Where do knife steels come from?

[me2]

It surprises me to hear that any steel is used for dies in the injection molding industry. Cooling, or heat transfer of the dies is critical, which is why all the ones I know about are aluminum. I would think that machinability would be another optimal quality, but the powder steels I know of are exactly opposite.

Don't worry Mr. Me2, I'm used to your unusual opinions, which is definitely Not to say I don't respect your unusual opinions. I certainly don't profess to know about powder steel that isn't used for knives, and I do know that knife steel hardly registers at all in the steel industry. 

It's just surprising to know how many powder steels happen to make up such a high percentage of  high performance knife steels these days, and I really don't know about other uses. I know powder steel is very highly alloyed with strong carbide elements, and awfully expensive to manufacture and pretty involved to heat treat, but like I said, I'm pretty limited to blade steel.

I'm not sure what specific uses they're used for, but some parts of the plastics industry evidently process plastics that are filled with a high volume of abrasive particles mixed in, either as colors (titanium dioxide pigments) or for strength/mechanical properties of the plastics themselves.  These plastics are evidently fairly corrosive in some cases as well.  Both of these, plus the likely use of high pressures for processing, lead to the need for high corrosion and high wear resistance in the extruding dies or molds.  Some of the older high vanadium steels were used as linings for brick extrusion molds or other similar uses.  How much of the overall plastics industry uses these types of steels, I don't know, but it's evidently enough to warrant development of these types of steels.  As you note, I'm sure there are many types of plastics processing that don't require anything near these new steels.

The original powder steels used in knives predate S30V by about 6 years, from a production knife standpoint, further clouded by my memory.  There have been several name changes that make it difficult to follow.  One of the first production knives to use powder steel was the Kershaw Random Task.  It used 440V, which was renamed S60V.  S60V was then phased out of production, despite being a fine high wear steel for knives in my experience.  420V was also used before S30V, but the name was changed to S90V, which is still used now.  I think it's safe to say S30V was the first powder steel to be developed for knives, as the other 2 were not intended for that use.  The small blip that knife steels play on the grand scheme of steel production, and the length of the history of modern steel production, is what leads to my difficulty in accepting S30V as the first overall steel specifically developed for knives. 

One interesting point of view is to look at how many steels are used in knives for hand held use, then look at how many are used in a variety of other tools.  There isn't a great deal of variation in the steels used for large band saw blade bodies, or high impact hammer bits, or hammer heads, etc, though in any case, there are a variety of materials that will do the job.  Which one is chosen is usually the cheapest, unless the chosen material is part of the selling point, in which case more expensive materials are frequently easier to sell.