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- Jul 30, 2006
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No, not especially. There is a reason razors are made from simple alloys without carbides. It is not just cost.
Edge stability. Alloys which have carbides do not have it. A "shaving sharp edge" that lasts a long time requires it.
High end wear resistant steels such as M4, D2, and anything with more than about 0.6% carbon contain carbides. They are like the aggregate in concrete. But what you want for maintaining a razor edge as it wears is pure cement. i.e. no carbides.
Suppose you put a polished "razor edge" on blade steel containing carbides. As the edge wears, the carbides are exposed. They make little bumps on your polished edge. There goes your shaving edge.
Now do the same thing with a non-carbide steel such as 13C26 hardened to a 61. As the edge wears, it remains smooth, so it retains it's shaving sharp edge longer.
A simple non-carbide steel will retain a shaving edge longer than a carbide containing steel will.
But a carbide containing steel will continue to cut long after the simple steel has gone completely dull.
Now personally, I don't put a shaving sharp edge on my blades because I find a slightly rougher edge works better for the things that I cut. (mostly plastics and cardboard). And I prefer carbide containing alloys for the same reason. But if I needed a shaving sharp edge and wanted it to last as long as possible, I would go find some alloy without carbides and make sure the maker hardened it to as high a level as possible.
