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Is there a list of steels?
- Thread starter hung-solo
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- Mar 24, 2008
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looks helpful thank you sir
side question. how does surgical steel hold up against the steels that are out there for knives?
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Surgical steel is kind of some generic name used to describe some mystery stainless, from what I can gather.
i was talking about your hospital grade surgical steel. i do not know much about that..
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Well, surgical stainless scalpels are meant to be used once and disposed of in order to reduce the chance of cross-contamination, I believe. I would expect them to work much the same way that Derby double-edged razors would, which is, since the blades tend to be very thin, very sharp for one use but that's about it.
Many companies discuss the use of "surgical stainless" in their knives, such as Gerber and Winchester, and Case uses something known as TruSharp. There's a lot of debate about what these steels actually are, but if it works for you, then not much else really matters.
that was what i mean sorry for the ignorance in steels and etc.. i am learning. this is a great site too to learn from.. thanks for being patient fellas.
so chances are if they are from gerber its 440a maybe B? something of that nature? perhaps an upper tier 3 steel?
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More likely than not, it'll probably be around 420hc or 440a, I think. Gerbers are working knives meant to be used. A little extra sharpening never hurt.
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Good point. Forgot about that one. My only experience with that steel wasn't very impressive.
By the way, nice work on that M4 Mule. That's some nice blackwood. How's it feel in the hand?
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- Mar 24, 2008
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Thanks. It feels great in hand. Spyderco did a great job on the design of this knife. I really like the feel of polished blackwood, too.
as quoted from the link you guys gave me to learn more about steels.. i dont think they would want to advertise 440a lol
---- If your knife is marked with just "440", it
is probably the less expensive 440A; if a manufacturer had used the
more expensive 440C, he'd want to advertise that. The general feeling
is that 440A (and similar steels, see below) is just good enough for
everyday use, especially with a good heat treat (we've heard good
reports on the heat treat of SOG's 440A blades, don't know who does
the work for them). 440-B is a very solid performer and 440-C is
excellent.-----
yablanowitz
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- Apr 14, 2006
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To me, seeing "Surgical Steel" on the blade is the same as seeing "We don't want to tell you what steel we really use because you wouldn't buy our knife if we did" it just fits on a smaller blade.
In all honesty, most people don't use their knives hard enough for the steel to matter much. Softer and less wear resistent steels are generally easier to sharpen, and a lot of folk prefer that to a hard, wear resistent steel that will hold an edge for six months of their use but takes them four hours to sharpen once it gets dull.
In all honesty, most people don't use their knives hard enough for the steel to matter much. Softer and less wear resistent steels are generally easier to sharpen, and a lot of folk prefer that to a hard, wear resistent steel that will hold an edge for six months of their use but takes them four hours to sharpen once it gets dull.