Carbon vs Stainless Steel

herisson said:
"Lot of maintenance" is flat out wrong. Keeping your blade clean (sweeping it with your handky or on your jeans, whatever...), washing it with hot water and soap every two or three months, adding a drop of oil on the pivot (and/or a rub on the blade)... is just what everybody has done since centuries. And those carbon blades are still fully functional (folders from the 19th century, swords from the 15th, and on..). Stainless steels are actually nice but they are not the greatest event since the last giant meteorite.
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I wasn't being critical of the carbon steels . But I see large numbers of old tools at auctions and on peoples' farms and there is rarely any doubt that they are not a bit stainless . Visually obvious , no licking required . I'm not speaking of neglected or abused tools caked with scaly rust . Just ones with long service and average care , no longer shiny and polished . That's what I associate tool steel looking like from what I saw growing up around old equipment , well used and often outdoors ; in dirt , manure , plant sap etc . Patina , thick and rich with history .
 
Larrin said:
That is different than the first two claims. Carbon steel is more reactive than stainless steel and surface reactions being left on the food is not outside of the realm of possibility.
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For sure.
While using my beloved "Little Monsters", which are plain high carbon white paper steel I can smell the steel when cutting some kinds of food and when I am washing it off the blade.
No question.
This does not happen with stainless steel.
Smelling and tasting are pretty close though I don't suck on my knife blades.
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FortyTwoBlades said:
Common industry/community vernacular is "carbon steel" for non-stainless. As such, while the term is less than ideal, it's kind of irrelevant since the purpose of language is to communicate meaning, and we all know what's meant by the term.

The fingerprint has nothing to do with the steel type. :)
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Because anyone who has studied material science should know the terms stainless and non-stainless. Carbon steel means a simple alloy of iron+carbon. These terms have real meaning in materials science. Just because people misuse the terms doesn't mean they're correct or that anyone should continue that trend. On a specialized forum it makes much more sense to educate people to use the correct terminology.

The fingerprint looked like it may have been patina. I've had that happen on plenty of non-stainless knives. It's obviously not proof of anything, but I saw that on my Opinel #8 the other day. I obviously agree with the idea that it's virtually impossible to distinguish non-stainless from stainless given the same surface finish.
 
Yonose said:
So without a sea change, this steel will mot be available to knifemwkers, perio.
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I'm sure they could get it, but probably would not hold an edge well. As near as I can tell it's similar to a more corrosion resistant 4340. Which won't hold an edge very well either. These steels don't reach as high a hardness as the "usual suspects" in knife steel. They are used because they are very tough and more resistant to cracking on structural applications. S53 might be all right if it was nitrided after finishing, but then the edge would only last until the first sharpening and you'd have to toss it in the junk knife pile or get it nitrided again. (And even nitrided it's not going to reach much beyond 58 - 59 Rc at best).

It would probably work fine in a San Mai construction as the outside parts of the sandwich but there're plenty of steels that can do that - and that aren't as expensive - S53 is not widely available or used, so its not going to be cheap.
 
eKretz said:
LOL. So are drinking a glass of piss and a glass of water. Both will keep you hydrated. You could make such a generality about a whole lot of "different" things.
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Okay, well you can drink the piss and I'll stick with the water.
It's actually a very similar process in that they are both applied under heat in a vacuum and they both are ultimately surface treatments.
Nitriding is more like a case hardening though whereas TiN is a coating.
Big deal. Just seems kind of pedantic in the context of this thread.
 
danbot said:
Okay, well you can drink the piss and I'll stick with the water.
It's actually a very similar process in that they are both applied under heat in a vacuum and they both are ultimately surface treatments.
Nitriding is more like a case hardening though whereas TiN is a coating.
Big deal. Just seems kind of pedantic in the context of this thread.
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Apparently to you the difference is not important, so I guess the yellow glass would be for your perusal. It's not pedantic to correct a mistake. Again, if you'd prefer to be ignorant, go for it. Don't encourage others to follow your path.

And no, they are not both done under vacuum, nitriding is most often done in an ammonia atmosphere. They are not actually very similar at all. One is akin to heat treatment that actually ALTERS the steel itself. The other is akin to a very hard coat of paint that adheres at the molecular level. Nitriding is only useful with steels that have the correct makeup. TiN can be applied to ANYTHING that won't melt during the process.
 
eKretz said:
Apparently to you the difference is not important, so I guess the yellow glass would be for your perusal. It's not pedantic to correct a mistake. Again, if you'd prefer to be ignorant, go for it. Don't encourage others to follow your path.

And no, they are not both done under vacuum, nitriding is most often done in an ammonia atmosphere. They are not actually very similar at all. One is akin to heat treatment that actually ALTERS the steel itself. The other is akin to a very hard coat of paint that adheres at the molecular level. Nitriding is only useful with steels that have the correct makeup. TiN can be applied to ANYTHING that won't melt during the process.
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Okay, well I stand corrected.
Still not important to me in the context of this thread though, as it is off topic and will serve only to derail the thread, yet an interesting topic on its own.
 
It is an interesting topic, and I don't think it's off-topic really. The subject being steel - and both nitriding and TiN coating are treatments used for steel.
 
eKretz said:
It is an interesting topic, and I don't think it's off-topic really. The subject being steel - and both nitriding and TiN coating are treatments used for steel.
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Well, I suppose you could use a TiN coating on a carbon steel knife to give it some corrosion resistance. Do carbon steels take well to nitriding?
 
There are TiN coated knives. The problem remains that when the coating wears off or the knife dulls, sharpening will remove it. So it's sort of a one-time thing.

Most steels can be nitrided, but only certain alloying elements will allow the nitrided layer to form deeply like a deep case hardening. If they aren't present it's very thin and just at the surface.
 
The question came up because someone didn't understand what nitriding was and asked if using it could make Ferrium S53 suitable as a knife steel. I agree that it wouldn't be very useful on a knife - and I already made that point. But then neither is TiN or DLC except as a blade coating. I wouldn't want either on the edge, because once it's gone it's gone.
 
danbot said:
Yes, it would be pretty silly to use nitriding on a knife.
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I have knives which I make from HSS steel with TiN , TiAN and some other PVD coat I don t know proper name . Any scratches /from use of knife /was visible and very ugly....While on hard chrome surface they ara barely visible... Note, it is difficult to make a scratch on hard chrome , the surface oh hard chrome is hard /over 70Hrc/ and very slippery. ...
And while we are here ......... I would like something like this on my knife ,
Boriding :)
 
Natlek said:
I have knives which I make from HSS steel with TiN , TiAN and some other PVD coat I don t know proper name . Any scratches /from use of knife /was visible and very ugly....While on hard chrome surface they ara barely visible... Note, it is difficult to make a scratch on hard chrome , the surface oh hard chrome is hard /over 70Hrc/ and very slippery. ...
And while we are here ......... I would like something like this on my knife ,
Boriding :)
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We have the potential to do some pretty crazy things to our knife blades these days! But some will always prefer a nice, simple, tough HC steel blade with a beautiful patina. Nothing wrong with that!
 
Yep, agreed. Plain steel is plenty good. Boriding is pretty damn cool, but I would choose DLC over hard chrome. I have had a few DLC coated knives and they do NOT scratch easily. Most of the time, what you think are scratches are actually deposits left on the coating because it's so hard it abrades whatever it touches. A good DLC coating can have a hardness of over 90Rc.
 
herisson said:
And those carbon blades are still fully functional (folders from the 19th century, swords from the 15th, and on..).
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I do not understand why some guys are so frightened of rust on carbon knife ,anyway they will outlive us :D Here's how looks 2400 year old blade..........
qtWtgHa.jpg
 
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