodic auctions and contests.

Here is a list some things Acuta Knives has done via Facebook since we started:

• Long Term to Hourly Auctions
• Contests and Giveaways
• Recognition Knife Giveaways
• Magna Acuta Societatis
• Conference Calls with various people
• Informational Series
  • Unique/Different Animal Series
  • USA Constitution Series
  • Miscellaneous information series
• Quote of the Days series
• 2013 Wilderness Babe Calendar, which didn’t work out… Bummer
• Muzzle Loader giveaway – Long Term Contest
• Monthly Newsletter which died out due to my lack focus

I can honestly say the Acuta Knives Facebook presence has made all the difference in the growth and expansion of Acuta Knives.  The people I’ve met and associated with has been nothing short of INCREDIBLE.  I just can’t say enough about the people.  Chapter #4 of the Acuta and Social Media Series will be all about you the fans.

Acuta and Social Media – Twitter 1 of 2

 I’ve been on Twitter believe it or not much much longer than Facebook.  I started my Twitter account on June 9, 2009.  About a year and a half before Acuta Knives was a gleam in my eye.  By the time I started Acuta Knives, I had some 30,000 Twitter followers.  Yup believe it or not I had 30K followers.  In recent months I’ve been trimming down my Twitter followers so I think I’m down to 27K now.  I wouldn’t say I was an early adopter of Twitter since Twitter start in March 2006.  I was just interested in the business model and trying to figure out what Twitter was and how it could be used for business.  I was also fascinated on why people cared or wanted to know about every little thing you do.   Actually, I’m still trying to figure that one out.  

One other thing I just checked Ashton Kutcher has 13+ MILLION followers.  Enough Said!

I switched my Twitter account over to be “TheBigAcuta” sometime around the time I “Created” the Acuta Knives Facebook Page.  Remember what “Created” means?

I’ll give a little more insight into the impact of Twitter on Acuta Knives in a later article.

Acuta and Social Media Series- Facebook 1 of (2-3)

 The History of Acuta Knives on Facebook and the effect of Facebook and Friends will be a series of short articles.  I won’t bore you with one long article.  Besides I probably can’t write a long article anyway.  It always work better for me when I break down a problem into smaller managable bites.. Otherwise I’ll just get frustrated and overwhelmed.

In the beginning there was Light!  Oh wait a minute wrong beginning.

I started “wanting or thinking” about a Facebook page almost as soon as Acuta Knives was formed in Dec 2010.  My biggest problem was my own self confidence.  I felt like “What the HELL was I going to post and why would anyone what to interact with me”.  So I PROCRASTINATED and PROCRASTINATED… Then I took Step 1 and eliminated one of the PROCRASTINATIONS.  I created the Acuta Knives Facebook Page on May 10, 2011.  Now long-term Acuta Fans would say No you Didn’t!….. Now I didn’t say I published the page so everyone could see it on May 10. I only said I created the page.  I went through another 5 months of trying to figure out WHAT THE HELL I WAS GOING TO SAY OR DO. It’s kind of like waiting to have kids until you’re ready to have kids.  If you waited until you’re ready, it would never happen.  It’s basically the same thing.

Well October 26th, 2011 rolls around. I still don’t think I have a clue. I still don’t know what the HELL I’m going say or do.  BUT…. I finally followed Nike’s lead, Just Do It! So I made the Acuta Knvies Facebook page ive and available for everyone to see. Although I must say it was after a “brain storming” session with my good friend Rick Odekirk (Odekirk Chiropractic) or as some people know him, “The Little Acuta”.  Rick and I back then spend some quality “Guy Time” once a week solving World Hunger at our local Old Chicago restaurant.  More on the effect of Brain Storming Sessions at another time.

So October 26th, 2011 is the official Launch date of the Acuta Knives Facebook Page.

What the Launch ment to Acuta Knives in the next Article.

Acuta Knives 2013 – Just the Beginning

Now that we’ve all survived the end of the world on December 21 and the end to the entire year of 2012, it’s time to look to the future.

So what’s going to be new for 2013 in Acuta Knives.  You’ll see the addition of new products, new handle material, a new handle creation process and the removal of old products.  I’d like distinguish Acuta Knives from anyone else.  Yet I want to keep our products reasonably price.   For the most part I want you to look at an Acuta Knife and say:

• “You don’t see that everyday”
• “That’s a one of kind knife”
• “That must be an Acuta Knife”
• “I can’t wait for my friends to see my new Acuta Knife”

The Acuta Carving Set which was introduced on New Year’s Eve is just the first of several new and exciting products.

I’ll be focusing much more on style and uniqueness.  Not crazy stuff, just pushing the envelope a little bit.   In addition, each new “One of Kind” Acuta Knife will come with a Certificate of Authenticity.  I’m hoping this will give everyone an extra feeling of pride and assurance your knife is unique and/or one in a limited series.

Most of all in 2013 I’m looking to each of you, the Acuta Knives believer and fans to help grow the company.   I can’t think of better way to grow than to have you our loyal fans tell your friends.

I’m look forward to a great 2013.

Steve (“The Big Acuta”)

 

 

Is Brand or Brand Awareness Important?

No not this type of Branding!  

When I say Brand or Branding, I’m really saying Brand Awareness. By definition:

Brand – A trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or a manufacturer.

Brand Awareness  – Refers to customers’ ability to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain associations in memory.

How did this article come about anyway??   I was having a discussion on Christmas with my son in-law about certain brands being used in place of actual names in our culture. Don’t ask me how or why.  I don’t know.  Here are just a few:

Brand or Company	Actual Product or Description
Crescent Wrench	Adjustable Wrench
Band-Aid	Adhesive strip to cover an area of skin
Kleenex	Tissue
Coke	Coca Cola, Pepsi, Soda, Pop, etc
Skill Saw	Circular Saw
Channel Lock	Locking Pliers
i-anything	An Apple Product
Google it	Look something up on the internet using any search engine

Visual Brands are just, if not more powerful.  When you see these images I’d say 90+% of the population knows the company and what it stands for.  That is POWER!

While these above are pretty good examples of good brands how about the word “PC”.  Today PC represents just about any Non Apple computer.  For those old enough to remember, IBM owned the personal computer “PC” market.  The IBM personal computer was known as the “IBM PC”.  If you said “PC” you meant “IBM PC”.  While “PC” has stood the test of time, what happened to IBM virtually owning the term “PC”.  It has totally slipped away for a variety of reasons.  There isn’t enough time to cover that topic here, other than to say Brands can go bad.  Anyone remember “Edsel” for example… Look it up for you youngsters.

So I’d better wrap things up!

Brand Awareness means everything.  Brand/Brand Awareness consists of both brand recognition and brand recall. It helps the customers to understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs and what products and services are sold under the brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the brand through its products. Brand awareness is of critical importance since customers will not consider your brand if they are not aware of it.

Customers will also PAY MORE for a brand rather than “Taking a Chance” on the same product by a different name. Example iPod vs MP3 player.  Not only do we (yes me too) pay more for i-anything, we then proceed to pay Apple to load content onto the i-device.

In another article post, I’ll discuss the evolution of the Acuta “Brand”.    What is the ACUTA brand and what it should be?

Scriptophobia?

Blogging, Writing.. Terrifies Me!

Not just a fear of writing in public… A fear of writing in general… As bad as my writing is now.  It was MUCH MUCH worse in the past.  If it wasn’t for my wife writing my term papers in college, I would have NEVER graduated.  I don’t know grammar, don’t know much about punctuation and thank god for spell check.  I tend to leave out words when I write and fill words in when I re-read my writing. A bad combination.  I don’t know why.  I just do. Bottom line I just can’t write very well.  I’ve said for a long time I need to re-do elementary thru college writing skills.  I say I need to re-learn but I never do anything about it.

What I do write now is 10000000% better than it was for a good part of my life. I remember when email first came out I was TERRIFIED.  (Yes I remember a world before email and cell phones!)  I’d spent an hour just writing one or two lines.  I didn’t want to look stupid if I could help it. When I did make a mistake, I used humor to cover it up.  As if I never would never make that kind of mistake.  HA..

My problem (self esteem, self inflicted) was that much worse since my wife is a great writer.  She can spew off a 5 page answer to a 1 line question.  (i.e. goes over board).  Writing comes naturally to her.

So why do I write a blog… The more I write (good or bad) the easier it is for me to do.  While I know Bad Practice doesn’t make Perfect, it’s a start for me.  I feel like I’m almost to the point of taking writing classes.  Meaning I won’t totally embarrass myself. Humm.. I just had a thought.  My lack of writing skills and the way I hide and ignore it, is somewhat similar to people who can’t read.

Blogging and writing has gotten easier since I started.  So be patient with me and understand this isn’t easy me.

P.S. For everyone’s benefit I didn’t have anyone else proof this article. That was on purpose.  When I re-read it, I did find 5-10 words that just got left out between my brain and my fingers typing. I corrected those.  I did a quick spell check on posted the article.