High Carbon Stainless Steel

[snapyafangaz]

n00b alert!

I've seen a lot of back and forth on stainless vs. carbon steel all over the internet, and somehow only recently found out that there's such a thing as "high carbon stainless steel", that purports to have the benefits of both. (I realize there are many varieties within these broad categories.) I see a lot of support in the survival/bushcraft community for good ol' 1095, due to its strength, ease of sharpening, and the fact that keeping a knife oiled is not that hard. I have two questions:

1. I hear commonly that 1095 is "easy to sharpen but holds an edge really well". This seems like a contradiction to me, since both properties would scale with the malleability of the metal. A knife that's hard to sharpen should be hard to dull, and vice versa. I understand many people speak from experience, but what am I missing from a physics standpoint? From my own city-boy experience: I did noticed when my BK16 slid straight through an apple into a ceramic plate (I know, I know), that portion of the blade was dulled immediately, but came right back to shaving sharp with nothing but a honing steel.

2. Is "high carbon stainless" really as magic as it sounds? And if so, is there a reason besides cost that you don't see it more often in the bushcrafting/survival world? Based on some of the arsenal photos I've seen, cost doesn't seem to be that prohibitive. Is it hard to work with for manufacturers? Not as wide of a market? Even the late great Ron Hood seemed to be all about the 1095. But if you could have a knife with all the benefits of 1095 without having to keep an oily rag nearby all the time, would that not be prefereable?

Side notes:
I've been lurking here as a reader for a little while, stealing all of y'all's wonderful insight and advice. This is the first time I haven't been able to find an answer on something, but I can't imagine it hasn't been covered. If this post should go elsewhere, or the answer can be found elsewhere, let me know and shut it down, but I do have some reasoning for putting it here in the Becker forum specifically:

1. Beckers are what recently got me (more) interested in knives. I picked up my first Becker (BK7) a couple months ago, and just sprung for a BK16 last week. Great, great knives. I've stripped them both, mirrored the 7, and am working on a patina on the 16. Despite having never contributed, I have come to know and trust y'all's advice on this particular subforum. It's a great community.

2. I assume Becker fans are 1095(CV) fans, or have at least spent some time researching and defending its strengths. I know it's a great steel, and I love the look. I'm just really curious to hear about those two points from a group I trust.

 

[Auraria]

It also highly depends on the angle of the edge, what kind of edge, and geometry of the edge on 1095cv that makes or break it.
20 degrees and below, convexed, with a non-toothy grit is fan freaking tastic for in the woods work, however if you hit a rock or dirt you can/will get chipping and even if you hit your mark wrong you can get extremely dull fast.
However as you said it can be touched up extremely easily.

As my thoughts on HCstainless, I think it's wizard magic.
Seems too good to be true Lol!

 

[james terrio]

1. I hear commonly that 1095 is "easy to sharpen but holds an edge really well". This seems like a contradiction to me, since both properties would scale with the malleability of the metal.

Well... sort of. But there are a lot of other factors involved.

2. Is "high carbon stainless" really as magic as it sounds?

As my thoughts on HCstainless, I think it's wizard magic.

Not magic at all! In fact, the science is quite clear - with few and rare exceptions, ALL the steels we typically use for knife blades are "high carbon" - whether they have enough chromium and other elements in them to be considered "stainless" or not. Cutlery-grade alloys can range from as little as .6% carbon to well over 2%; but most are right around the 1% mark or a little higher.

This is simply because steel needs around .5% carbon or greater to harden properly, and that's considered "high carbon". Low carbon steels (less than .4%) simply don't get hard enough to hold an edge.

(There are as I mentioned some exceptions to this, notably steels containing significant amounts of nitrogen and/or cobalt... but for the purposes of this discussion the explanation above will suffice.)

For much more information, please see this link on How Chemical Elements Affect Steel. There are also many other resources on that same site; just go through the links on the left of that page, under "Steels Resources".

 

[zzyzzogeton]

This is simply because steel needs around .5% carbon or greater to harden properly, and that's considered "high carbon". Low carbon steels (less than .4%) simply don't get hard enough to hold an edge.

James, what do you think about using mild steel (A36, etc) for prototyping?

I've worked my way through paper to cardboard to thin plywood monkeying with some designs.

Should I prototype with the cheaper mild steel or just bite the bullet for the good stuff for a prototype?

 

[Rhinoknives1]

James, what do you think about using mild steel (A36, etc) for prototyping?

I've worked my way through paper to cardboard to thin plywood monkeying with some designs.

Should I prototype with the cheaper mild steel or just bite the bullet for the good stuff for a prototype?

As a maker I will give you my 2 cents on this kinda of off topic question.
It sounds like you have messed around enough. Go for it with your chosen real Martinsic "hardenable" steel.

I have seen many get so tied up with this and that about their design when you are really talking $10-20.00 of steel to make a 4-8" bladed knife with a OAL of 12-15". Use 440C CPM-154 or one of the 10XX series carbon steels.

Do it over in the knife maker forum with pictures and we will help you along as needed.

 

[Auraria]

James I understand, just it's a cool concept I never heard of or know about so in my mind it's wizard magic till I learn about it

 

[james terrio]

James, what do you think about using mild steel (A36, etc) for prototyping?

I've worked my way through paper to cardboard to thin plywood monkeying with some designs.

Should I prototype with the cheaper mild steel or just bite the bullet for the good stuff for a prototype?

Bite the bullet. If you just want to make a pattern, plex is cheaper simply because it's faster to drill/grind it. If you're going to make a test piece, there's no sense not using the actual knife steel you want to end up with. How else would you be able to test for HT/strength/edge retention/sharpenability/corrosion resistance and all the other fun stuff that makes a knife, a knife? 1080/1084 is very inexpensive anyway, and makes a fine blade. As Laurence pointed out, even with many of the high-end steels you're talking about the cost of going out to lunch...

There's also the possibility of getting it mixed up with knife-grade steel... I once ground a couple blades out of what I was told was 440C by the vendor... and they came back from HT at low-40s Rc... way too soft for a knife blade. The vendor sent me mislabeled low-carbon 416 stainless by mistake :grumpy:

James I understand, just it's a cool concept I never heard of or know about so in my mind it's wizard magic till I learn about it

I have an almost pathological hatred of the word "magic" when it comes to this sort of thing. It's probably the one surefire way to get me riled up

 

[Wolf_1989]

I'll say two things:

The only times I've managed to break a knife, it was stainless steel.

I can't get AUS to take/hold an edge worth anything.

 

[Ethan Becker]

Hey Snap.....

I am on board with James on this...... I am happy to own knives in 1095, A2, D2, 52100, 4140, 5160, S30v,440a etc.... If the heat treat is good there are a bunch of damn decent steels for knives...... I think that 1095 offers one of, if not the best combinations of edge retention, ease of sharpening, cost and ease of manufacture and aggressive cutting....... This last is, I think somewhat overlooked by some of the theoreticians in our community......

Even the low brow 420j if profiled properly and heat treated and sharpened to it's full potential will do a decent job for you...... As a rule of MY thumb I would rather not have my knives made of 420 but, I can be an elitist at times......

Blade and edge geometry, heat treat tend to mean more than alloy from a practical sense....... James's dismissal of "magic" is right on.....There are a BUNCH of new alloys, so many, in fact that there is no way for me to own and more importantly, test them all with similar blades and edge geometries........ And then of course there are the Secret Squirrel steels which are best left in the hands of Secret Squirrels......

Pick a good maker or manufacturer (KA-BAR comes instantly to my mind and BK&T specifically, LOL)in a design that will do the job you need done and do not get too hung up on specific steels for to do so will only make your head hurt and your wallet empty....

Ethan

 

[bdmicarta]

Is "high carbon stainless" really as magic as it sounds?

If you are reading about a knife that is described as "high carbon stainless steel" then it is likely someone trying to hype a product that is very cheap. If a knife has decent steel the maker will be proud of that and they will tell you exactly what steel is in it. There is nothing magic about high carbon stainless steel, you likely have some of this material in your kitchen drawers. Anything used in knives, or most other tools for that matter, will have relatively high carbon in it. Add some chromium to the mix and you can make it somewhat stainless. There is a lot more to making good knife steel than this, which is why the high carbon stainless that you might find in your kitchen could be very cheap.

There will be a tradeoff between how well a steel will hold an edge and how well the steel will resist fracture in hard use. Pick which characteristic of the steel you want and buy accordingly. IOW a knife for outdoor use that you want to be tough might not hold an edge as well as a knife from an exotic steel that will hold an edge very well. On the other hand the knife that will hold an edge very well might also chip easily if you abuse it while cutting. It also seems that stainless steel can be made into a knife that will hold its edge very well but won't be very tough.

The reason that you normally see carbon steels used in outdoor knives is because they can more easily be made tough than if they used stainless steel, and the carbon steels used are relatively cheap. Not being stainless is normally not a problem for a knife enthusiast because they will do at least a little bit to take care of their knives. If you use a carbon steel knife on an ocean fishing boat, throw it in the toolbox still wet, it will be rusted when you take it back out. If you clean it and dry it off first it will probably do much better.

The exception to the above discussion about carbon steel is Spyderco's H1 steel. I don't know much about it but it apparently uses other elements in place of carbon and for this reason is very corrosion resistant.
All of this is assuming other factors are equal. The edge geometry and heat treat are also important factors in performance of a knife.

 

[snapyafangaz]

Wow, thanks to all for the input! I never thought I would get this much activity on a first-post-ever thread. And I certainly didn't expect Ethan's input! I told my wife and she says I have to tell you she loves your cookbook. (As the primary consumer of said delicacies, so do I.) My wife is not as big of a fan of my BK7 in the kitchen knife block, but I think it's hilarious. THANK you for making such great knives.

I guess, if I could rephrase my second question, it would be this: is there any steel that can match 1095 on all fronts and just add corrosion resistance at the expense of nothing but cost? I'm guessing the answer is no. Assuming that's the case, I would change my question into a wish: I wish that there were a stainless steel with even half as much unanimous praise as 1095. It seems to be a heavily fractured market (no pun intended), with no clear winner. I suppose the complexity of the design problem is part of the cause. 1095 feels elegant in its simplicity, which I also love about it. And I haven't forgotten everything you all said about edge geometry... sounds like I need to focus on getting good at sharpening.

I've gathered from some further reading (thanks, James) that it is much more complicated than I could imagine. Regardless of carbon content, I see that the basic trade-off with Chromium is sacrificing toughness for, well, everything else (wear resistance, hardness, tensile strength, and corrosion resistance), not to mention that along with the "everything else" comes difficulty of sharpening. Thus the two chief stigmas I've heard about stainless: more brittle and more difficult to sharpen. This explains the love of 1095 in the bushcraft/survival community, especially for the bigger knives, where toughness and field sharpening are most important.

I'm fine with the trade-off. I don't mind caring for nice things. Long story short, I'm playing devil's advocate for my own education. I'm really loving the Becker stuff (from my two samples), so much so that I want to be able to properly defend their honor should their corrosion resistance be called into question. Call it knife apologetics. Then again, they do come coated, so I guess the only flaw that anyone could point to actually came from me.

Also, this...

do not get too hung up on specific steels for to do so will only make your head hurt and your wallet empty

... is some of the best advice I've ever been given.

 

[james terrio]

I think that 1095 offers one of, if not the best combinations of edge retention, ease of sharpening, cost and ease of manufacture and aggressive cutting....... This last is, I think somewhat overlooked by some of the theoreticians in our community....

Indeed, especially the much-beloved 1095CV version. It's a well-balanced alloy, and sometimes that concept is overlooked. (some folks use the term "compromise" instead of "balance", but I don't care for the negative connations that seems to have)

I've gathered from some further reading (thanks, James) that it is much more complicated than I could imagine. Regardless of carbon content, I see that the basic trade-off with Chromium is sacrificing toughness for, well, everything else (wear resistance, hardness, tensile strength, and corrosion resistance), not to mention that along with the "everything else" comes difficulty of sharpening.

Well, maybe... perhaps even most of the time. But it's difficult to really be accurate with such broad statements.

For example, if you love the toughness, sharpenability, moderate cost, and very fine grain of fairly simple alloys like 1095 and 1095CV, but require a great deal more corrosion resistance, I'd take a long hard look at AEB-L and 13c26 stainless steels. Because they only have about .7% carbon, they get plenty hard with proper HT but instead of forming a lot of chromium carbides (which can cause more difficulty sharpening, embrittlement issues, etc) all the chrome is "free" to protect the surface from staining and rust. It's essentially a stain-resistant, carbon steel.

The only problem is, they don't make it thick enough for larger knives

I'm not trying to confuse the issue, just pointing out that a person can spend their lifetime studying this stuff, and learning new ways of understanding it

 

[PatrickKnight]

Wow, thanks to all for the input! I never thought I would get this much activity on a first-post-ever thread. And I certainly didn't expect Ethan's input! I told my wife and she says I have to tell you she loves your cookbook. (As the primary consumer of said delicacies, so do I.) My wife is not as big of a fan of my BK7 in the kitchen knife block, but I think it's hilarious. THANK you for making such great knives.

I guess, if I could rephrase my second question, it would be this: is there any steel that can match 1095 on all fronts and just add corrosion resistance at the expense of nothing but cost? I'm guessing the answer is no. Assuming that's the case, I would change my question into a wish: I wish that there were a stainless steel with even half as much unanimous praise as 1095. It seems to be a heavily fractured market (no pun intended), with no clear winner. I suppose the complexity of the design problem is part of the cause. 1095 feels elegant in its simplicity, which I also love about it. And I haven't forgotten everything you all said about edge geometry... sounds like I need to focus on getting good at sharpening.

I've gathered from some further reading (thanks, James) that it is much more complicated than I could imagine. Regardless of carbon content, I see that the basic trade-off with Chromium is sacrificing toughness for, well, everything else (wear resistance, hardness, tensile strength, and corrosion resistance), not to mention that along with the "everything else" comes difficulty of sharpening. Thus the two chief stigmas I've heard about stainless: more brittle and more difficult to sharpen. This explains the love of 1095 in the bushcraft/survival community, especially for the bigger knives, where toughness and field sharpening are most important.

I'm fine with the trade-off. I don't mind caring for nice things. Long story short, I'm playing devil's advocate for my own education. I'm really loving the Becker stuff (from my two samples), so much so that I want to be able to properly defend their honor should their corrosion resistance be called into question. Call it knife apologetics. Then again, they do come coated, so I guess the only flaw that anyone could point to actually came from me.

Also, this...



... is some of the best advice I've ever been given.

There are many alloys that offer everything 1095 does but are stainless. There are going to be two trade offs cost and ease of sharpening, my personal choice would be CPM-154 imo it is an excellent choice for a do it all stainless alloy.

 

[Auraria]

There are many alloys that offer everything 1095 does but are stainless. There are going to be two trade offs cost and ease of sharpening, my personal choice would be CPM-154 imo it is an excellent choice for a do it all stainless alloy.

I love CPM -154 in folders.

 

[james terrio]

I love CPM -154 in folders.

You might be surprised how well it holds up in fixed blades.

But it is harder to sharpen, and especially from a manufacturing POV it's a LOT more expensive, for various reasons.

 

[Auraria]

You might be surprised how well it holds up in fixed blades.

But it is harder to sharpen, and especially from a manufacturing POV it's a LOT more expensive, for various reasons.

Completely understandable.
Harder to sharpen? Pshhhhhh not with my Worksharp KO .
I'd like to see S35V/S90V in fixed blades more for less than 400 bucks .

 

[PatrickKnight]

Completely understandable.
Harder to sharpen? Pshhhhhh not with my Worksharp KO .
I'd like to see S35V/S90V in fixed blades more for less than 400 bucks .

There is a production S90V knife for much less than 400. However S90V is a pure wear resistant steel and does lack the pure toughness of 1095. I think a lot people would be surprised at the cost of a good custom knife in some of the high end powered steels. Granted they will never offer the pure value of the Becker line but you can get a great custom in an amazing steel for less than the cost of some production knives.

 

[Auraria]

There is a production S90V knife for much less than 400. However S90V is a pure wear resistant steel and does lack the pure toughness of 1095. I think a lot people would be surprised at the cost of a good custom knife in some of the high end powered steels. Granted they will never offer the pure value of the Becker line but you can get a great custom in an amazing steel for less than the cost of some production knives.

S90v in a plane knife or a thinner blade for detail work or whittling would be great.

S35V in a 1/8th in thick fixed blade would be a great whittler and feather sticker.

 

[Ethan Becker]

Hey Patrick and Auraria.....

My head is beginning to hurt.... LOL...... Of course the what ifs are the very meat of so many of our best conversations...... What was Snap's question again....???????........More laughter...... We just can't help it can we....LMAO....

All Best...

Ethan

 

[HuntBomb]

No D2 love? High carbon and semi stainless.
I like it for edc and dirty work anyway.