carbon steel-trad v. modernists

kamagong said:
The history of steels is very relevant to discussion of "users." If a knife was good enough to be considered a user in 1850, then why shouldn't it still be considered a user today? It is still a knife after all.

We don't even have to look to history. Even today a large part of the world's population uses carbon steel knives. The Nepalese for example use their famed khukuris. I've never seen a stainless khukuri, and I don't think that stainless steels lend themselves well to the khukuri design. But you'd be hard-pressed to argue that khukuris are not user knives. Nepal is a third world country, and a lot of the people there only own one knife, the khukuri. The Nepalese probably use their khukuris harder than most of us on this forum do with our knives.
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Arguing for the sense of arguing has little point. I've already said that I like carbon steel, and feel that it is better in many ways than stainless steel. There is no need to educate me in the history of steel in knives or in the virtues of carbon steel.
 
Ryan8 said:
Do you oil them? If not I'd be kind of surprised if you've never had carbon steel rust. I've seen a Buck 110 in 440C, a number of stainless tools, and blued guns rust. Oiling can easily prevent this though.
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Minimally- usually wipe side of nose, wipe blade. :)
 
kamagong said:
The history of steels is very relevant to discussion of "users." If a knife was good enough to be considered a user in 1850, then why shouldn't it still be considered a user today?
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:confused:

Are we not supposed to make advancements? I'm not arguing the point, just the logic. How relevant is a computer made 100 years ago to a "user" computer today?

What about cars or guns?

I understand nostalgia and the desire to relive a bit of history but not for the sake of advancement.


Here's my logic, if I'm spending $100 or less on a slipjoint I want carbon steel when possible. Aside from AG, few people are making a good slip in good stainless for under $100.

On my customs, premium stainless is the only way I go. There's no good reason not to.

I have extensively used carbon steel and all of the modern stainless steels and from a cutting/use perspective cannot see an advantage of carbon steel in small folders over stainless aside from possibly ease of sharpening. But with modern day sharpeners that is of little consequence.

The big disadvantage of carbon steel is that is imparts flavor to food and I use my slips to cut up fruit a lot.

Maintenance is not an issue with me because I take care of my tools.

In my experience most of the hard core "carbon steel only, everything else sucks" fanatics are only parroting the carbon steel party line and have never used the high end modern steels they are ragging on. Maybe if they were more objective they would learn something.

I would say my slipjoints are pretty much split down the middle with high end stainless and carbon steel and I like them all.
 
I'm all for advancements. My favorite knives have blades of S30V, VG10, and 154cm. My only carbon steel folder is a handmade balisong, and I don't use that one.

I'm just saying that if a carbon steel knife cut well 100 years ago it should still cut well now. Physics hasn't changed over the past few centuries.

One of the posters mentioned that he doesn't think a knife could be considered a user unless it can be used and neglected without worry of maintaining it. I agree with that statement. I don't want carbon steel in a folder. But I also do not want stainless in a big blade because the inherent brittleness of stainless steels would limit that big blade's usefulness.

Personally I say use what you want. I myself want carbon steel for big fixed blades and stainless for folders. I too use my knives to cut food and don't like the fact that carbon steel affects the flavor of food. Plus I don't need the added aggravation of rust under the liners.
 
You know I never intentionally switched from carbon steel to stainless, the manufacturers just switched and I learned to live with stainless. Of course at first I thought that I had lost my touch at sharpening. I had been effortlessly putting scary sharp edges on knives for years and suddenly I had trouble with more and more knives. I never knew that my first Buck 110 had a 440C stainless blade, I just knew that it didn't get nearly as sharp as my older folding knives. I started to buy lots of different hones trying to recover my technique. I started accidently breaking tips off of knives doing things that had been no problem before. Knife blades got thicker to try and achieve the same toughness as thinner carbon steel blades. Cutting performance kept going down. Stainless steel came along and solved a corrosion problem that had never troubled me and gave me a whole raft of new problems. I sort of lost interest in knives when they were all made of crappy stainless.

Move forward another 25 years or so. Spyderco and some other companies started coming out with some premium stainless blades that would really take and hold a great edge. I do a lot of shopping around to sample all of the new wonder alloys. Now I can buy stainless with most of the performance of 1095 except for toughness. It just costs several times as much. Isn't progress wonderful.
 
Jeff Clark said:
You know I never intentionally switched from carbon steel to stainless, the manufacturers just switched and I learned to live with stainless. Of course at first I thought that I had lost my touch at sharpening. I had been effortlessly putting scary sharp edges on knives for years and suddenly I had trouble with more and more knives. I never knew that my first Buck 110 had a 440C stainless blade, I just knew that it didn't get nearly as sharp as my older folding knives. I started to buy lots of different hones trying to recover my technique. I started accidently breaking tips off of knives doing things that had been no problem before. Knife blades got thicker to try and achieve the same toughness as thinner carbon steel blades. Cutting performance kept going down. Stainless steel came along and solved a corrosion problem that had never troubled me and gave me a whole raft of new problems. I sort of lost interest in knives when they were all made of crappy stainless.

Move forward another 25 years or so. Spyderco and some other companies started coming out with some premium stainless blades that would really take and hold a great edge. I do a lot of shopping around to sample all of the new wonder alloys. Now I can buy stainless with most of the performance of 1095 except for toughness. It just costs several times as much. Isn't progress wonderful.
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Then why bother? Like I always say, knifemakers had it right the first time around--1095. Anything else is worthless, and it ain't progress.
 
Well there are tool steels that hold an edge longer. I like A2 in a hunting knife. I also like 52100. Now that I have a belt sander and diamond hones I have found a use for D2. BG-42 is really nice. For the premium you get something that holds an edge better than 1095. Now that I have more money I can afford these things.
 
Progress is wonderful. You can have your pick of all the new stainless steels, and still have your 1095. For slipjoints, I'll still take D2. For small knives, IMO, D2 beats 1095 in every category hands down except toughness, and I'm not buying a slipjoint for that.

1095 also discolors my fruit (especially apples) with a really disgusting grey color. Nobody feels like eating when they see that.

For larger knives, I like it. For slipjoints, I'll take D2. YMMV.
 
Saying that 1095 is the best steel for any use or purpose is being rather closed-minded. :)
 
Larrin said:
Saying that 1095 is the best steel for any use or purpose is being rather closed-minded. :)
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Cattleking has 16 posts and every one of them is virtually the same line copied and pasted.
 
I love 1095. This is a fact. However, others do have their place.

My AGR Scout is 154CM. Great knife. My SAKs? Whatever SS the Swiss use. Case in CV, Queens in D2, just what I like.

Steel can be a dealbreaker, but it is rarely a dealmaker.
 
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