Thread: Silver Steel, Carbon, stainless

An interesting thing I thought I would share about razors made with different steels.

Iron is the base mineral for all types of steel.

Carbon Steel

• Steel is made by mixing molten iron with carbon. Fine carbon powder is mixed in with the molten iron; the carbon molecules chemically fuse with the iron molecules to create steel. Picture a hacksaw cutting an iron pipe: The hacksaw blade is high-carbon steel, while the pipe is low-carbon steel. The hacksaw blade cuts the pipe because it's steel is harder. Interesting fact about carbon steel is before modern methods of using pressurized gases, high carbon steel were made by
  heating the iron red hot and rolling it in any type of plant matter. The plant matter would burn and leave a residue of carbon and then the iron would be folded and hammered binding the carbon molecules to the iron. The katana and samurai sword was made this way sometimes being folded over up to 30,000 times.
  
  Silver Steel:
  
  
  

Razors made with silver steel means it has 0.02 percent real silver mixed into the steel alloy. It may not seem like much, but that two hundredth of a percent of silver changes the composition enough for the steel to easily take a mirror finish. Tool steel is often a type of silver steel.

Blued Steel

• Steel's main component, iron, is prone to rust -- and bluing is a chemical treatment of the steel's surface to prevent rust. For example, since firearms are used outdoors, bluing is applied to all exposed steel parts. The bluing process involves using various chemicals that etch into and color the steel, according to Rand Esser, metals patina specialist at the University of Wyoming.
  
  

Stainless steel

Stainless steel is a steel alloy composed of iron, carbon, and chromium (chrome). Usually stainless steel has a Chromium content of 10.5% to 11%, which makes the steel more resistant to rust.

Carbon steel and Stainless steel:

Even simple steels with higher carbon content, e.g. AISI 1095 can be hardened to much higher levels compared to mainstream stainless alloys, at those levels stainless steel becomes too brittle. Edge holding, especially on soft materials is better at high hardness, i.e. carbon steel will have the advantage.
Obviously, exotic stainless PM alloys like ZDP-189 or Cowry-X are exception, but in general, average stainless steel used knives can't be hardened as high.
For the same reason(lack of toughness), stainless steel is almost never a good choice for large knives. It either has to be too soft to have enough toughness, or compromise its strength to have better edge holding ability.
Edge holding of the stainless steel might be better compared to simple carbon steel alloys at lower hardness, due to Chromium Carbides in stainless steels, but carbon, or non-stainless steels with other alloying elements such as Vanadium, Tungsten, Niobium(Columbium) have much harder carbides than Chromium forms. Their edge holding is a lot better compared to most of the stainless steels.