Best steel for paring knives?

Jonas Liebel

Jonas Liebel

Joined
Jan 20, 2018
Messages
34
Heyho folks,

I want to make some paring knives and wanted to ask about the steel type that would do best for this type of knife. I'm also not sure about the ideal thickness.

Would 2mm 1080 be a good choice for example?

Thanks guys! :)
 
You could use almost anything. 1080 is a reactive steel, meaning it will stain and take on a patina from the acids in the foods you prepare with it. I have a small knife I use in the kitchen all the time I made with 1084. In addition to the fact it stains (which I could care less about) it also can impart a "steel flavor" to some foods, like apples. Also, if you forget and leave it soaking in the sink overnight with the other dishes and silverware it will be orange in the morning. A little Brillo will clean it right up. It's not a big deal but something to think about. We might not care but our wives might.

I would suggest looking at either AEB-L or its cousin Nitro-V. Both are stainless, easy to work with and take a very fine edge.
 
Aebl is very popular, probably with good reason, I love carbon steel but stainless trumps it in the food department imho.
 
Thanks, but I forgot to mention that I'm looking for a carbon steel, since I don't have the equipment to harden stainless.
 
For carbon steels, you could look at 15N20. It’s easy to find in thin stock for kitchen type blades and heat treat is relatively simple. I have used it for a few kitchen knives and a couple fillets with good results. It seems a tiny bit more corrosion resistant than some other carbon steels due to the higher nickel content but that could just be my imagination. When I started I always just looked at it as a component of Damascus, but once I tried it, I was impressed with it as a stand-alone steel.
 
+1 on 15n20. On the scale of rust resistance companies to stainless it's only a little way up that road, compared to 1084 its several times better. For comparison a clean 1084 blade will patina cutting most veggies . 15n20 can even cut onions without a patina and will only really get one with prolonged exposure. If you chopped washed and oiled with no sitting it would stay bright for a long time. It's also inexpensive and available in thin stock.
 
Grayzer86 said:
For carbon steels, you could look at 15N20. It’s easy to find in thin stock for kitchen type blades and heat treat is relatively simple. I have used it for a few kitchen knives and a couple fillets with good results. It seems a tiny bit more corrosion resistant than some other carbon steels due to the higher nickel content but that could just be my imagination. When I started I always just looked at it as a component of Damascus, but once I tried it, I was impressed with it as a stand-alone steel.
Click to expand...

I agree, simple to heat treat, tough, and if left at Rc62 or higher, respectable edge holding. It’s probably my most used steel for small knives. O1 is also available in this stock, but has zero patina resistance.
 
For paring knives I use Hitachi Blue steel (#2) if doing a carbon steel, and CPM-S35VN for stainless. The Hitachi steel usually has to be forged to shape and thinness, but the S35VN comes in .06/.07" and is perfect size for quick kitchen knife shaping. I usually only profile the blade in thin steel, and then do the bevels after HT.

Other good paring knife carbon steels are 1095, 52100, and A-2. These usually can be bought in thin sheets/bars.

Paring knives are thick at .07".
 
I’m a huge fan of 15n20 for just about everything but my wife absolutely loves the small paring knife I made her out of A2. A2 is really a great steel if treated properly.
 
Paring knives are pretty "low impact" as far as cutting tasks go, though they do get used a lot. I think their effectiveness as a paring knife has less to do with steel type, and more with blade profile, thickness and edge geometry.
If you're doing stock removal, I'd pick just about any carbon steel that I could find around 1/16" or so. I've made larger paring knives from 3/32" material, but they were full flat ground to a pretty thin edge. I think in general, the thinner, the better. 1080/1084, 1095, O1, 8670, etc... should all be suitable.
 
i like O1, yes it will stain but if you wash and double dry it is ok. find some O1 in 3/64 or 1/32 to make ultra light super slicers.
 
View attachment 871222 I have 2 custom George Young paring knives made of Stellite 6-K. The blades are .028” thick. The Stellite is hard to find, but it requires no heat treat. The Stellite is half Chrome and half Cobalt, so it can’t rust. The only drawback: it won’t stick to a magnetic knife rack.
 
I experimented with Stellite 6K, and with dendric Cobalt. I came to the conclusion that the right steel was just as good or better .... and way cheaper.
 
View attachment 871353 I have many kitchen knives in many materials. I haven’t found any that I like better than 6-K, 6-BH, or 6-B. The reason I brought it up was because the OP lacks heat treat. These Boye Dendritic Cobalt knives also see a lot of use in my kitchen.
 
Stellite 6K, Talonite and other cobalt alloys are excellent for some uses and horrible for others.

If you are cutting meat and/or vegetables, Stellite 6K & Talonite will hold an edge much longer than most steel alloys. One of the chicken companies uses round 6K blades to cut up chicken like a pizza cutter. A different company tested Talonite for cutting vegetables and recorded a 5X increase in edge holding.

The downside is when you try and cut anything hard. Cobalt is soft and the cutting edge is not well supported. As soon as you cut anything hard, the edge rolls and stops cutting.

I think either Stellite 6K or Talonite would make an excellent paring knife.

Chuck
 
A rolled Stellite edge is easy to fix. You just pull the blade, edge trailing, along a round bar or pipe. When the wave/dip is back in line, resharpen.
 
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