looking for steel suggestions/advice

J

J Steele

Joined
Jun 9, 2025
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I'm an 18 year old chef who recently started making knives. So far I've made 7 knives with 1084 as it was easy to heat treat, however it's very prone to corrosion. I bought some aeb-l thinking it was simple to heat treat with a gas forge however from more research it seems a lot harder than expected. I have bought steel foil, aluminium bars and a pyrometer however i don't think i could control the temperature well enough to get the right hrc. I'm working on a pretty tight budget so probably couldn't afford a proper heat treat oven, but i'm not ready to give up on making a chef knife with at least near perfect rust resistance. Looking for any easier to heat treat stainless that could still hold a good edge, or carbon steels with good edge retention and corrosion resistance. Any and all advice would be appreciated and i would be willing to spend about £400 on a heat treat oven but after looking around this seems unlikely.
 
Welcome J Steele, Fill out your profile so we know where you live and a bit about you.

You can't do stainless steel HT in a forge ... you will need to send stainless blades out for HT. You want a proper hardness and internal condition for blades that will be used for culinary purposes, as they need the best HT and edge holding.

For a carbon steel that you can do with a forge ( it would still be best to send it out) try Pro-cut.
For stainless, try magna-cut.
Both these steels were developed by Dr. Larrin Thomas for knives. They both make superb culinary blades.
Pop's Knife supply carries both in stock.
 
There are multiple heat treating services available as well. You can cut out your blanks and send them to be treated professionally. I’ve never done it but I know several folks who do.
Also there are a lot of nice culinary knives made out of carbon steel. The user just has to be conscious about wiping the blade periodically during use. My wife and I both love to cook and watch a lot cooking shows. I’ve noticed Japanese chefs tend to wipe their blades religiously. I watched a show about sushi and the chef was using a beautiful carbon steel knife. When not being used it was stored tip down in mineral oil. During use it was wiped off after every cut.
 
I've never found carbon steel to be problem in the kitchen. My understanding is the martensitic stainless steels don't have the same degree of corrosion resistance as something like 316, I've seen corrosion on some cheap ones along the edge.
Can you get stainless clad carbon steel billets over there?
 
ScarFoot said:
There are multiple heat treating services available as well. You can cut out your blanks and send them to be treated professionally. I’ve never done it but I know several folks who do.
Also there are a lot of nice culinary knives made out of carbon steel. The user just has to be conscious about wiping the blade periodically during use. My wife and I both love to cook and watch a lot cooking shows. I’ve noticed Japanese chefs tend to wipe their blades religiously. I watched a show about sushi and the chef was using a beautiful carbon steel knife. When not being used it was stored tip down in mineral oil. During use it was wiped off after every cut
Click to expand...

Alex Topfer said:
I've never found carbon steel to be problem in the kitchen. My understanding is the martensitic stainless steels don't have the same degree of corrosion resistance as something like 316, I've seen corrosion on some cheap ones along the edge.
Can you get stainless clad carbon steel billets over there?
Click to expand...
yes i shouldn’t have any issues with getting that in the uk thanks i’ll definitely look into it, are there any steel combinations that you would recommend for a san mai billet?
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Welcome J Steele, Fill out your profile so we know where you live and a bit about you.

You can't do stainless steel HT in a forge ... you will need to send stainless blades out for HT. You want a proper hardness and internal condition for blades that will be used for culinary purposes, as they need the best HT and edge holding.

For a carbon steel that you can do with a forge ( it would still be best to send it out) try Pro-cut.
For stainless, try magna-cut.
Both these steels were developed by Dr. Larrin Thomas for knives. They both make superb culinary blades.
Pop's Knife supply carries both in stock.
Click to expand...
thanks for the advice it seems like sending it out for heat treatment is the best option at the moment and the magna cut seems great after some research definitely going to try and get some soon.
 
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