How to know this steel?

[EzHann]

https://ibb.co/FXCBCqR

 

[KenHash]

Upload your photo to an image hosting site and post the url to the photo.

 

[EzHann]

Oh no. I did. It did'nt work? Sorry.

 

[dirc]

this pic should work (right click the actual picture, then copy link location of that to use here)

it looks to be an old non-stainless steel... to know more you'd need to try some tests. Sharpen it and you should get an idea of how hard it is.

 

[Eversion]

Unfortunately, if it's not marked and you can't find any documentation about it, there's really no way to find out what exact steel it is short of sending the thing off to a lab for them to do a chemical analysis.

With some experience, you can narrow the list down based on how it behaves.

If I had to make a guess, based on how old the thing looks, what price range and purpose it seemed to be going after around the time it was made, and how it's reacting to corrosion, I'd guess something in the range of 1070 or 1080, or something fairly similar. Purely an academic guess, though.

 

[EzHann]

I use my smartphone...

 

[Henry Beige]

If it is Malaysian, or Thai, or from somewhere in that part of the world, it could be made from an old leaf spring, in which case 5160 would be a good guess. Otherwise some 10xx carbon steel, selected for its availability and general suitability, rather than for any particular specs.

 

[herisson]

Sharpen it up, use it... You will get a good idea of how it performs. I had tremendous experiences with so called "low end" steels. Turned out that the "low end" was very high performing. Doing the stuff you expect out of it, of course. Sorry, I can't resist, I've posted it many times but this is my knife of love (it's not even a knife but it was my companion for years...)