Are there high carbon steel guys and stainless guys or does everyone like everything?

[davek14]

Personally, I like stainless, with the super steels you can get the quality of high carbon with the ease of maintainence of stainless...

Or

Words like stainless and high carbon are just marketing gimmicks used to sell knives to mall ninjas, there is no difference, they are all the same...

You can get stainless steels which are way better than simple carbon steel nowadays, but you will pay way more for it.

 

[Anarkistic]

IMO well heat treated carbon steel rocks!!!

Keep it oiled up and you have a blade superior to any stainless steel can ever be.

Ok stainless may keep an edge longer, but then it's harder to sharpen.

 

[Professor]

I'm in the semi-stainless tool steel camp. D2 and A2 (D2 being more "stainless," as it were) are my favorites for edge holding and performance, especially at ~60-61RC. They both sharpen great for me on DMT bench stones.

 

[Anarkistic]

Growing up with stainless Buck knives, that was all I knew. Getting into different ones now, I certainly have preferences. I can tell the difference between how sharp I can get one of my high carbon steel knives and my stainless ones. I also notice that the high carbons stay sharper, longer. So, for pretty much everything that I do, it is worth it for the extra-maintenance for the high carbon ones.

That being said, the one knife in my bug-out bag is a Fallkniven F1 (VG-10 stainless).

That's interesting, I'm pro carbon. But always thought stainless stays sharper longer ?

Anyone else think high carbon blades hold an edge longer then stainless ?

 

[HwangJino]

I don't use my knives nearly enough to really notice a difference in performance between types of steel.
Sad (to some) but true.

I think that is most people's situation.

Most here do not use a knife 8-10 hours a day to notice such things.

 

[HwangJino]

That's interesting, I'm pro carbon. But always thought stainless stays sharper longer ?

Anyone else think high carbon blades hold an edge longer then stainless ?

If you visit chef forums, people who use knives for a living, will be generally pro Carbon.

 

[scotteboy]

I know guys who wouldn't buy carbon but I think that's ridiculous. I started off w all stainless till about the sixth knife then bought an esee junglas because I wanted to make my own judgement. Carbon steel rocks! I like stainless too but Id never turn up my nose to a good carbon blade.

 

[HwangJino]

This is quoted from a knowledgeable person regarding knives.

By and large, most good carbon knife alloy steels have better edge characteristics than stainless.* They also feel better on the stones.* The can be made harder than most stainless, absent exotic techniques like metallurgical powders.* They don't actually require much more care than stainless, but they do require it more or less constantly and right away.*

*

Until fairly recently, carbon alloys could be made with better balances of toughness and strength than stainless.* Strong, hard stainless tended to be very chippy.* Tough stainless was either very difficult to sharpen or was so soft that edges would collapse at the slightest provocation -- "German" steel for instance.

 

[grownstar]

I would be one of those guys that likes everything. Most of my knives are some form of stainless (154CM, 14C28N, AUS 8, 420HC, 8CR13MOV) but I have a couple of carbon blades. I enjoy the patina my Opinel is starting to get, and the fact that I can pretty much sharpen my BK11 on a rock if I have to

 

[HwangJino]

Most old Japanese chefs tell me stainless is for house wives and children, no thought needed. Carbon was a tool and a man should be required to maintain his tool.

 

[skyhorse]

As there are different tools for different tasks,there are different steels for different purposes..

 

[evanPGH]

Most old Japanese chefs tell me stainless is for house wives and children, no thought needed. Carbon was a tool and a man should be required to maintain his tool.

Ouch!

As there are different tools for different tasks,there are different steels for different purposes..

Well said. :thumbup:

 

[ackeith4570]

99% of all the knives i use are carbon. 01 and 1095 are my personal favorite.

 

[Franciscomv]

I use all sorts of steels, sometimes I tailor my steel choice to a specific need but there are also some types of knives that just "feel" right to me in a certain steel. For instance, I like my slipjoints in carbon steel.

Most of my fixed blades are made out of carbon steel as well, it just works well and cheap carbon steels are usually better than cheap stainless. I also like forged blades, and most bladesmiths forge carbon or tool steels. I must admit that the patina and colour changing with use also appeals to me.

For summer EDC I tend to favour stainless steels. My city is very humid and quite hot (we had 47º Celsius with 85% humidity yesterday), I'm rather active so my knives get sweated on. I can get rust spots on most stainless steels with just one day of regular carry, not even using the knife.

 

[davek14]

That's interesting, I'm pro carbon. But always thought stainless stays sharper longer ?

Anyone else think high carbon blades hold an edge longer then stainless ?

I think carbon steel holds an edge surprisingly long *for how easy it was to sharpen*.

 

[Boats]

I have carbon and stainless broken into application specific groups. I use carbon fixed blades for all land based activities and even in the kitchen. My only exception is a Mora 2000, but that is more about a unique blade grind than the steel.

That said, I like stainless folders and use stainless knives whenever I am in or around seawater. I do have some D2 folders, but those are "tweeners," with good corrosion resistance for a still carbon steel.

 

[Kwon Kwang]

Stainless on folders. On fixed blades, I like both, but carbon steel is the only way to go for hard use IMO.

 

[james terrio]

...most carbon or alloy steels have much less carbon than stainless steels because stainless steels need higher amounts of carbon to offset the amounts of chromium needed to make a knife "stainless".

That's sort of true. Any steel with carbon levels near or above 1.00% can be considered "high carbon" for our purposes. The higher carbon levels in many stainless tool and stainless steels aren't there to "offset" the chrome and other alloying elements like tungsten, moly or vanadium, but to form carbides with them. Those carbides are much harder than steel itself, and add wear resistance.

There are exceptions of course... AEB-L stainless has just under .70% carbon. The reason for that is specifically so that it doesn't form a lot of carbides; this results in a very fine grain structure (finer in fact than some "high carbon" steels) and leaves almost all of its chrome free to contribute to stain resistance. So what you end up with is a corrosion-resistant, tough steel that's easy to sharpen and takes a very fine crisp edge. It's pretty cool stuff and it happens to also be comparatively inexpensive... but I digress.

"High carbon" is a bit of a misnomer...

That's definitely true. Nearly all steel needs at least .40% carbon to really become hardneable, and most cutlery grade steels have at least .8% (There are some exceptions like H1, Talonite and so forth.)

It would be more accurate to call simple alloys like O1, 1085 etc. "plain" or "low-alloy" steels... but that simply doesn't sound as cool as "high-carbon". "Almost nothing but iron" is not a big selling point to most people.

Anyway, yeah, there are lots of excellent steels available in several categories. :thumbup:

Basically, I've started thinking more about the properties of the individual steel, the finish on the blade and what I'm going to do with it more than if it's "carbon" or "stainless".

As there are different tools for different tasks,there are different steels for different purposes..

Wise thinking :thumbup:

 

[Myal]

I like my opinels and okapis , I have a couple older fixed blades all hi carbon , I only have hi carbon in my machetes .

I have a handful of stainless folders too , they have been largely relegated to eating tools .. Its handy to have one knife for cutting stuff nonfood and one for eating with . Means the eating tool isnt contaminated with god knows what

I bought a handforged knives with Hitachi #2 blue paper steel for the kitchen .
Dam ... they are fine . I use the glass stones I got that were a bit too fine to worry with for straight razors . Its a different league of sharp with them .
I cook for the excuse to cut things up with them now

 

[nemesis]

I don't really care if the blade is of good quality and I like the design, they both have pros and cons