If you have a specific design and an intended use for the knife then you can decide what the best steel would be for that knife. In general steel is plain high carbon (iron and carbon alloys that will rust) and stainless steels (iron, carbon and chromium alloys that won't rust in most cases). Some steels have great edge retention but poor toughness while others are the opposite.
There are several "all-purpose" steels, an example of a good all purpose plain carbon steel would be 1095 (an alloy of iron containing .95% carbon). Two examples of good all puprpose stainless steels would be 440C or ATS34. For forging 5160 and 52100 are great steels that have modest rust and corrosion resistance and make very tough blades. Many steels have small percentages of various other elements , such as nickle, molybdenum, tungsten, sulphur etc., added to the alloy to change their charachteristics. This is a broad very general introduction to blade steels and I probably did not help your confusion much, however unless we know the intended use, design, size etc. of the knife it is hard to recomend a steel for it.
Hopefully someone will direct you to a site that lists these steels and their makeup and charachteristics. I beleive the late Bob Engnaths site has a list but I'm not sure and I don't have the address handy. Hope this has been of some help!-Guy Thomas
[This message has been edited by Silent (edited 01-10-2001).]
