They seem to have gone quiet on their carbon steel line. I and others were suggesting they use 1095 and produce it as their premium brand. We'll see.
I don't think there are that many around any more that think of 1095 as a premium steel. Although I like it in the winter time when I don't sweat through my work clothes every day, I don't miss the lack of maintenance or concern that stainless brings. I read a lot as a part of my evening relaxation, and it seems to me that the only two places that folks clamor for 1095 and its counterparts are here, and to a much lesser extent, AAPK.
For those that weren't brought up with the nostalgia aspect of a "good steel that was good enough for our grandfathers", they will certainly go to the tool that requires the least maintenance. My turning point to use it was somewhere in the late 70s when I purchased a large Browning folding hunter. It was the much touted 440c (which by the way was widely frowned upon by old timers then!) and man did it perform. Anyone that has hunted and cleaned game will testify that guts and blood will "patina" a blade to the point of corrorsion. I was shocked that the stainless was easy to clean, even when it was cleaned the next morning (evening hunt). Further, I was completely surprised how well the 440c held its edge through hide and fur, and with its hollow grind it even broke down joints nicely, slicing through cartilage like nobody's business. I was sold on stainless and carried that knife everywhere and used it on the job site, camping, hiking, etc., for years. Got a Puma 4 star after that as a gift somewhere at the end of the 70s, and I was sold on stainless.
Then I tried that same era's stainless from CASE; I learned then and there that all stainless blades aren't alike.
All that being said, probably about half my knives are carbon. And this is carbon carrying weather, so in the pocket they go.
I don't understand why RR doesn't make them in carbon as a limited release or something like that, either. I guess it is the scale of things. They might be looking at their worldwide market and making a determination of how many they will sell. If this there product is aimed to be an affordable working knife, then no doubt they will stay where they are with this. There aren't that many folks (in my experience) that talk so lovingly of their knives as a knifenut does. No one in my acquaintance loves their knives anywhere close to as much as I do.
My point is that on a global scale it might be that most folks would take stainless for the
utility value of the material on a tool. I would think that if RR thought they could make some money with big numbers of sales of carbon we would have it. Their cost should go down by a few cents a knife, but then in the big numbers of manufacturing that might add up somewhere.
I dunno...
Robert
