Thread: carbon vs stainless steel razor material

From my many years working with stainless steels as a Tool and Die Maker I hated working with stainless steel. It's a pain on the band saw, drill press, mill and lathe but atrocious on the grinders. Tapping a hole in stainless at 10-32 or smaller many times resulted in broken taps due to the metal 'galling' on the tap. That is where I perceive the metal as gummy. The metal would rather rip and tear than cut. Heat treatable stainless steel can not get up to the hardness of the better carbon steels. That said, my stainless steel razors shave just as good as my carbon steel razors and some better.

Stainless steel razors are harder to hone then Carbon steel ??????

The alloying elements added to stainless steel make it more abrasion resistant and, it is usually more difficult to hone. Most carbon steel is a easy to hone on almost any set of stones. Stainless, on the other hand, is temperamental.

It really depends on the type of stainless steel. 1.4110 stainless used in victornox knives is easy to hone on any stone and takes a great edge. Honing 154cm, vg-1 and vg-10 takes longer, but shaptons work fine on them. The stainless used in lower-end stainless knives can be a pain to sharpen. Shaptons and nortons will not refine the edge. I always switch to SiC or DMT hones for those. King makes a 800 grit stone specifically for honing stainless steel that I'm going to try one of these days.

All my razors are carbon, so I can only comment on stainless knives.

It comes down to carbide (crystal) stucture.

Introducing Chrome, i.e. the "stainless" part of stainless steel to a steel alloy increases the size of the carbides in the steel.

Because CS has a much finer crystal structure the building blocks that make up the structure are smaller which means it is easier to sharpen and has better ductility.

What SS manufaturers have been doing for the last 120 years or so is coming up with ways to improve the quality of SS.
- Using Vanadium and Molybdenum improve strength and reduce crystal size (most German knives are stamped CrMoV to indicate that they are using a Chrome Molybdenum Vanadium alloy). Japanese knife makers are to Vanadium Steel alloys.
- Casting process
- Tempering
- forging

Stainless steels can be made as soft as CS, but in order to get a crystal structure acceptable for holding a fine edge the treatments/alloys they will be harder than CS.

As SS is more brittle than CS it needs to be made stronger than an equivalent CS blade width otherwise it is more prone to snapping.

Please note that this is the very rough notes version and people have written doctoral theses on any one of the above points.

Dragging us kicking and screaming into Razordom, and Honing straight razors...
I don't do knives...


When honing straight razors I find no or negligible differences in honing Carbon Steel razors -vs- Stainless Steel razors..

I find this to be almost as big a myth as the overhoning one...

These statements have scared new honers since I have been a member here and I honestly giggle a bit every time I read either one...

Newb: My razor doesn't cut hair very well
Adviser: You probably overhoned it...

Newb: What steel should I get
Adviser: Well Carbon Steel is easier to hone, but Stainless Steel holds the edge longer


I have found no credence to either statement...

Sorry but that is what I have seen in my experience...

So far the only difference I have found to be true of SS, is it rusts a little slower...

There are many ways to skin a cat as there are ways to hone a razor and probably many different levels of good. I hone stainless razors differently than I do carbon steel and am more than satisfied with the results.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

....snip...
When honing straight razors I find no or negligible differences in honing Carbon Steel razors -vs- Stainless Steel razors..

I find this to be almost as big a myth as the overhoning one...

These statements have scared new honers since I have been a member here and I honestly giggle a bit every time I read either one...

Newb: My razor doesn't cut hair very well
Adviser: You probably overhoned it...

Newb: What steel should I get
Adviser: Well Carbon Steel is easier to hone, but Stainless Steel holds the edge longer

I have found no credence to either statement...

Sorry but that is what I have seen in my experience...

So far the only difference I have found to be true of SS, is it rusts a little slower...

+1

Newb folk should visit Glenn's honing videos on Youtube.

Search for gssixgun

The methods and tools used are are not subject to
overhoning and work on quality razor steel of any type.
I should add that the pyramid method that Lynn developed
is another method that works well.

Any newb that hones with care and a light hand
on a modern water stone will do just fine.

I've given up on a $150,- Thiers-Issard Evide Sonnant razor, could have been stainless steel for all I know, simply threw the thing away. I don't know how many hours I've spent trying to get the edge back on it. It did very well for about a year (daily use, full face), but that was that. Followed youtube advice on honing (great info source), got the Norton waterstones (1000 to 8000), even got a 10K grit thinking that'd make any difference, but I just couldn't get a reasonable edge back on. About two years ago, I bought a $10 used carbon razor on Ebay (Geneva Cutlery, NY), ran it on the stones and it is perfect. I touch up the edge every 5-6months or so for a few minutes: kept the edge on for two years now. Isn't as pretty, doesn't shine or 'sing', but I can count on a perfect shave every time I use it. I would most definitely advise against stainless steel (or whatever TI uses for their Evide Sonnant for that matter), unless aesthetics are crucial, you're a pro at honing or you don't mind paying to have your razor maintained professionally.

Originally Posted by ssmfc

I've given up on a $150,- Thiers-Issard Evide Sonnant razor, could have been stainless steel for all I know, simply threw the thing away....
.....snip.....

Thiers-Izzard's can be hard, very hard.

I wish you had not tossed it. I would have liked to try it.
I might have swapped even for a vintage New York state razor.

I worked at Boeing years ago as a machinist. The Stainless we worked on is not the same stainless steel that good Boker, J.A. Henckels, HESS , and others have for their cutlery or razors. Regular carbon steel razors are, well, have a percentage of carbon in them that is useful and conducive to heat treating. Makes them hard and strong, and you can reduce brittleness with certain annealing. Stainless, on the other had, as used in razors, really is low in carbon and as such doesn't fit in well with heat treating. It has too much nickel content and not enough carbon to work right. However, the razor and knife folks found out quite some time ago that you can freeze certain stainless steels in liquid nitrogen and change their characteristics that way. Some call it Ice Treatment, but, it is simply cryogenic tempering and completes the conversion of Austenite to Martensite. J. A. Henckels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Read a bit more about it at the link. Makes for tough and resilient stainless for blade applications.