Beware of People Who Pretend To Know A Lot About Knives

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Alnamvet68 said:
There is no educating consumers...just take a peek at the hundreds, if not thousands of threads here that are started, where the OP is asking for recommendations for his/her first knife, or a knife for a child, or one for his mother in law, et al; he starts off with a tentative list of knives, he gets a bunch of recommendations, and ultimately winds up buying something out from left field that no one anticipated. In the end, new guy or experienced guy will buy something that really appealed to his vanity, with no consideration for the sanity of such a decision.
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Yeah maybe it's too much to expect from the human race...
 
jobasha11 said:
No... its not. Its stainless in the only sense of the word. More than 13% chromium.
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LOL for sure. But it does contain carbon! i just wanted to catch my false statement about it NOT being carbon steel. It is a stainless carbon steel that contains carbon and chromium. I think that's the best way to put it.
 
Alnamvet68 said:
There is no educating consumers...just take a peek at the hundreds, if not thousands of threads here that are started, where the OP is asking for recommendations for his/her first knife, or a knife for a child, or one for his mother in law, et al; he starts off with a tentative list of knives, he gets a bunch of recommendations, and ultimately winds up buying something out from left field that no one anticipated. In the end, new guy or experienced guy will buy something that really appealed to his vanity, with no consideration for the sanity of such a decision.
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This is really a sad but true statement. With all the knowledge floating around this forum it blows my mind how people don't take advantage of it! ......or do ANY kind of reading/research before requesting opinions. Oh well, might as well accept it and move on.
 
C_Becker said:
If it didn't contain carbon, we would call it "iron" instead of "steel".
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Exactly. ALL steel contains iron and carbon, that's what defines steel. Adding other elements can make it more or less stainless. But without a significant amount of carbon, it won't harden, and can only be used structurally, like for handle slabs or screws.
 
My take is that we all have our opinions. I don't consider myself an expert on knives. In terms used for photography skill characterization, I would characterize myself as an advanced amateur when it comes to knives relative to the average guy.
 
The_KaramVit said:
LOL for sure. But it does contain carbon! i just wanted to catch my false statement about it NOT being carbon steel. It is a stainless carbon steel that contains carbon and chromium. I think that's the best way to put it.
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Nope. Not the best way to put it at all. Wrong, in fact.

While you are correct about the nature of this guy (a little research on your part would have shown you that we ripped him a new one about a month or so ago), the words "pot" and "kettle" come to mind.
 
Ripped a new one.... Yeah, some were pretty hard on Mr. Blackburn here.

There is a difference between stainless and carbon steels. D2 comes to mind.... as being almost stainless.
 
The_KaramVit said:
LOL for sure. But it does contain carbon! i just wanted to catch my false statement about it NOT being carbon steel. It is a stainless carbon steel that contains carbon and chromium. I think that's the best way to put it.
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Carbon steel is used to describe simple non stainless alloys. 1095, 1084, etc. Some people use the term to mean any non stainless steel. They use the term more broadly. VG-10 is stainless. It is not carbon steel.
 
marcinek said:
Nope. Not the best way to put it at all. Wrong, in fact.

While you are correct about the nature of this guy (a little research on your part would have shown you that we ripped him a new one about a month or so ago), the words "pot" and "kettle" come to mind.
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Lotsa corrections here. We shall leave VG10 as stainless steel, then. Could you elaborate on "ripping him a new one"? i really don't follow. . .
 
The_KaramVit said:
Lotsa corrections here. We shall leave VG10 as stainless steel, then. Could you elaborate on "ripping him a new one"? i really don't follow. . .
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It was never anything other than a stainless steel, despite your confusion.

You certainly have proved the premise of your thread.

As far as ripping a new one, I'm sure you can use your research skills to find the thread being discussed.
 
marcinek said:
It was never anything other than a stainless steel, despite your confusion.

You certainly have proved the premise of your thread.

As far as ripping a new one, I'm sure you can use your research skills to find the thread being discussed.
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I too am capable of dishing out false and confusing information. That's why we have experts like you to keep us in line! Good thought, i will try.
 
The_KaramVit said:
I didn't mean that it stopped being respectable. I meant it is just respectable knife steel, period. It just depends who heat treats it! A lot of people consider it as a steel of the past which only beat 440A and is now outdated because of all our more complicated alloy steels. I believe 440C can make a user absolutely happy.
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It really depends on the tasks and characteristics than you want the knife steel to have, things you want it to do and price you want to sell it for.
There are no bad or outdated steels. Carbon or Stainless.
If that were true? Damascus or pattern welded steels would be considered an outdated steel and no one would use it since it's been found as far back as 1000 AD and possibly much, much older while the 440A, 440B & 440C were developed about the 1950-60's.
 
Anyway, that "high carbon stainless" thing is marketing B.S. Most of the time its just a fancy way of saying 420J. Its supposed to sound like its something special, like "surgical steel"

IIRC a carbon content of 0,4% is necessary to harden steel to a level thats suitable for knives, so you could probably call any knife steel "high carbon"
 
I'm all for talking about steel names though this particular thread is just about double checking our knife information sources. Shall we carry on with steel talk or take it to the appropriate section?
 
The_KaramVit said:
I'm all for talking about steel names though this particular thread is just about double checking our knife information sources. Shall we carry on with steel talk or take it to the appropriate section?
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It seems that they are just correcting some misinformation.
 
C_Becker said:
Anyway, that "high carbon stainless" thing is marketing B.S. Most of the time its just a fancy way of saying 420J. Its supposed to sound like its something special, like "surgical steel"

IIRC a carbon content of 0,4% is necessary to harden steel to a level thats suitable for knives, so you could probably call any knife steel "high carbon"
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Alright, carbonsteel928, that's fine with me. A lot of marketing in the knife world, really. If you really wanna go by the book, a.k.a. literally a textbook, there are still low and medium carbon steels. Of course with some tolerances, we call up to 0.3% carbon low carbon steel. 0.31-0.6% is medium carbon and 0.6-0.95% is high carbon.
 
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