swagman":346qajzn said:
Their claims are actually accurate. As are the sharpening claims, more or less. It is far more tolerant of a variety of mediums than A2 (most importantly, it takes a good edge off of a washita - better edge than O1, it wears under the microscope evenly like carbon steel does), and in all of the stroke tests, it planed double the footage and weight of shavings that the best O1 irons do before showing the same signs of wear (plane not staying in the cut under its own weight), and 70% more than A2. It grinds twice as slow as O1, which is where it's hiding its wear resistance, I guess - the properties of the steel itself make it seemingly as easy to hone, but we're probably just honing half as much of it off in a typical process.
PM M4 is probably the gold standard in plane blade wear, and in clean wood, the two are approximately equivalent.
Aside from cost and limited availability of the base steel stock that it's made from, it makes A2 obsolete (easily) and won't rust.
I did, however, find the way the findings were communicated by the V11 page to be offputting because there are relative numbers in it and no actual data, and I thought my data findings would prove some of it false.
I still find the presentation offputting, but it matches its claims.
It also yields less planing resistance than everything else in the test, including carbon steel, and a brighter finish through the entire test than does O1. I'm not sure LV ever marketed any of those things. The base steel is something that anyone who can reach 1900 degrees can harden and temper (two mapp torches in a coffee can forge)..I've made a bunch of irons out of it quenched in oil, and they are similar enough that nobody would notice the difference. The same wear ratio exists, but it is more tolerant of overheating (as in 61 hardness is achieved at about the same temper temperature as steel, but if someone managed to blue it, it would be 59 hardness and still usable whereas O1 would be too soft to use and need to be ground off). It's slow grinding (which means back flattening is difficult if you'd make your own irons, except that it's far more stable even than O1, so there's little warping to flatten off).
There are cross-references (once the steel was identified) in knife slicing tests where the same durability ratios show up.
I'm guessing the legal department or someone at LV prevented them from just posting actual data on their page. It's a fantastic steel, but i gather that it's something that they found by trial, not something that was developed for them or specially created as some might infer.
they also sat back and took criticism from everyone about how "it's not that great" without saying anything or lighting anyone up, which is more than I could've tolerated. Some of that was criticism from me.
I never liked A2. I can't say the same about the V11 and the steel that it's made from. It's ideal for knives and plane irons, made only by one mill and may not be around forever because there aren't multiple other markets for it like there are with the high-vanadium steels.
