Minimum hardness for a blade?

Tracer-san

Tracer-san

Joined
Jan 28, 2000
Messages
854
Is 52 hard enough for a knife?

I see the hard ones go up to 59-60 Rockwell, but I just don't know how much softer is 8 points lower.

thank you for you input! :)

NsB
 
Thats a tough question unless we know what kind of steel it is. If it is plain carbon steel I say it is too soft. It is just barely above spring hardness will be extremely tough but wont hold an edge. Generaly carbon steel should be 56-59 to be wear resistant. Most stainless steels are 58-61 rc. Hope this helps
 
Sorry about the lack of info Bruce, here's' what I have on this steel:

It's made by Thyssen Steels

AISI/SAE: 420
DIN: 1.2083
C: 0.42
Cr: 14
Mo: 0.8
V: 0.3
Si: less than 1
Mn: less than 1
S: less than 0.005

Is a stainless steel and according to this paper I have, it has high corrosion and abrassion resistance. It tempers at 1020-1050 C and reaches 52-56 on the Rockwell scale.

Since I don't know yet who's' gonna make the temper (locally) i wanted to consider the worst scenario, with 52.


Thank you fo your time, I apreciate it :)


NsB
 
420 is generally considered to be one of the lower quality, and lesser desired stainless steels, at least in my experience. Well, for general knife applications. It does hav ea very high corrosion resisitance, so it is good for dive knives, and similar products that need a lot of corrosion resistance. 420, as you see, also doesn't get very hard, which makes it hard to keep a good edge on it. the 440 family, particularly 440c, which has higher carbon content than a or b, doesn't have as much corrosion resistance as 420, but is a harder steel, well,with proper heat treatment, and tends to make a better knife overall.

I'm sure someone else can give some more input, I tend to work with high carbon steels, so don't know as much about stainless as I would like, at least not yet.
 
What a dumba$$... :barf:

I had to read your post to put two plus two together and match the AISI/SAE: 420 with 420 steel... Too much work as you can see:rolleyes:

Time to get a new steel chart... :(

NsB
 
No worries man, I didn't actually notice it at first either, was reading through numbers and trying to figure out what would match that carbon and chromium content, and couldn't dig any out of my memory, then happened to look up and see that about third time through. :)
 
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