Which Steels would you call non-stainless

[Brock O Lee]

By the way, I've never tried VG10 as it's not been on offer with any of the knives I've looked at. As a rough informal and non-expert view I'd say that BD1 pretty much matches my carbon steel cheapies in ease of sharpening and sharpness, but is a little behind for edge retention.

BD1 is more or less near the bottom of the wear resistance food chain compared to some of the common stainless steels like VG10, S30V, XHP, 204P, M390, S90V, S110V in the Spyderco line-up.

Have you tried any of these? If not you're in for a treat...

EDIT: sorry, I see now you've tried Elmax. It should be close to 204P/M390 wrt wear resistance, based on chemistry.

[aesmith]

I see the thread has come round to suggestions for stainless steels that I should try. That's great and the suggestions are appreciated. At the moment in my regular arsenal I have BD1 as I mentioned, a production UKPK. I also have HAP40 (Dragonfly), K390 (Pingo) and Elmax (Urban). Those are from limited edition special runs, so they don't get as much regular use as the UKPK hence I don't really have a feel for edge retention in those (but the HAP40 in particular got very sharp)

[Ruarch]

These topics always make me wonder why VG10 doesn't get the respect it should. If you want a do it all steel that's corrosion resistant, tough, easy to sharpen, that takes a very fine edge, it just about can't be beat for being a jack of all trades steel. It's easy to find other steels that out perform it in any of those categories but there is always a compromise.

Seconding this.

[PayneTrain]

If corrosion resistance isn't a concern, Cruwear is always going to be my answer. Or M4...no, Cruwear! Cruwear for sure! But M4 though...

[wrdwrght]

So, the goal is to choose a steel that stains and corrodes easily? I must be missing something.

Neither a metallurgist nor Cliff Stamp here, but I think the attraction of steels not meant to be stainless is the smaller load of those large carbides that impart stain resistance.

Having fewer large carbides lessens the chance of fractures (thus improving the steel's toughness), and it betters the chance of putting a really low-angle apex on the blade without having a carbide fall out along the edge (thus appealing to a special breed of knife nuts).

But as Lance mentioned, corrosion along such an edge does require more maintenance than most here want to give.

I like the visual rewards of the patina forming naturally on M4 and Super Blue blades in my collection (my ZDP and Cruwear blades have yet to stain as rumor says they should), but I feel no compunction to put low angles on them. Just glad to have the balance of wear- and fracture resistance they offer.

[Bill1170]

It is the free chromium, not the metal carbides, that impart stain resistance.

[JD Spydo]

It's interesting when I go to military trade shows. Invariably I'll get a few grizzled veterans who walk by the booth and ask if the knives are stainless steel. I'll answer that most of them are. Without breaking stride, they'll respond "stainless steel won't hold an edge" and keep walking.

We are all products of our own experience. Once something doesn't work for you, it takes a lot of it-does-work experience to outshine that. Fortunately, with Spyderco knives, you've got A LOT of different steels to choose from.

That's a really interesting observation you make concerning many older armed forces vets being jaded against stainless knife blade steel :confused: . Because from the very first Spyderco blade I ever bought ( GIN-1, SE Mariner- 1995 vintage) I noticed that a premium stainless blade is vastly different that a lot of those chewing gum stainless blades you can buy at "Rip-Mart" and various other discount houses. And most of Spyderco's premium stainless blades far out-perform most any carbon blade I've ever used, or owned.

I had a good friend of mine recently that I hadn't seen in quite a while who is a Viet Nam Era vet who raised this "Carbon vs Stainless" debate on blade steel. I even offered him to borrow one of my user Spyders that had ZDP-189 PE blade or one of my VG-10 PE blades to prove to him that his predetermine hatred of stainless blades was baseless. But he wouldn't even take either one of the folders to even give it a fair trial at no cost or risk to him at all :confused: .

To "un-brainwash" someone I'm finding is not an easy thing to accomplish unfortunately . And what's extremely lame and stupid about it is the fact that comparing any blade steel from lets say the 1980s or 1990s to most any popular blade steel recently produced is even more than a "night & day" difference. To me it's like comparing buggy whips to Michelin radials :rolleyes: And the sad thing is many of these guys are really good guys and they are missing out on something really good because of their own stubbornness

[bdblue]

It's interesting when I go to military trade shows. Invariably I'll get a few grizzled veterans who walk by the booth and ask if the knives are stainless steel. I'll answer that most of them are. Without breaking stride, they'll respond "stainless steel won't hold an edge" and keep walking.

We are all products of our own experience. Once something doesn't work for you, it takes a lot of it-does-work experience to outshine that. Fortunately, with Spyderco knives, you've got A LOT of different steels to choose from.

You posted a link to the steel chart above and I count 77 different steels. Does Spyderco make or has Spyderco made knives using all of these steels? (By the way that link doesn't work for the new Spyderco website.) So a more diplomatic answer when someone asks if the knives are stainless might be that Spyderco uses 77 different types of steels in their knife manufacturing.

We all relate to our own experiences but things can change with time. Years ago I read something by Randall knives that said their carbon steel blades had 10% better performance than their stainless steel blades. I have no idea how they quantified that or what characteristics they were testing. It seems that regarding abrasion resistance the best stainless steels in use today can equal or exceed the best carbon steels.

[bdblue]

the very cheapest knives with non-stainless carbon steel blades significantly outperform stainless blades even on knives costing significantly more. It therefore occurred to me that the same might apply at a higher price point, do non-stainless high-end steels offer advantages over high-end stainless?

I don't agree with this as a generalization although you haven't defined what type or performance or what price range. For the sake of discussion lets assume that "performance" means "edge holding". I can imagine that the cheapest knife you can buy with carbon steel might do well against a cheap knife with stainless steel. Carbon steel can be made very cheaply and heat treated very cheaply, stainless steel will cost more and sometimes requires a more complicated heat treatment. But start with the types of knives that interest me and within a similar price range I find that the stainless steels do pretty well against the carbon steels, maybe even do better. In the past 20 years the stainless steels in common use have improved their performance by a lot while the carbon steels have not. Maybe this is the reason.

Now if you are looking at a knife as a chisel and not a cutting instrument, carbon steels will still typically have significantly better toughness than stainless steel.

[Bill1170]

These topics always make me wonder why VG10 doesn't get the respect it should. If you want a do it all steel that's corrosion resistant, tough, easy to sharpen, that takes a very fine edge, it just about can't be beat for being a jack of all trades steel. It's easy to find other steels that out perform it in any of those categories but there is always a compromise.

I second this sentiment. VG-10 does not get the respect it deserves for being such a well-balanced cutlery steel.