Books on metallurgy and knife making.

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I've had a fascination with steel and how it works. Particularly in the case of a blade. My real introduction to knives was working in kitchens, trying to learn what makes a good knife, one that will last through a whole shift, or longer, how best to maintain them (mainly sharpening). Eventually leading me down the rabbit whole leading me to making my own knives.

I feel like I've learned a good bit along the way. Probably a good bit of the credit for that can go to knife steel nerds, and knife engineering (larrins book). But I feel like I still need to learn so much more about steel, and knives.

Which leads me to this thread. I was hoping to get some recommendations for books that people have read about these subjects that you guys think would be essential for someone that really wants to understand the materials we are working with.

I remember seeing a thread in another forum about triple quenching that devin t was part of that (an old thread 2018 I believe) mentioned a book on tool steels, and that's part of what made me want to ask this. I've got some that I've got in mind already, but I would love to get any recommendations from the people here.
 
I'm not a knife maker, but "Knife Engineering" by Larrin Thomas is probably the knife maker's bible for metallurgy. If you're not aware, Larrin's a PhD metallurgist and the creator of Magnacut steel.

There's also a wealth of information at his website: https://knifesteelnerds.com/
 
J.D. Verhoeven. “Steel Metallurgy for the Non-metallurgist”
It was the Book before the current Book.

”Tool Steel Simplified” is an ancient tome that does a great job of explaining why the alloying elements do what they do.
 
Have a look through this thread, lots of book reviews and preview links

Online Knife making books on Google

Google has an outstanding service called Google Books. They scan entire books, but leave out a few pages here and there. I have attached a few links to knife and sword making books for people to look at for a reference. I will add more as I run across them on Google. This is a free service...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com

There is a Verhoeven link, he first released a paper in the as public domain as part of his professorship
You can get that one for free as a pdf for sure.

I forget exactly what's on that thread, but try every link
 
Here are my recommendations:
knifesteelnerds.com

Book Recommendations for the Knife Steel Nerd - Knife Steel Nerds

Update 10/29/2020: Since writing this article I published my own book called Knife Engineering: Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry. Of course I still recommend the other books on the list below. Thanks to Ben Wendel, William Brigham, Jeff Schafer, and Simon Moeskjær Balle for becoming Knife...
knifesteelnerds.com knifesteelnerds.com
 
Its unfortunate that the Roman landesman book is only in German. I really don't want to read it through Google translate 😂. I mean. Its, actually affordable though. I guess I don't have much of a choice if i want to read it.
 
I don't know what "bad token error" even means, much less the fact that the PDF is no longer "legal". I click on the link and it takes me right to the online PDF.
 
Stuart Davenport Knives said:
I don't know what "bad token error" even means, much less the fact that the PDF is no longer "legal". I click on the link and it takes me right to the online PDF.
Click to expand...

The first time I did the link, I got the PDF so I saved it. Nice to have a copy on this computer; I have the hard copy edition down in the "knife" library.
The next time I went to the link, and since, I get the "Bad Token" error.
 
Stuart Davenport Knives said:
I don't know what "bad token error" even means, much less the fact that the PDF is no longer "legal". I click on the link and it takes me right to the online PDF.
Click to expand...
When ASM bought the copyright the book belongs to them and distributing the PDF that Verhoeven took down is against the law.
 
Well, yeah. Idk if I recommend the places I was able to find the verhoeven pdf. Just visiting them probably gave my phone a virus 😂
 
Blankblank said:
Yeah I also get the bad token thing. The first time I tried i just figured it was a bad link.
Click to expand...
I found a link that works, but the site is Russian so be careful. I can’t post the link because that would be legitimate grounds for suspending my account.
 
So weird some of you are getting a broken link. I just clicked on it, seems to be working just fine. I'm no computer expert, it may be certain settings in your own browsers, so I don't know what to say to those that simply want to read a paper that's been online for years but are getting a broken link. Chapter 1 Pure Iron.
 
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