Hi Everyone
A neighbour and friend gave me some kitchen knives to sharpen last night. Three of the four were had typical solingen steel blades and were very simple and quick to re-bevel and hone to a good sharpness.
The other one was a much harder steel on a 10 inch Cook's Knife. I spent quite a few hours on it and went through coarse, medium and fine stones, and then finally honed all the way down with strops and compound. In the end I got an absolutely fabulous result with a polished concave edge. I have absolutely no idea what type of stainless steel was in the blade (and am hoping someone might have some sort of idea). It felt as though it was a harder steel than 440C. The only identification was the makers mark which included the words "Barclay Forge", and on the other side was "Stainless Steel, Japan".
If I had to make a guess, I'd say the knife was well over 20 years old. While the tang was full length on a wooden handle, it is only half the height of the handle at the end and fastened with 3 (probably brass) rivets. This makes me think it was not a super-high quality kitchen knife, but I just love the steel in it. Before I gave it back, I tried it out for a few hours on various food-chopping tasks, cutting wood etc, and it seems to hold the edge remarkably well (at least as well as my old Gerber 440C blade). Admittedly I only verified this by feel and using 10X magnification on the edge.
I searched all I could on the internet, but could only find unresolved answers. Would anyone know, or even be prepared to make an informed guess, what type of steel this might be? From now on, if I see any of these at garage sales etc, I'll be snapping them up if they are cheap enough.
Cheers and happy new financial year
omniphile
A neighbour and friend gave me some kitchen knives to sharpen last night. Three of the four were had typical solingen steel blades and were very simple and quick to re-bevel and hone to a good sharpness.
The other one was a much harder steel on a 10 inch Cook's Knife. I spent quite a few hours on it and went through coarse, medium and fine stones, and then finally honed all the way down with strops and compound. In the end I got an absolutely fabulous result with a polished concave edge. I have absolutely no idea what type of stainless steel was in the blade (and am hoping someone might have some sort of idea). It felt as though it was a harder steel than 440C. The only identification was the makers mark which included the words "Barclay Forge", and on the other side was "Stainless Steel, Japan".
If I had to make a guess, I'd say the knife was well over 20 years old. While the tang was full length on a wooden handle, it is only half the height of the handle at the end and fastened with 3 (probably brass) rivets. This makes me think it was not a super-high quality kitchen knife, but I just love the steel in it. Before I gave it back, I tried it out for a few hours on various food-chopping tasks, cutting wood etc, and it seems to hold the edge remarkably well (at least as well as my old Gerber 440C blade). Admittedly I only verified this by feel and using 10X magnification on the edge.
I searched all I could on the internet, but could only find unresolved answers. Would anyone know, or even be prepared to make an informed guess, what type of steel this might be? From now on, if I see any of these at garage sales etc, I'll be snapping them up if they are cheap enough.
Cheers and happy new financial year
omniphile
