Steel for forged kitchen knives

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Blackdirt cowboy

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My wife wants me to make her a set of kitchen knives. She wants a chef knife, meat slicer, cleaver, and pairing knife. I’ll probably make her a utility knife as well. I bought a stick of aebl to make the knives from, but now she told me she wants them all forged, she likes the rustic look and doesn’t want them ground all shiny. So the aebl I bought is out as it’s thin stock and will be very difficult to forge.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to make these out of that will hold up well in the kitchen, but also comes in sizes that I can forge the blade out? Heat treatment is not an issue as I have an oven and the capability to freeze in liquid nitrogen as well, so no steel is off the table.
 
26C3 makes a pretty good kitchen knife at high hardness and comes in 1/4" thickness. The cleaver I'd probably temper back but regular kitchen knives I run at 64-65RC.
 
26c3 looks like a great steel for kitchen knives. What size of bar stock would you recommend starting with in order to forge the knives?
 
26C3. If forging, use a piece about 3/16 thick. The main reason to forge kitchen knives is if you want kurouchi.

I would suggest you NOT forge it, though. 26C3 is available in any size you want and grinds quite easily. Forging it won't improve it, All the knife styles you listed would be far easier and better looking done by stock removal. If you want kurouchi, just forge the upper area and grind all the rest.
 
Kurouchi is exactly what I’m going for. My wife loves that type on finish. She wants to be able to look at it and know it was made by hand, not by a machine. The less perfect the better, in her eyes.
 
Blackdirt cowboy said:
Kurouchi is exactly what I’m going for. My wife loves that type on finish. She wants to be able to look at it and know it was made by hand, not by a machine. The less perfect the better, in her eyes.
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I really like 15n20 for kitchen knives. That nickel helps a bit with rust and at 63Rc it takes a nice edge. I don't forge much. It only comes in 0.25 but CruForgeV is a monster forging steel. I know some people do forge stainless but I have no idea what goes into doing it right.
 
In my limited experience 26C3 is nice to forge, but i agree with Stacy that it's a bit of a waste. For the cleaver i would use 5160.
Other options: 52100, 1080, 1095, W2. Skip stainless if she wants rustic, sounds like she would like the patina of carbon steel.

With that brief i would get some thicker 26c3, profile them and forge the tang, distal taper, and bevels in
 
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