When you say steel N690

6. února 2023

For a lot of people, steel is just some iron, and that's all they care about. But then there's a group of experts, which definitely includes knife fans. And they know very well that steel is not just iron, but that it is iron with an admixture of carbon, which cannot be more than 2.14%. How hard and durable the steel is also depends on what other impurities are in it. So let's take a look at N690 steel, which we use in some of our Predator knives, UTON 008, List, Patron, the Pocket design set, and the Storm knife from Project War Veteran, for example.

The N690 steel is made by Böhler from the Voestalpine Group. The company supplies it for knife production in the form of hot-rolled sheets. The basic properties of this steel are hardness and wear resistance, which is mainly due to its carbon content of 1.07%.

N690 is also a stainless steel. This is particularly important for outdoor and military knives. All steels that contain more than 13% chromium are stainless. N690 has 17.3% and the chromium, in addition to protecting it against corrosion, also increases its tensile strength and edge retention.

After hardening, N690 steel reaches a hardness of up to 60 HRc, which is excellent, but on the other hand it is not easy to sharpen such a knife. In home conditions it is almost impossible and therefore it is recommended to entrust sharpening to professionals.

However, in addition to hardness and wear resistance, strength is also important in knives. This is due to the added molybdenum and silicon in the N690. The fact that all the properties of the steel are set optimally is due to the fact that chromium carbon and molybdenum are in the ideal ratio to each other. If you are interested in the exact percentages of each element, you can check the manufacturer's website.

And, of course, the steel of the resulting knife having all the required properties also depends on how it is handled in production and, in particular, whether the manufacturer's exact regulations for hardening it in a special continuous hardening furnace are followed. Such a Swiss-made furnace is of course available to us at Mike and we rigorously ensure that there are no deviations during hardening.