Steel Choice for Paring knife for first time maker and a non-knife person user

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pjmaxm

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Nov 29, 2005
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As my long-winded title alludes to I am going to try my hand at making my first knife. I am thinking of a small paring/utility knife for the kitchen.

The person in mind for my first knife is my grandmother. She has this little paring knife that she has used around the kitchen for longer than I can remember, and when I lived with her through my college years I saw her use it everyday. Well the knife that started out a clip point is now almost like a hawkbill from all the sharpening over the years, so I want to make her a new EDK (Every Day Kitchen) for Christmas. Thinking about a 7" overall with a 3" blade and thin, possibly 3/32 or maybe 1/16.

Yet she is not a knife person very much and I know that she will not want to have to do much maintenance of the knife so my first thought was to stainless steel; even though I prefer carbon steel I feel she would be happier with stainless.

With those thoughts in mind, and this being my first knife, what steel would you all recommend? 440C, 154CM, ATS-34 or......? Unless I am unjustly eliminating some carbon steel or other stainless that would suit my needs.
As for how I will make the knife it will be stock removal by using a drill press to make the rough outline and most likely hand filing to finish off. I work at a machine shop and we heat treat a bunch of our products, so I was going to look into seeing if I could get one of our heat treat vendors to heat treat the blade.

Thanks for any help and I am looking forward to making this knife for my grandmother.:D
 
I use CPM 154, but of the ones you listed, 154CM/ATS-34 (ATS-34 is the same thing) will be just as good.440C is fine,too, and is the cheapest of the bunch.Steel choice is sometimes more about getting the size/thickness you need,than a certain type. Use a simple ,kitchen friendly handle material, like Micarta, or Rosewood.I would recommend Corby rivets on a kitchen knife.You can purchase steel,supplies, and handle material from suppliers like Texas Knife Supply, Jantz, K&G,Pop's,etc. Some of them will do the HT as well for about $10, including cryo.
Stacy

PS, A little more info in your profile might help.
 
Thanks for the pointers and suppliers Stacy.

Also what should I include in my profile that would be helpful?

Thanks for the help.
 
The information on the profile form - Age, occupation, interests, town, etc.
Stacy
 
I just used CPM 154 CM for the first time, and I'm very pleased with it. I had it heat treated by Paul Bos. I just ordered some more from Pop's so that I can make some kitchen knives out of it. You might want to consider both the CPM 154 and Pop's. You need to call Pop to order the steel.
 
Thanks Chris for the advice.
The more I look and read, I think I will go with 154CM or CPM 154. I understand they are different but not to different. From what people are saying CPM154 is a little easier to work with and a little better grade, but not astonishingly better as I understand it. I guess I will just choose based upon thickness availability and price.

I had no idea it was so reasonably priced and easy to get a blade heat treated by Paul Bos. For some reason I made it harder or more expensive that it is, probably because of his legendary status and that I just read about his Blade Magazine award for his work.

As to using 13C26, I am just a little leery of a newer steel, as opposed to older proven steels such as 154CM. Probably an unfounded concern but I have not seen to much from makers about this steel. Although Kershaw seems to love the 13C26 steel as they are switching a lot of their knives over to 13C26.
 
pjmaxm said:
Thanks Chris for the advice.
The more I look and read, I think I will go with 154CM or CPM 154. I understand they are different but not to different. From what people are saying CPM154 is a little easier to work with and a little better grade, but not astonishingly better as I understand it. I guess I will just choose based upon thickness availability and price.

I had no idea it was so reasonably priced and easy to get a blade heat treated by Paul Bos. For some reason I made it harder or more expensive that it is, probably because of his legendary status and that I just read about his Blade Magazine award for his work.

As to using 13C26, I am just a little leery of a newer steel, as opposed to older proven steels such as 154CM. Probably an unfounded concern but I have not seen to much from makers about this steel. Although Kershaw seems to love the 13C26 steel as they are switching a lot of their knives over to 13C26.
Click to expand...
13C26 may be newly discovered by the custom knife community, but the steel (especially AEB-L) has actually been around longer than 154CM.
 
Larrin said:
13C26 may be newly discovered by the custom knife community, but the steel (especially AEB-L) has actually been around longer than 154CM.
Click to expand...

Thank you for setting me straight. I have been doing some more reading on 13C26 and it seems my fears or reservations are pretty unfounded.
One point that is really standing out to me is how some are saying it is easier to resharpen then other stainless such as 154CM, which along with low maintence are two of my major aims for this knife for my grandmother.

Also looking at prices at Admiral Steel, 13C26 seems to be very reasonably price comparative to 154Cm and especially CPM154.

Quick related question that I know depends on my design, but for small paring knife would you get 1" wide or 1.5" wide stock?
Also for thickness I have eliminated 1/16, and now deciding between 3/32 and 1/8.

Thanks again to everyone for all the help, this is really helping me a lot to narrow down the choice.
 
pjmaxm said:
Thank you for setting me straight. I have been doing some more reading on 13C26 and it seems my fears or reservations are pretty unfounded.
One point that is really standing out to me is how some are saying it is easier to resharpen then other stainless such as 154CM, which along with low maintence are two of my major aims for this knife for my grandmother.

Also looking at prices at Admiral Steel, 13C26 seems to be very reasonably price comparative to 154Cm and especially CPM154.

Quick related question that I know depends on my design, but for small paring knife would you get 1" wide or 1.5" wide stock?
Also for thickness I have eliminated 1/16, and now deciding between 3/32 and 1/8.

Thanks again to everyone for all the help, this is really helping me a lot to narrow down the choice.
Click to expand...
1" is probably all you need for a paring knife, but then you have to consider what you're going to do with the rest of the bar. Just buy the thinnest steel they offer in 13C26, which I think is .100", you could take that down even thinner if you have a surface grinder since it's a paring knife. And yes, this stuff is definitely easy to sharpen, like carbon steel easy.
 
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