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I went to the hardware store to buy some new diagonal pliers/cutters and noticed that a lot of manufacturers now stamp the type of steel alloy near the pivot. My options were Chromium-Nickel, Chromium-Vanadium, or Chromium-Molybdenum.

I would bet the manufacturing/quenching style is probably more important than the actual alloy, but let's assume a high-quality manufacturer who has the optimum manufacturing/quenching process for their chosen material. Then, will I be able to notice any difference between these 3 materials?

Suppose I am just cutting a few bolts every day for the next 10 years.

bobuhito
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  • If you're buying something hanging off-the-shelf made at your local hardware store that is hanging alongside stuff made in China and the like. – DKNguyen Sep 13 '23 at 21:35
  • Many tools had that info stamped on them 40 years ago. I don't think it is new... – Solar Mike Sep 14 '23 at 07:46
  • @SolarMike You're probably right, and I just never noticed. Anyway, is it all marketing or is there a testable difference between the 3? – bobuhito Sep 14 '23 at 08:39

2 Answers2

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For your application, there probably isn't a difference, as follows.

All those alloys are known as tool steels, which means they are hard and strong enough to cut through ordinary steel which lacks those alloying agents.

It is possible to compound the alloy in such a manner that it retains its strength and hardness at high temperatures; this means that any given tool steel composition (including the ones you named) will have its own maximum allowable service temperature.

The composition of the tool steel will also affect its corrosion rate at different temperatures- which is a big deal when the tool is red-hot.

Now since you are cutting bolts at room temperature, you need not worry about those differences.

Also note that when steel alloys are deformed at room temperature, most of them become progressively more and more difficult to deform- an effect called strain hardening. Some alloys strain-harden ferociously, and become essentially impossible to further deform after they have been "worked" a bit. For a cutting tool that must remain effective for hundreds of thousands of cuts, this is a handy property to have. But for a consumer-grade tool which will probably only cut 500 parts in its lifetime, this is not that big a deal either.

niels nielsen
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This is really more of a comment than an answer, but it wouldn't fit in the comments...

I went to the hardware store to buy some new diagonal pliers/cutters and noticed that a lot of manufacturers now stamp the type of steel alloy near the pivot.

This is not a particularly new practice. For example, these are around 70 years old:

enter image description here

Oh, and yes, they still work just fine, so it doesn't seem like 10 years should be a difficult goal to meet (though admittedly, some old Craftsman tools are hard to beat).

Jerry Coffin
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