Quote:
Originally Posted by Fastguns32
I'm new to putting stuff on fourums so if I do anything wrong please let me know. The reason carbon steel is so much better, & perferred by people who have knowledge of metalurgy, other than the rust resistance aspect of stainless is- carbon is needed to make the edge hard during heat treating so it doesn't roll the way stainless does. The reason stainless is hard to get sharp and keep it that way, is because when it gets thin it wants to roll to one side or the other. That being said Randall definitely uses a better grade of stainless alloy than most. The reason stainless doesn't rust as easily as carbon steel is that oxygen attacks carbon. The more pure alloy the stainless is like say 304 the less carbon content, therefore less rust. You just can't Harden stainless the way you can high carbon steel so the cutting edge is definitely less desirable. Just like everything else nowadays people like stainless for the ease of maintenance so you don't have to worry about it so much. I would think if you spend the money on a randal that you would want to take care of it and if you ever have to use it have a much more serviceable tool. You can actually make high carbon so hard and brittle during the heat treat it will break if you drop it. That is the reason a lot of high-end knife makers use high carbon steel for the cutting edge and laminate milder steel around it for flexibility so the blade doesn't break with use but will hold an edge for a long time. I have one that I skinned a deer, split the ribcage, & butchered it, you could still shave with it. Try that with stainless & you will likely stop sometime during the process to sharpen it probably more than once.
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It is not so, nearly
And the fact that stainless steel is inferior carbon,
it's just the old prejudices. It can be said - the inertia of thinking.
This statement is gone 20-30 in the early years, when the level
of steel was approximately equal of a modern stainless steel
AISI 420 (most cheap Chinese knives). Then indeed the level
of heat treatment was low and carbon steels were better.
Now the situation has changed, but the momentum bad
history about retention edge has remained.
There is one more thing, while steel, as now 420, was 0.4-0.5% carbon. Most of the carbon blades that time correspond to
the steel 0.6-0.9% carbon. Their comparison is simply not correct.
It all depends on the quality of heat treatment.
You can harden steel 440A, 440B or 440C
with using cryotechnology, thermal cycling
and other special techniques, so that the edge retention
is better than most carbon steels.
Wherein this is easy sharpening. If we consider the modern
powder steel, it features much more capabilities.
But it is quite expensive. You can compare the prices of
standard industrial knives, for example, knives Phil Wilson,
Bob Dozier and other custom masters from same steel
and then compare the results of the real work him.
Industrial knives are behind.
According to my observations, Randall makes a high-quality heat treatment. I do not see much difference between stainless 440B and O-1 in retaining edge.
In this case there is one point O-1 have ~1% C.
440B have 0.75-0.95% C - such variation laid down
in the standard for this steel. So I do not rule out that sometimes Randall knives made of stainless steel can
be a little bit softer or harder, depending on the instance,
which naturally affects the edge resistance.
There is also another factor that rare mentions - this quality of sharpening and sharpening angle.
If you sharpen the knife on rough abrasive - it is well cut,
but not for long. If you choose too small an abrasive,
the knife good cuts tree, but the skin, the fat,
film on the meat it will just slip as if blunt.
Sharpening is also very interesting topic, bit of an art,
akin to cast bullets and weighing required number of homemade black gunpowder.
Now I bought a rare version Buck 110 with S30V.
A very good stainless steel. I use it in city like EDC
and as an additional assistant for my Randall 3-5.