Thread: Why all the Mystery Steel???

Hi guys. I have a quick question as a newbie trying to get involved in the world of straight razors.

Why do the manufacturers not list the steel type used in their razors? By that I mean the specific steel type such as 1095, 52100, ATS-34 etc. The only thing I ever see is "Carbon Steel" or "Stainless Steel". Even with the Damascus bladed razors they do not list the make up of the steel. They also do not usually make any mention of heat treat or hardness. This is very frustrating to me!

I am trying to pick out a couple of razors to begin my straight razor journey, and being a huge "knife nut" as well as a bit of a steel snob, I would like to have as much information as I can get before making my selection.

I would certainly appreciate any information y'all have to offer on this subject. I am definitely looking forward to my first self administered straight razor shave!

Welcome to SRP. I've seen some of the custom makers name the steel and the rockwell on their blades but I don't recall any of the larger companies current or vintage doing so. Some of the more knowledgeable guys will no doubt be along with more specific info.

In the meanwhile there is a cool razor data base in the SRP Wiki here as well as tutorials on all things related tto straight razor shaving.

Some do. Hart mentions on their website that they use O-1, for example, and Livi uses 440C and N960 as well as a variety of Damasteel products which I believe are documented steels. And I believe Zowada mentions on his website the steels he uses in his pattern welds. But the market that Dovo and TI are filling doesn't overlap very well with the knife nut/steel snob market, not the way Zowada, Livi and Chandler do. There's also no advantage to Dovo or TI from advertising their steel. They can't gain market share from it - they are backlogged 6-9 months already - so the only thing this would accomplish would be to give away competitive information.

Also, these razors aren't used for chopping open car doors or splitting tree trunks or jute hawsers. They're just for shaving, and Dovo and TI have along and proven track record; the steels that Dovo and TI use, whatever the details of composition or heat treating, have been proven to be sufficient to the task. In that respect they're sort of like Rolls Royce and horsepower - they don't advertise it, but rest assured it's more than enough. That isn't enough for a steel snob but it's sufficient for most people.

Originally Posted by mparker762

so the only thing this would accomplish would be to give away competitive information.

I think that has a lot to do with it. BTW, Livi seems to use ATS-34 a lot also. I know Bill Ellis made some with that because I have one. Butch Harner made a great one that I have out of that ball steel 52100 and another out of Decker damascus.

TI was marking their blades as something like Best Sheffield Silver Steel until they switched over to the new alloy they claim is the hardest and longest lasting with the Silverwings. I like the old alloy and the new equally well from a shaving standpoint. Dovo says that some of their line is Swedish steel but not all and I guess that is a broad statement.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I think that has a lot to do with it. BTW, Livi seems to use ATS-34 a lot also. I know Bill Ellis made some with that because I have one. Butch Harner made a great one that I have out of that ball steel 52100 and another out of Decker damascus.

TI was marking their blades as something like Best Sheffield Silver Steel until they switched over to the new alloy they claim is the hardest and longest lasting with the Silverwings. I like the old alloy and the new equally well from a shaving standpoint. Dovo says that some of their line is Swedish steel but not all and I guess that is a broad statement.

I would love to find one of those Harners made from 52100. Can you offer up any info that would help with where to look, along with maybe a model name/number? Also, do you know if Harner forged his 52100 blades or if he used stock removal method?

I would imagine that the makers who use Swedish Stainless steel use a lot of Sandvik 12c27 and 13c26. Those seem to be two of their favorites.

The stresses that razor edges are under aren't very analogous to those of knives or chisels or drills, they aren't subject to high temperatures, they have extremely narrow honing angles, they must be sharpenable to a much finer edge than knives and chisels, and so forth. And you can't fake out the buyers with marketing prose or grandiose claims, because if the steel isn't great for this application, and if the heat treating isn't great for this application, then the result isn't that he can only cut through 10 ropes instead of 15 - the result is that it pulls his whiskers out by the roots.

Please do not lump all knife nuts into the gullible pile. Some actually study the science behind the why and how instead of just poke and stab things. Believe me, I get tired of all of the "flavor of the month" steels that seem to pop up every other day, but it is hard to discredit some of them.

The only drawback I see to using some of the new stainless wondersteels is difficulty in sharpening. On the edge angle topic, I have more than one knife with a combined edge angle 20-25 degrees. Those knives will do a lot of cutting through all kinds of material before needing to be sharpened again. The only way I can get away with ridiculously low angles on knives like that is because they are made from some of the new steels that will allow it.

However, as I tell people all the time with knives, heat treat is just as important as steel type, maybe even more important. Also, on a knife, we have the luxury of changing the edge geometry as well as profile to the job at hand for that particular blade. I am pretty sure that isn't an option with a staright razor.

One thing is for certain, you really can't compare the two cutting tools on too many levels.

i stock remove most of the time but i do have the ablity to forge a bit

the forged vs ground blade is a big fight but im not sure it has any real teeth
see a guy that forges also has to grind after the forging
both if there any good has to go throught a heat treat and thats what counts most (over even edge grinding to an point )

Thanks for the info guys. I will definitely be checking out those Harts. O-1 just happens to be one of my favorite old time tool steels. Works great in everything from a tiny little patch knife to a 10" chopper!

In todays world of all the new uber-fashionable new fangled designer steels it is refreshing to see a maker use a long time proven performer like O-1.

I look forward to hanging out and learning a thing or two here with you boys.

One more thought: I'm not at all certain that the new generations of wonder steels are terribly well suited for straight razors, nor has there been anywhere near the experimentation with the heat treating schemes necessary to produce optimal results for razors. The stresses that razor edges are under aren't very analogous to those of knives or chisels or drills, they aren't subject to high temperatures, they have extremely narrow honing angles, they must be sharpenable to a much finer edge than knives and chisels, and so forth. And you can't fake out the buyers with marketing prose or grandiose claims, because if the steel isn't great for this application, and if the heat treating isn't great for this application, then the result isn't that he can only cut through 10 ropes instead of 15 - the result is that it pulls his whiskers out by the roots.

Meanwhile Dovo and TI have their steels which in some cases they have been using for 40+ years and have the hardening and tempering regimens to extract the maximum performance out of it. For the smaller shops, old-fashioned steels like O1, W2, 440C have been around long enough and are well-understood enough that it is easy to get the required results out of them. Some of the most respected stainless razors around are the old Henckels Friodurs and dubl duck and C-Mon stainless razors, which were made from 440C with really outstanding hardening and tempering regimens, and those razors are hard to beat even today. There are quite a few vintage razors made from unknown carbon steel that I prefer to modern razors made from O1 or C136 or some of these other wondersteels. While it would be nice to know just what steel Waterville used, I'd rather shave with it than some razor using a "name-brand" steel that nonetheless doesn't shave as well.

Originally Posted by mparker762

...so the only thing this would accomplish would be to give away competitive information.

Also, these razors aren't used for chopping open car doors or splitting tree trunks or jute hawsers. They're just for shaving, and Dovo and TI have along and proven track record; the steels that Dovo and TI use, whatever the details of composition or heat treating, have been proven to be sufficient to the task. In that respect they're sort of like Rolls Royce and horsepower - they don't advertise it, but rest assured it's more than enough. That isn't enough for a steel snob but it's sufficient for most people.

+1

When straight shaving was the only way to remove whiskers, the proven shaver was the sales winner. There was some data coming out of Josh's researches that indicates that despite different manufactories, the steels were quite similar.

The phenomena of "knowing" all the relevant materials in knifemaking resulted from makers who would say "this knife is 5160 because I used an old leaf spring from a truck." Which would be true only until the maker or customer found out that not all truck springs were 5160. I can recall that sea change occuring in the late 1980's. Up until then, it was entirely up to the maker to call the steel whatever they wanted. Safe assumptions about steel contents could be made, but when more investigative types came along, all of a sudden, what was said werent' necessarily so. That became a market weapon to criticize the other guy and gather more sales for the more apparently knowing one.

This then becomes cause to question the veracity of the maker (who now appears to not know his stuff) and the relative value of the knife purchased (because there's doubt about what was advertised or how it might have been worked). Notice in all this, there is no using the blade to see if it works....

It's not that "found" steels make poor blades, they could have been exceptional. The Market and its demands seem to drive this process and require a known providence or lingering suspicions remain. There is simply no way to test by looking at a shiny (or rusty or laminated) piece of steel unless the veracity of the maker is absolute.

Now to add to the confusion, some of the steel suppliers have been known to send out bars/billets that were labeled incorrectly. Hopefully that never happens again. Maybe a yard monkey was color blind, maybe he was lazy and pulled something from the wrong stack or they were under the gun to ship something. But it returns us to the requirement that you be able to trust the maker, the steel seller and etc.

The next problem is that the maker won't let you take home a blade and try it out. They don't want it back with scratches all over it. Razors, as has been said, proof is in the shaving and honing. If there's is one thing you guys have taught me, its that. If it don't shave and won't hone, it won't sell or gain any reputation. My editorial about that is there should be more passarounds for new makers especially.

There's nothing wrong with steels that have proven track records, even if we don't know exactly what's in there. There is no need to go whoring off after wunderstahls and unobtainium when a perfectly serviceable blade is working for you.

The end of the argument as to forged vs. stock removal, as Butch as pointed out, is in the heat treatment, but they didn't know that thirty years ago and some still won't let go of bad information. And it's the modern market that has driven the phenomena of requiring perfect knowledge of all the parts.