What the heck is "surgical stainless"?

M

mitch8

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Oct 11, 2010
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It seams like low quality knives always market themselves as a "surgical stainless" and then your non knife friends always say "is that good?"
What I was wondering is what kind of steel is this? Is it a specific type desognated for surgical use or is it just some 400 series?

Mitch
 
At best, anything with enough chromium to be stainless.

At worst, it may not even be steel.
 
IIRC most of it is 400 series. Surgical stainless doesn't mean much since pretty much every surgical cutting instrument is designed to be single-use disposable. I work in a medical office and scalpels are certainly not designed with edge retention im mind.
 
Probably 420HC at best. It's HRC is about 55 max. Refering to Gerber's Paraframe that claims "Surgical Stainless Steel"
The steel turns to a fine powerder when sharpened & floats in air very well.
 
I used to work for a surgical instrument producer... it doesn't mean much. Honestly, for surgical instruments, precision and rust resistance are far more important than edge retention, so a softer steel (softer than what would be considered premium for a knife) isn't considered as bad for surgical purposes.
 
I had a hunch it was just 420. And when I first heard surgical stainless I thought disposable.

What does HC denote in 420HC?
 
It is probably 420J steel. This steel will take an edge, then cut a sheet of paper, and lose that edge! The 420HC is what Buck uses as a standard steel and Buck does it right with the correct heat treat. The HC stand for High Carbon.
 
It seems like many, many years ago that there were some very nice knifes I had made out of "Japanese Surgical Steel" which was fairly high end and compared to 440 stainless, if I remember it right!
 
mitch8 said:
It seams like low quality knives always market themselves as a "surgical stainless" and then your non knife friends always say "is that good?"
What I was wondering is what kind of steel is this? Is it a specific type desognated for surgical use or is it just some 400 series?

Mitch
Click to expand...

"surgical stainless" is not any particular grade of stainless cutlery steel. The term has meaning only when it comes to non-cutlery grades of steel.

mitch8 said:
I had a hunch it was just 420. And when I first heard surgical stainless I thought disposable.

What does HC denote in 420HC?
Click to expand...

420 alloy is defined as having at least 0.15% Carbon. There is no upper limit to the Carbon content.

420 with ~0.15%C is sometimes called 420J by the cutlery industry
420 with ~0.30%C is sometimes called 420J2 by the cutlery industry.

420HC does not have a specific carbon content, but is usually about 0.45%.

The only official designation is 420, all the others are unofficial and the compositions vary somewhat.
 
If the material is a decent material they will want to brag about it and they will tell you exactly what it is. If they don't tell you what it is then it isn't a material that we care about.
 
When knife makers state surgical stainless in general it's nothing good, 420 or worse.
Last week a gentleman named Kyle who works in the related industry, posted interesting info in my guestbook, which I'll add the relevant pages sometimes soon, but here it is:

...major US and international companies like DePuy, Acromed, Arthrex, Accumed, Biomet, Zimmer, and too many other to name. For instruments they typically use 17-4 and 17-4 PH (pre-hardened) Stainless, and occasionally 455 Stainless (455 is harder with much more 'memory'). For implants, we exclusively use 316L Stainless or titanium 6AL4V. As far as steels go, 316L Stainless is the ONLY steel that can be used for implants such as pins, nails, bone plates, screws, and other types of temporary or permanent implants. This is done to ensure the steel never rusts or contaminates the body.
...

As you can see, all that stuff is used as mostly handle or cladding material in "good" knives, not for a blade.
 
Yes, as mentioned, Surgical Stainless is more or less a meaningless term. That being said, during different eras you somewhat count on it being a certain class of 400 series steel. During the 70's many times it was 440A, every once and a while 440C might sneak in there, especially with smaller old line European firms. Some thought it more sellable to the public if it went under that name. In the mid 80's move of the 420 class was added under the moniker. Now it's probably whatever easily workable stainless is handy.
 
"Surgical Steel" = "Not good enough to brag about what specific steel it really is"
 
cutter17 said:
It is probably 420J steel. This steel will take an edge, then cut a sheet of paper, and lose that edge! The 420HC is what Buck uses as a standard steel and Buck does it right with the correct heat treat. The HC stand for High Carbon.
Click to expand...

420J is my understanding of what surgical stainless is. I forget where I read that, but that is what I had in mind.
 
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