Thread: Carbon or sheffield steel?

i was thinking of something like this.

it isnt a high carbon steel (it says surgical steel...which im assuming is just stainless steel?)

anybody have experience with a blade like this? is it crap?

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...940/190280.htm

All of the razors that Classicshaving sells are very good. They do not sell junk and never have. Whichever balde you chose will last at least your lifetime.

Just my two cents,

Stainless steel generally has chromium added . The common forms are 300 series and 400 series. Surgical steels are some form of stainless. Some of these can also be used inside the body.

Rick

so between high carbon and stainless, what are the pros and cons of each?

Stainless doesn't rust as easily, it's a bit harder to hone but holds the edge a bit longer. There are lots and lots of vintage carbon razors on ebay, but very few stainless razors on ebay. Some guys think carbon steel takes a finer edge, but then some guys think stainless razors take the finer edge, this is probably due more to the honing differences between the two than to actual edge-holding capabilities.

Of the razors that I consider my favorites, roughly half are carbon and half are stainless. But I've got a *lot* more carbon razors, and a lot more "interesting" carbon razors; stainless came along very late so you won't find many barber's notch, wedge, or frameback stainless razors.

My only inox is a G. Butler that has a very interesting combination of features: It's biconcave but very stiff and a curved blade. In any case it's not my favourite but I don't hate it either. Just a regular member of the rotation.

great. thanks for the info. ive read that carbon holds a better edge and ive also read that stainless does...so i was a little confused, but your post cleared that up for me.

thanks!

There is no such thing as surgical steel. There are steels used for surgical instruments and there are junk steels called surgical steel just because there is no requirement for a steel to be "surgical".

The Dovo razors, however, are of quality steel. They use 440c, which was the first of the super-stainless steels and was considered the finest stainless cutlery steel for a long time and still has marvelous edge taking and holding ability. I'm surprised that the steel is advertised as "surgical stainless" because that USUALLY means that it's junk steel like 420a.

I feel that the finest cutting edges are made of high grade non-stainless. Either a high carbon straight steel or a high carbon alloy steel. I don't feel that way because stainless steel is not a good blade material. In fact some is outstanding. I only feel that way because all steels are metalurgically designed to meet specific performance criteria and for stainless steel, the first and most important criteria is resistance to rust and corrosion, where carbon steels have no such first priority and so can be designed and alloyed for other properties like high speed performance - not very useful for shaving..... or for fine grain, high hardness and superior wear resistance - VERY useful properties for shaving.

Most carbon steels used for razors were straight steels with carbon over 1%.

Average hardness varied from 59 to 62 HRC.

The air hardening stainless and alloy steels are probably going to be more consistent in hardness except for those manufactured by thiers-issard, which is the only manufacturer still using the very consistent lead-treat process.