Am I the only one...

EyeDog said:
When I was a kid I hated blue cheese dressing. 60 years later I love it.

When got into knives I spent a ton on tactical assisted and autos. Now a few years later I dumped most of them for traditionals.

At first I hated patina. Now I force-patina on many of my carbon steels.

Tomorrow I may dump them all and get my surf board out of retirement and hit the beach.
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Did someone mention the beach? Cool!

Cate
 
I have both. Some knives look great with the shiny SS and others look great w/ the carbon and patina. Mineral oil on the carbon steel isn't too bad.
 
I like the looks of both types of steel.

I only own stainless steel blades on my few Buck knives right now.

I am trying out a few more of my husband's knives to see if I like the style of them and the brand name. Some of them fit and feel good in my hands even though I have small hands and he has larger hands.

They are good quality carbon steel, two pretty Damascus blades (One newer handmade fixed blade knife with the walnut that I picked out for the handle.) and he has some other older steel blade knives in fixed and folding styles. I am trying out some of his stainless steel bladed knives too.

Cate
 
5K Qs said:
Speaking of ease of care, don't many people claim that carbon steel is easier to sharpen than stainless? I'm not a good or experienced sharpener yet, but I think I'm getting better edges faster with 1095 than with, say, Rough Rider stainless 440something. Or am I just showing my inexperience? (Or maybe another factor is at work here: my carbon steel knives are typically older and thinner blades, while my stainless knives tend be newer with thicker blades, except for SAKs maybe).

- GT
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I do find that 1095 and other carbon steels (like 1085, 1075, Opinel's carbon, Case etc), are easier to get sharp and re-profile than just about any stainless I have tried.

One caveat, I think Inox on the Opinels is pretty darned close, and seems to hold an edge longer than their carbon steel (which carbon steel is softer than GEC's 1095)
 
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coolio said:
BTW, the patina will help prevent red rust from forming.
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Mostly Fixed. "patina" is black oxide, which is a corrosion product, AKA "rust". Not going to go any further into that discussion. Wouldn't be right. Wouldn't be prudent.


Personally, while I prefer stainless, I have knives with all kinds of alloys. To paraphrase Will Rogers, "I never met a steel I didn't like."
 
I think most production slipjoints in stainless are improperly hardened with poorly ground edges. A quality 440C hardened properly makes a pretty nice blade without incurring a significant increase in cost.
 
Yea agree with you JB in SC
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JB in SC said:
I think most production slipjoints in stainless are improperly hardened with poorly ground edges. A quality 440C hardened properly makes a pretty nice blade without incurring a significant increase in cost.
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The raw material cost might not be much more, but 440C is significantly more expensive to shape, grind, and heat treat than 420HC or 1095.
 
When I got into knives, I knew that I didn't want a carbon steel--I wanted stainless. My first high-end knife was D2, and even that was a bit too tarnish/rust-prone for me. Eventually, I made my way from 440 in el-cheapo folders to S35VN in CRKs. But now, I've come back to finally own traditionals in 1095. Do I love carbon steel? Not really. It certainly is less practical for my purposes than stainless. I don't like having the extra care or maintenance.

However, the finnicky nature of 1095 forces me to focus my collection of traditionals on just the knives I really want (because each extra knife means one more to look after). So I think I'm going to max out at 3 knives...still trying to decide what the 3rd might be... The patina has also grown on me. As I've carried items and they naturally developed patinas, I've enjoyed them more and more. I can't wait for my carbon steel knives to develop even deeper patinas.
 
knarfeng said:
The raw material cost might not be much more, but 440C is significantly more expensive to shape, grind, and heat treat than 420HC or 1095.
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Frank, would a stainless like AEB-L or 13C26 hardened to around 60 be more expensive to use than 1095 or 420?
 
knarfeng said:
The raw material cost might not be much more, but 440C is significantly more expensive to shape, grind, and heat treat than 420HC or 1095.
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Building to a price point has it's inherent limitations. If GEC made knives in the past with 440C (which they have) without a huge increase in price I would imagine they could do it again. In most cases we pay a premium for a higher grade of stainless in custom knives. I'm in the minority here, but I would like to see more GEC single blades in 440C.
 
black mamba said:
Frank, would a stainless like AEB-L or 13C26 hardened to around 60 be more expensive to use than 1095 or 420?
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13C26 can be fine blanked, just as 420HC can. And it has no carbides so that it can be easily finished. So 13C26 should not be any more expensive to produce than 420HC.

JB in SC said:
Building to a price point has it's inherent limitations. If GEC made knives in the past with 440C (which they have) without a huge increase in price I would imagine they could do it again. In most cases we pay a premium for a higher grade of stainless in custom knives. I'm in the minority here, but I would like to see more GEC single blades in 440C.
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If you look at the GEC prices for the same model in 1095 vs. 440C, the 440C models are more expensive.

But I also would like to see more selections from GEC in 440C, I just don't think it is likely to happen.
 
5K Qs said:
Speaking of ease of care, don't many people claim that carbon steel is easier to sharpen than stainless? I'm not a good or experienced sharpener yet, but I think I'm getting better edges faster with 1095 than with, say, Rough Rider stainless 440something. Or am I just showing my inexperience? (Or maybe another factor is at work here: my carbon steel knives are typically older and thinner blades, while my stainless knives tend be newer with thicker blades, except for SAKs maybe).

- GT
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I also find that I get the best edges from carbon steel, especially for the price point. Not a fan of Rough Rider steel at all. Not expert at sharpening either, strictly freehand.

As has been said, there are stainless steels which act like carbon in price point and sharpening qualities, 12C27, 13C26, et all. It would be nice to see more traditionals come out in them.

Generally, I like carbon steel though. I love an old, black drop forged wrench too.
 
Starting to wish I got a GEC with 440C instead of 1095. Got a nice patina on my 1095 GEC after a couple of uses. I've been wiping it down on my shirt or jeans after every use and a cleaning/oiling every couple of weeks when it feels gritty when opening or closing. But the metal just looks beat like I've been owning it years instead of months. Even got a pit somehow on the blade. Decided to carry another knife for a couple of days. Nothing was left sitting in that spot it was just there when I started carrying it again :confused.
 
I LOVE carbon steel and concider it to be a living steel. However, I must admit that stainless is better for folding knives and especially multi-bladed folding knives. With a fixed blade it is very easy to clean and dry the blade (and tang if exposed) but become more problematic with folding knives.

Still, I prefer to find vintage slipjoints in carbon rather than stainless. Unless you are aiming for a 1800 era collection, stainless really took off in the 1920s so it is still vintage and in 5 years it will be 100 years of history.
 
Members of the Carbon Tribe keep a lookout for the stainless beast.
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Carbon good ,stainless myeah 'sOK I s'pose.
 
ah ah ah :)
A passive oxyde layer is going to protect the blade from rusting...stainless steel has the same thing btw, the chrome is very quick to develope such kind of oxyde.
A carbon steel blade will develope this patina over longer time. That's it.
I regulary use carbon steel kitchen knives and have yet to find any food offtaste due to this.
 
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