Thread: Any way to understand if a straight is stainless steel?

Originally Posted by stdreb27

Any carbon steel is going to be magnetic to some degree or another.

+1 for this.
There are some ways to prevent carbon steel from getting magnetic, but those methods are if not unsuitable then too complicated for such every day things as razors.
In practice it doesn't affect on shaving or honing if carbon steel razor is magnetic. Even honing and stropping causes the cs razor to get magnetised (or de-magnetised) if we have the equipment fine enough to inspect very little details.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Some brands are marked Friodur, Rostfri, or SS. Off the top of my head I would say that most have some designation on the tang marking them as stainless. A big exception being custom razors.

Are all Friodurs stainless? I thought that was a tempering, freezing process and not an indication of material.

Goog

Originally Posted by ferroburak

Hi,
I'm told that stainless steel straights require different material for honing. Is there any way to understand if a razor is stainless? Thanks.

For razor steel today use the same hones and
care for them all the same.

When stainless entered the knife market in the
mid 60's a lot of us with American Arkansas hones
had a heck of a time with the new steel. And
the rumors began.... but remember knives and
razors are different.

Razors have always been harder than knife steel
so little has changed. Modern man made water
stones all have very hard and sharp abrasives so
there is no problem...

Originally Posted by ferroburak

I guess these razors are not stainless then
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...tml#post595498

as there are no such marks on them.

You are correct. Those are high carbon steel, not "stainless".

A little funny story that applies here... Others with a machine shop background I'm sure can relate.

Folks would often walk into our shop with a piece of material that they wanted to identify. Some of them engineers, some techs, some just regular folks.
They would hand over the material... I'd perform some useless tests, depending upon how far I wanted to "reel them in." I often had a good idea what the material was from looking at it, but i never let on.. After I was done with the "Show" testing, I'd put the material to my nose and take a good whiff. They often looked at me as if I had two heads! Sometimes other guys would be looking on in amusement. Sometimes they would come over, and I'd hand them the material to sniff also.
Then I would declare the material to be so and so, and ask my compadres who also sniffed if they concurred... They always did!

The engineers often walked away in amazement, or just shaking their heads...

I wish I had a nickle for every time it worked...

Originally Posted by BlacknTan

A little funny story that applies here... Others with a machine shop background I'm sure can relate.

Folks would often walk into our shop with a piece of material that they wanted to identify. Some of them engineers, some techs, some just regular folks.
They would hand over the material... I'd perform some useless tests, depending upon how far I wanted to "reel them in." I often had a good idea what the material was from looking at it, but i never let on.. After I was done with the "Show" testing, I'd put the material to my nose and take a good whiff. They often looked at me as if I had two heads! Sometimes other guys would be looking on in amusement. Sometimes they would come over, and I'd hand them the material to sniff also.
Then I would declare the material to be so and so, and ask my compadres who also sniffed if they concurred... They always did!

The engineers often walked away in amazement, or just shaking their heads...

I wish I had a nickle for every time it worked...

No doubt about it. The smell of 440c and L1 are impossible to mistakenly confuse. But that's probably something only metalheads truly know and understand. Holding a piece up to your ear and tapping on it with your fingernail is another sure method of alloy identification to the trained ear.

Originally Posted by BlacknTan

A little funny story that applies here... Others with a machine shop background I'm sure can relate.
....snip....

For a second I thought you were going to give it a spark test.

I like your test much better.

Btw steel is carbon plus iron already. Maybe we should not use the name carbon steel

Originally Posted by ferroburak

Btw steel is carbon plus iron already. Maybe we should not use the name carbon steel

carbon and iron = steel. Yep. But not all steel is high carbon steel. There are steels with less than 0.6% carbon, which don't really "cut it" when people think of <high> carbon steel, (because it's not) no pun intended.

"Carbon steel", semantically speaking, is "not stainless" and "not highly alloyed" and "not low carbon". Of course, we could be much more throrough in our designations, but I digress. I think everyone pretty much gets the right idea from just "carbon steel".

Originally Posted by Sailor

+1 for this.
There are some ways to prevent carbon steel from getting magnetic, but those methods are if not unsuitable then too complicated for such every day things as razors.
In practice it doesn't affect on shaving or honing if carbon steel razor is magnetic. Even honing and stropping causes the cs razor to get magnetised (or de-magnetised) if we have the equipment fine enough to inspect very little details.

Maybe I should rephrase it a little, a magnet is going to stick to carbon steel.