Recommendation? Super Steel for Slaughter and Butchery?

I don't think you'd want a carbon steel, which usually have the better edge retentions. You're also cutting only flesh correct? I am no expert but I imagine flesh is not very damaging to the edge is it?

Anyways, for slicing and general food purposes Superblue and other Japanese steels seems to be very good.
 
AndreLinoge said:
So. Kosher slaughter.
You're not butchering then? Just cutting necks? If all you want is something that gets sickeningly sharp and is easy to keep that way, go for AEB-L or its Sandvik counterpart. If you're breaking down carcases too, then go for something like 3v. Have your maker send it to Peter's for heat treat and you can get Delta 3v, which would be interesting to say the least in a thin meat knife.
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Cutting necks is the most of it, but the work is not always in a processing factory setting and I want a knife that does acceptable (kosher) neck work, but also will tolerate primal butcher cuts and the occasional bone smack.

Who is Peter and what is Delta 3v?
 
Eversion said:
My suggestion would be to use a blade in LC200N steel.

The steel is as perfectly stainless as any steel gets. It'll give you edge retention far better than S30V, and pretty much equal to Cruwear. It's tough enough to graze some bones, and it's decently easy to sharpen. I've used my Spydiechef for prepping small hunks of meat and didn't have to worry about my blade at all. The most difficult part will be finding a suitable blade for your use in this steel, though.

Vanax Super Clean is a very comparable option, too. It has even better edge retention, but I can't comment on its toughness, and it's even more rare than LC200N.
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Thank you, I was not familiar with either steel. Looking up their properties, it may be a fun experiment to try. If you know a knife maker who works in these steels, I’d be happy to commission a knife to my general specification from him (and leave him some room to design).
 
kwackster said:
For super steels i would recommend Japanese HAP40 & 65-66 HRC.
No other steel that i know of takes & holds a high polished edge @ ~20 degrees inclusive in kitchen use.
I polish this steel up to 1.0 micron/~ 14000 grit with diamond compounds.
The steel isn't stainless, but it will not rust easy either (it forms a patina)
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Thank you. This strikes me as very hard and may lack sharpenability. I should add that I sharpen by hand only on diamond stones and strops, no hollow grinding, though many ritual slaughterers do use a hollow grind to achieve that extreme edge.
 
The Mastiff said:
There is something to be said for using what is already proven. If I was going to have a knife made with the requirements needed that you have discussed AEBL or 13C would be the place I'd begin. If I wanted to try higher wear resistance I'd go up to CPM 154 and probably no higher on the wear resistance scale because of the needs of edge stability begin to diverge with the realities of what happens with really high wear steels. Cruwear is a great cutlery steel but I have no idea if it would be right for kosher work. Until it's tried any steel is a gamble and it depends on how much resources and time you are willing to use on a gamble. Whichever steel is used the right heat treatment and geometry needs to be used and that means some more resources for that. The needs are more exacting than required for regular skinning and meat prep knives if I'm not mistaken. I think finding the right maker would be the best bet. Not many have worked with the needs of the community doing the work.

I read a post from Sal G. on Spyderco years back on how much he learned about edges from working with a Kosher butcher. Finding someone who has already been through the learning curve will put you ahead of the game. Good luck.

Joe
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Very informative, thanks. If you have any recommended makers, I’d be happy to get in touch. I don’t know any, the high end ritual slaughter knives are marketed by middle men and come from Japan. I am not familiar with a high end custom market, though I do know a few guys who grind and sharpen cheap Japanese bread knives into surprisingly adequate slaughter knives.
 
I've wondered about this one. My uncle and father in law were shochtim for decades. Many around here are using reground Victorinox knives and that's a pretty soft steel. Probably due to the ease of bringing it back to a suitable edge nice and fast, that and the fact that even with all the blood, it will clean up easily. Any super steel is going to take a good while to bring back to a proper fully smooth and unnotched edge if it chips even slightly on hitting a bone. Time you might simply not have on the line.

I'd be interested in what you come up with. When I got into knives I immediately wondered why no one was using higher end steel but then it started to dawn on me that when working with boney stuff, super steel might be a liability. It will hold its edge better but be a real bear to fix if it gets notched by bone when you have a long days work ahead.

Even for my daily carry needs I moved from the modern steels to a simple Victorinox for my pocket knife. It's just so fast and easy to bring back to a very sharp edge in comparison to the M390, D2 or even CPM154 knife that preceded it.
 
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Pomsbz said:
I've wondered about this one. My uncle and father in law were shochtim for decades. Many around here are using reground Victorinox knives and that's a pretty soft steel. Probably due to the ease of bringing it back to a suitable edge nice and fast, that and the fact that even with all the blood, it will clean up easily. Any super steel is going to take a good while to bring back to a proper fully smooth and unnotched edge if it chips even slightly on hitting a bone. Time you might simply not have on the line.

I'd be interested in what you come up with. When I got into knives I immediately wondered why no one was using higher end steel but then it started to dawn on me that when working with boney stuff, super steel might be a liability. It will hold its edge better but be a real bear to fix if it gets notched by bone when you have a long days work ahead.

Even for my daily carry needs I moved from the modern steels to a simple Victorinox for my pocket knife. It's just so fast and easy to bring back to a very sharp edge in comparison to the M390, D2 or even CPM154 knife that preceded it.
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You echo my thoughts exactly. There’s a tradeoff, for sure, but as you probably know, we balance smooth and sharp, not just sharp, so there’s a lot be gained from an edge that remains smooth even if it dulls slightly. This is what I’m after.

Aside, I would love to do some research into what materials they slaughtered with in the 15th and 16th century when the Shulchan Aruch ruleset was written. I can’t imagine they all had access to wootz damascus or superior blades, and had to work with suboptimal irons and even bronzes. It strikes me that the pre-industrial slaughter is better captured in a carbon steel knife rather than a super sharp stainless.
 
I am curious to know the rules for Kosher slaughter. I have never heard of that before. I know that you are not supposed to eat meat from animals that were strangled.
 
dtoro said:
You echo my thoughts exactly. There’s a tradeoff, for sure, but as you probably know, we balance smooth and sharp, not just sharp, so there’s a lot be gained from an edge that remains smooth even if it dulls slightly. This is what I’m after.

Aside, I would love to do some research into what materials they slaughtered with in the 15th and 16th century when the Shulchan Aruch ruleset was written. I can’t imagine they all had access to wootz damascus or superior blades, and had to work with suboptimal irons and even bronzes. It strikes me that the pre-industrial slaughter is better captured in a carbon steel knife rather than a super sharp stainless.
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I've handled a bunch of 200 year old Iraqi shechita (slaughter) knives, they look like regular carbon steel, no idea what or which though. They were still paper cutting sharp. No kidding. I had photos of them somewhere but no idea where the pics are any more. :(
 
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000Robert said:
I am curious to know the rules for Kosher slaughter. I have never heard of that before. I know that you are not supposed to eat meat from animals that were strangled.
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Like everything Rabbinical, there are lots and lots of rules. To keep it short, as regards the knife-meets-neck affair, the knife used must be both smooth and sharp-edged (where in reality ashkenazi slaughterers emphasize sharp, and sephardic slaughterers emphasize smooth). Smooth and sharp translates into an efficient draw motion across the neck that has (1) no pause whatsoever (no stop and start), (2) no chopping or digging pressure into the neck (slicing with no push inward), (3) no burrowing action (no change in pitch or attack angle during the draw, unlike butchering which is all about angling the blade), (4) no resultant laceration (tearing, as opposed to cutting) of the trachea or esophogus and the surrounding flesh; the cut is smooth, never ragged. Absolutely no strangling. Also, most modern methods of incapacitation to ease slaughter are anathema.

There’s much more to kosher, but those are the principles that concern the main event. We check the blade every few minutes with a fingernail to assess that it has remained smooth, any wire edge, or chip, or fold renders the animal thus slaughtered unkosher. Hence the desire for a more optimum steel.

I can tell that the irons used in the 15th and 16th centuries must have been more smooth than sharp, or that modern man has softer hands with less callous (really, no joke) since the Shulchan Aruch requires that the knife edge be tested on both the flesh of the slaughterer (abisra) and his nail (atufra). Today the requirement to test the edge on the flesh is waived, we test only on the nail.
 
Informing subject, what was used in the ancient times when stainless was not available though? I would think using available early steels would be more period and ritual with this butchering practice. I cannot get over the ritual and stainless request, just seems ironic.
 
jeepseahawk said:
Informing subject, what was used in the ancient times when stainless was not available though? I would think using available early steels would be more period and ritual with this butchering practice. I cannot get over the ritual and stainless request, just seems ironic.
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No idea, but I am looking it up and will post some answers in another thread when i’m done.

Re ritual/stainless, I don’t see the irony, just as priestly vestments can be made of polyester, mosque rugs can be machine woven, modern violins and guitars are made with far better tooling today out of exotic woods etc. Old ritual invokes the past spiritually, but not materially of necessity. I admit the drive to rediscover authenticity may help a certain type of person to “connect” (like playing baroque music on period instruments, or mining your own ore to make a knife), but I’m not of that school beyond curiosity.
 
dtoro said:
No idea, but I am looking it up and will post some answers in another thread when i’m done.

Re ritual/stainless, I don’t see the irony, just as priestly vestments can be made of polyester, mosque rugs can be machine woven, modern violins and guitars are made with far better tooling today out of exotic woods etc. Old ritual invokes the past spiritually, but not materially of necessity. I admit the drive to rediscover authenticity may help a certain type of person to “connect” (like playing baroque music on period instruments, or mining your own ore to make a knife), but I’m not of that school beyond curiosity.
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Ok, that makes much more sense, thank you for schooling me on it. I am very curious and learning is what I do on this forum.
 
Currawong said:
AEB-L was developed as a razor blade steel, so it gets very sharp. It is just about the toughest stainless steel, so is unlikely to develop chips. It's very easy to sharpen. @Eric J.S. from Brush Creek Knives makes great AEB-L knives, I have a hunter and a fillet from him and both are extremely sharp.
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Wow. Looked up Eric. This brisket sword, as he calls it, is spot on. I need the head of the knife square to the blade, and I prefer a less colorful handle, but this is exactly what I’m looking for. Thank you!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=537440827140775
 
There are a number of custom makers on this forum that can make a custom blade for shechita. I would imagine a thin nakiri profile (straight edge, flat end) with a zero edge bevel would do the job nicely. I am really interested to see what you end up doing with this. My wife is a conservative rabbi and has agreed to eat meat from animals I slaughter if I ever receive proper training. With Covid putting my industry (youth climbing and experiential ed) on some pretty tight restrictions, now may be the best time to seek out a shochet looking to teach.
 
dtoro said:
Thank you, I was not familiar with either steel. Looking up their properties, it may be a fun experiment to try. If you know a knife maker who works in these steels, I’d be happy to commission a knife to my general specification from him (and leave him some room to design).
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Honestly I'm not familiar with the custom knife game at all. All my stuff is production. I know Spyderco makes some fixed blades of LC200N, but that may not suit your needs.

Best of luck!
 
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