what will happen if you leave something acidic on a SS blade?

sogflash

sogflash

Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
1,600
what will happen if you leave something acidic like lemon juice, ketchup or something like that on a stainless steel blade? what kind of steel? 154 cm, cpm s30v, elmax or any other normal blade steel. what will happen to the non stainless D2?

someone must have tried it.
 
Well, I've cut limes and tomatoes with my 20CP, XHP, etc and stuck it back in my pocket. Nothing untoward happened when I looked the following morning.
 
Any steel can stain and corrode under the right conditions. "stainless" is a misnomer, a more accurate term is stain resistant. Even pots and pans which are made of 18-8 chromium/nickel, non-cutlery grade stainless gets water spots with normal usage. I have seen staining on ZDP-189 which is 20% chromium, and 14C28N, which contains nitrogen. Only exotics like H-1 which has a unique chemistry or non-steel (titanium, ceramic, etc) are immune.
 
olpappy said:
Any steel can stain and corrode under the right conditions. "stainless" is a misnomer, a more accurate term is stain resistant. Even pots and pans which are made of 18-8 chromium/nickel, non-cutlery grade stainless gets water spots with normal usage. I have seen staining on ZDP-189 which is 20% chromium, and 14C28N, which contains nitrogen. Only exotics like H-1 which has a unique chemistry or non-steel (titanium, ceramic, etc) are immune.
Click to expand...

Actually it's not... it does stain LESS. Less than carbon steel. It isn't called stainfree; if it was THAT would be a misnomer.
 
I made a stainless blade look like damascus with battery acid. Not on purpose, I was putting a new battery in the motorcycle, and had to cut the tip off the acid container to add it to the battery. Got a drop on the blade, and immediately wiped it off. Still etched the blade. Battery acid is wicked stuff.
 
Stelth said:
Actually it's not... it does stain LESS. Less than carbon steel. It isn't called stainfree; if it was THAT would be a misnomer.
Click to expand...

hairless = without any hair

penniless = without any money

merciless = without mercy

etc

whoever coined the term stainless was a marketing genius who has given the world false expectations by overstating the merits of the product, thus for eternity will housewives complain when their "stainless" knives rust after being left immersed in the dirty sink dishes.
 
Last edited:
I've left juice from lemons, limes, and onions on S30V and had no staining or rusting. VG-10 had some speckles, and ZDP-189 was stained and had rust spots.

I felt so over-confident in S30V that one time I made a spaghetti sauce for meatball subs, and used the knife to cut the sub in half, and left it for a few hours uncleaned. Came back and had a few minor pits--which surprised me. Probably a combination of the salt and acid from the tomatoes and meatballs.
 
olpappy said:
hairless = without any hair

penniless = without any money

merciless = without mercy

etc
Click to expand...
Yes but, flammable and inflammable mean exactly the same thing... something burns easily. So if you're looking for consistency; English sometimes doesn't make sense.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top