What is German Steel Composed of?

[RCDGRZ1]

What is the percentage of carbon and other alloys in German steels used in Wusthoff, Victorinox, Henckels. What is the typical hardness of these. It is easy to find this information about 420HC, CPM S30V, etc. but only very vague descriptions only "high carbon, no stain steel". The knife itself states x50Cr Mo 15. Anyone know what that means? Thanks.

[mete]

I can't at the moment find my references but it should be .50 C, 14 Cr,1 Mo.

[Blop]

Originally Posted by RCDGRZ1

The knife itself states x50Cr Mo 15. Anyone know what that means? Thanks.

It means, it contains .5% carbon and 15% chromium and a bit of Molybdenium.

I guess they run it between HRC 55 and 57.

It is nice kitchen culery steel. Very stainless and takes a good edge for all kitchen tasks and keeps it for long in that way.

[MarkPinTx]

I don't think there is a "german steel" per se. I suppose the "Solingen" formulas may be somewhat similar, but each is proprietary to the maker, I suspect (to the extent there is truly a difference in the makers; I understand that there has been some consolidation in the German industry such that some of the old names are made side-by-side in the same factory).

A relatively common feature of Solingen pocket knives used to be that the blades were forged (not like an ABS blade, but hot-punched from stock and beat on a few times before stock removal), which could result in a better blade than more common cold punching or sawing/laser/water cutting of blanks. I'm not sure many makers carry this on, but I think Carl Schlieper/Eye Brand continues to state that blades are "hammer forged."

The consensus is that the carbon steel used in German knives is fairly similar to 1095, while the stainless, as usual, is more like 440A or 420HC. Puma used to make some wicked-hard stainless that is believed to have been 440C or similar.

[Blop]

I think that forging into shape is just to save material compared to stock removal.

I would not expect any increase of quality, for there are respectable bladsmiths who doubt any increase of quality by forging compared to the production process of modern steel mills.

Nor did i hear of any propeitary steel of any manufacturer. Most of them use that X50CrMo15.

It is nothing special exept that it is a good choice for kitchen cutlery.

Whatever "Pumaster Steel" was, it is gone because Puma is not Puma anymore. I guess Pumaster wasn´t used since the last decade and is just historic.

The carbon, Boker uses is a simple C75. An unalloyed steel containig .75% carbon. Very nice for sharp, fine edges with some good toughness.

Your comparision to 440A and 420HC seems right to me. The steel in question must come near in performance without that terrible edge, some 440A may take.

My wife uses a paring knife every day since two years. After backbeveling the edge i only have to esharpen it twice to three times a year with only touching it up and steeling it regulary. Only kitchen use.

[Andy_L]

That's like asking what is American steel.

There are many. Also victorinox is not a german company though it may well buy steel from german companies (I know it gets some from the UK)
440 series steel is quite commonly used.
I thought it was 440B used in the kitchen knives mostly but I'm not really sure.

[RCDGRZ1]

Thanks for the information. My apologies to the Swiss for implying that Victorinox was German.

420 HC has some vanadium in it but the typical hardness is in the area of 50 while apparently the x50CrMo 15 does not but is hardened to around 55. Knowing that, which would hold an edge longer before wearing out in kitchen use?

[Jeff Clark]

Here's a table for some German and other alloys:
http://linder.itchi.de/s/static/en/stahltabelle.html

[DGG]

As I remember it historically the German got their iron ore from Scandanavia.

German steel companies like Krupp used it to make steel wheels for railroad cars and rails themselves. This was back in the 1800's. The steel producers were good back then but didn't have the sophisticated instruments to measure all the things that were in the steel. It turned out that this ore from Sweden, I believe, had some neat trace elements in it that made for very good steel.

During WWII there were big battles up in the Norwegian fiords (sp?) because that was where the iron ore was sent to by rail from Sweden to be loaded on ships and brought to Germany.

Perhaps some of our Scandi folks can shed some more light on the subject.

Bottom line was that I think this was how the good German steel reputation started. They had the good blast furnaces (the design originated in Britian) and with the Scandi iron ore they cranked out some great steel.

Here is an interesting steel link fyi -

http://www.ajh-knives.com/metals.html

[Jeff Clark]

A lot of Germany's iron in the era of the Krups came from mines in Alsace-Lorraine which they acquired (reacquired) from France in the 1870's and again in 1940. Once France fell the Swedish iron was less critical. The Brittish did briefly take the Norwegian port of Narvik, but they let it go around the time of Dunkirk.

The Brittish were really fond of that Swedish iron as well.