Choosing a Folding Knife Blade Steel

Blade steel is one of the most important aspects of a knife, but it's also a complicated subject filled with jargon. You can read thousand-page books on the subject and still lack knowledge. To help parse the information surrounding blade steel

This next section barely scratches the surface of choosing a blade steel for a pocket knife and we highly recommend checking out the full guide that some of the info is taken from

The first version of this guide broke down the steels between stainless and carbon steels (as do most sites), but the reality is that neither term is really correct. All steels contain carbon and not all stainless steels are truly stainless.

So, Zvi broke it down into five very general aspects to consider when selecting a blade steel.

1. Intended Use: As with choosing any aspect of a pocket knife, you should have a general idea of how you will use the knife. For example, if you're cutting abrasive materials like rope or cardboard, you might want to consider a more wear-resistant alloy.
2. Blade Geometry: The most important aspect of blade geometry is thickness. Thinner blades sacrifice some strength, but you can make that up in the type of steel the blade is made out of.
3. Edge Geometry: This concerns edge configurations like the V grind or chisel grind. Certain alloys work better at certain angles.
4. Corrosion Resistance: If neglected, nearly all stainless steels can rust, but stain-resistant steels can be a good option if you expect humid or aggressive environments for your knife.
5. Carbon and Tool Steels: If you're not worried about corrosion resistance, there are a lot of great alloys to choose from.

If you're just looking for entry-level alloys with solid performance for mundane EDC uses you can opt for 420HC, 440C, 8Cr13MoV, 8Cr17, 12C27 and many others. After that, it only gets better with high end alloys like ZDP-189, M390, K390, K294, Aogami and Shirogami.

Even though blade steel is really important, it's even more important to keep it maintained. A well-sharpened blade made from low-quality steel will outperform the finest steel that isn't properly kept.

from www.pknife.com