I should point out that until I really looked into making knives for myself, and later, for a living, I was a die-hard carbon-steel snob. My early education on knives was based heavily on the writings of Bagwell and Moran... true giants in our field. It took a lot of research, testing and experience to open my mind to even considering stainless steels. Don't get me wrong, there is no question in my mind that "plain carbon steels" still have a place in the knife world, and they always will!
Ummm... no. That's not true at all. I strongly disagree that "stainless is harder to get right" because with modern alloys and HT, it's actually a very straightforward process to make a truly high-performance kitchen blade. The protocols for each well-known alloy are established, proven, thoroughly tested, and easily replicated. It is more costly than firing up the BBQ... but not nearly as costly as some would have you believe... and definitely less expensive than paying a famous maker a couple hundred extra dollars for his top-secret "regimen". Can your average Joe Schmoe do it right in his garage with a torch and a bucket of old motor-oil? Absolutely not.
It's a heckuva lot easier to "get carbon steel wrong", especially when we still have so many makers, buyers and internet "experts" who insist on ignoring several decades of research and who idolize half-vast, archaic methods... most of which do not come close to bringing the steel to its highest potential. For various reasons, there's still a whole lot of baloney floating around about how to deal with low-alloy steels, and that's a crying shame. Can your average Joe Schmoe do it right in his garage with a torch and a bucket of old motor-oil? Absolutely not.
Is it easier to get simple alloys "kinda-sorta right", with a dubious heat-treat that will probably not fall apart and can take a fine edge and hold it through a meal? Yes, that's true. But it's hardly something to hold up as a standard.
