Thread: Seriously re-thinking stainless steel

I have been pretty traditional in my thinking for razor materials (good ole carbon steel is great).

However, I have been watching stainless steel in the cutlery industry evolve in recent years. In the last 5 years it has come miles from where it was.

Sure there are lots of cutlery steels that have huge carbides and make great knives, but producers are realizing that there are afis that appreciate a super fine grain and ultra fine edges.

Now I know that common conception around here is that when someone starts talking knives, you can walk away because they don't speak razor. I get that. When I started honing last year I thought I would know it all due to my knife experience. However, the truth seems that the lines between high end knives and straight razors are getting pretty blurry these days (from a honing point of view).

I got plugged into a circle of high end knife afis and have been sharpening/finishing their blades for them. I'm many cases they expect as much as shavers do from these edges...and they must look beautiful.

Anyway, back to the point.

After working with some of these super steels for the past few years, it occurred to me (actually it occurred to a few high end razor makers) to try some of these modern stainless materials.

Let me just say this. Some of these materials fair QUITE well as razors and have me really re-thinking the notion that SS cannot past muster like CS.

In some regards, I think it's better (and I'm not just talking about being rust resistant).

Originally Posted by unit

I have been pretty traditional in my thinking for razor materials (good ole carbon steel is great).

However, I have been watching stainless steel in the cutlery industry evolve in recent years. In the last 5 years it has come miles from where it was.

Sure there are lots of cutlery steels that have huge carbides and make great knives, but producers are realizing that there are afis that appreciate a super fine grain and ultra fine edges.

Now I know that common conception around here is that when someone starts talking knives, you can walk away because they don't speak razor. I get that. When I started honing last year I thought I would know it all due to my knife experience. However, the truth seems that the lines between high end knives and straight razors are getting pretty blurry these days (from a honing point of view).

I got plugged into a circle of high end knife afis and have been sharpening/finishing their blades for them. I'm many cases they expect as much as shavers do from these edges...and they must look beautiful.

Anyway, back to the point.

After working with some of these super steels for the past few years, it occurred to me (actually it occurred to a few high end razor makers) to try some of these modern stainless materials.

Let me just say this. Some of these materials fair QUITE well as razors and have me really re-thinking the notion that SS cannot past muster like CS.

In some regards, I think it's better (and I'm not just talking about being rust resistant).

Good ole Friodurs make super nice shavers, good SS has been around for making good razors.

Although not new, I have several Friodurs and they all shave well and have been easy to hone and strop. I like not having to worry about rust and water spots. They are rumored to be made from 440C stainless, a common but not one of the latest and greatest knife steels. Razors must take a very sharp edge, be easy to resharpen, and stay sharp for at least one shave. They need not be durable enough to stay sharp in the kitchen for an entire work shift, although this would also be good as long as sharpness and ease of resharpening is not compromised.

Not being an aficionado/connoisseur of different steels I will settle for what works. Any of my several different makes of stainless razors shave as well as my carbon ones. The use of stainless in making SR blades has been around for a good long while too IIRC. Point is, what we have now works well enough but there is always room for incremental improvements which these new "super steels" may or may not yield. I guess being a novice I was lucky not to hampered by preconceived notions that stainless would not pass muster for blade making use.

Bob

I do have two DOVOS that are stainless steel. One is a gift that I got around 20 years ago. This will be probably my next honing project. I used it for something like five or seven years until I stopped using straights on a regular basis (too long to remember actually). It only has seen cr-ox, linnen, leather and my face since I got it, no hones. Compared to my other blades it is now dull, but still gives a smooth shave.

The other one I bought lately and simply did not realize it was stainless. It was really dull ex works, but honing was OK. Took me a bit longer, but I always seem to need more strokes than You guys. Long term experience still to be made.

It is a funny thing, in pocket knives, dating back to the 1960s, and into the '80s, I never found a stainless blade that I could like as well as a high carbon. If they were decent hard steel they were usually difficult to sharpen, compared to HC, and some were soft and didn't hold an edge worth a hoot.

Your Puma pocket knives were really great in the 'Pumamaster' steels. Then they came out with "Super Keen Cutting Steel" SS and they were a PITA. This in the 1970s. The Buck knives were hard as concrete nails IME. Back when we all wore those belt sheaths for the big folders. Sharpening one of those was a job and I think they were stainless. Not sure on the Bucks.

I used to open cans with a pocket knife when I was on job sites doing ironwork. Any Case XX HC would do the job easily. I bought a Browning SS 'Trapper' pattern 'cause I liked the look of it. The can cut the 440C blade. Just junk.

No doubt it is a different world in the manufacture of quality stainless nowadays, and has been for some time. I'm no expert on stainless in knives or razors but I have had ATS-34, and I still have 2 S30V razors. All of those were difficult to sharpen in that they took a lot longer and required some diamond to get over the hump before the finishers. Once there they are great razors. I had one of the vintage Friodurs, a 7/8 that was also a great shaving razor.

I also have a couple of 440C, I assume, razors from the 1960s and they are darn good shavers and not that hard to sharpen. Funny that the same steel, from the same era, that I didn't like in a pocket knife would be so good in a razor. Anyway, I guess if the heat treat and tempering is right than the razor will be right regardless of the material used.

Friodurs, and Hess, and old Dovos, and the Duck, and a bunch of other vintage blades were stainless. And a bunch of modern blades and customs, too.

IMHO it is more about the Heat Treat and Tempering then about the use of "Super Steels" There is a sweet spot for razors with honing, when hardness goes beyond that sweet spot then I get turned off..

Put a Hess 44 in my hands and I am a happy man

I had the pleasure of honing a gorgeous 5/8 genco SS with cracked ice celluloid and brass bolsters for a member a few months ago. I was my first SS blade and I was a bit intimidated b/c of how hard I heard they were to sharpen. I will say that it tok me an extra 10 min or so to set the bevel the way I wanted it, and I did find working slurries more than I tend to helped a good bit. To this day that blade gave me the smoothest shave I have ever had...I wish I forgot to send it back wink wink..lol!

I may do a formal review sometime soon about a prototype I was somehow selected to play with.

I'm only on my first honing (I honed it to shave ready at the request/permission of the maker) and 3rd shave, but I am seriously rethinking my previous assumptions about SS.