Stainless steel that behaves like a carbon steel

[elena86]

What stainless steel( more than 13% Cr) would you say behaves,feels and sharpens like a carbon steel ?

Marius

[twinboysdad]

In my modest experience, none. The trade off is drastic enough that no Stainless behaves like a real carbon. Maybe others can state different, my biggest users being my Wustof and Henkel kitchen knives as I do most of our cooking. Stainless? Absolutely. Sharp? Kind of, and not for very long. My grandparents Old Hickory carbon can get much sharper but looks like cast iron

[THB]

12C27 or 13c26 comes to mind. Tough, fine grained and easy to sharpen. In regards to edge retention Verhoeven compared AEB-L (13c26) to 52100 and 1086 back in 2007 and found that "These experiments support the view that martensitic stainless steels optimized for hardness and fine carbide distributions have slightly superior cutting performance than high carbonsteels."

[captnvegtble]

Adamantium

[attila]

Adamantium

That doesn't sharpen as easily though...

[Doc Dan]

Yeah, I was going to say maybe 13C26, as well. It is razor blade steel.

[Evil D]

I think you'll get close but there will always be something in the back of your mind that feels carbon is better in some way if you prefer it. For me if I want an easy to sharpen stainless that's reasonably tough and holds a decent edge I just go for VG10.

[vivi]

What stainless steel( more than 13% Cr) would you say behaves,feels and sharpens like a carbon steel ?

Marius

H1.

It has the toughness of a carbon steel. I haven't ever seen a regular stainless steel hold up as well to impact, prying, twisting loads on a thin edge etc. I never think twice about splitting wood with my aqua salt.

It sharpens very quickly like carbon steels are known for. Takes a very fine edge.

Edge holding compares to 1095 blades I have in the 55-58 RC range when talking about PE H1, SE H1 outclasses any carbon steel I've tried in edge holding, but I have not tried some of the more recently popularized high end carbon steels because corrosion resistance is important to me.

[Surfingringo]

lc200n

[SF Native]

Don't know if any are really that similar.
I would say the closest are LC200N and XHP.

[JimP]

I was thinking XHP and Elmax but that is with the way I now sharpen. If I was still going through both the ceramic stones I would probably say 12C27 or VG10.

[Stuart Ackerman]

AEB-L feels the closest to O1 steel in cutting leather and pine, at the same grit sharpness and edge angle...12C27 next...

[paladin]

Cruwear and Elmax...Cruwear is the best of both worlds, IMHO.

[Ryno]

What stainless steel( more than 13% Cr) would you say behaves,feels and sharpens like a carbon steel ?

Marius

H1.

It has the toughness of a carbon steel. I haven't ever seen a regular stainless steel hold up as well to impact, prying, twisting loads on a thin edge etc. I never think twice about splitting wood with my aqua salt.

It sharpens very quickly like carbon steels are known for. Takes a very fine edge.

Edge holding compares to 1095 blades I have in the 55-58 RC range when talking about PE H1, SE H1 outclasses any carbon steel I've tried in edge holding, but I have not tried some of the more recently popularized high end carbon steels because corrosion resistance is important to me.

I haven't experienced H1 coming even close to 1095 in edge holding, but I've only experienced H1 in PE. It does sharpen as easily though.

[vivi]

What stainless steel( more than 13% Cr) would you say behaves,feels and sharpens like a carbon steel ?

Marius

H1.

It has the toughness of a carbon steel. I haven't ever seen a regular stainless steel hold up as well to impact, prying, twisting loads on a thin edge etc. I never think twice about splitting wood with my aqua salt.

It sharpens very quickly like carbon steels are known for. Takes a very fine edge.

Edge holding compares to 1095 blades I have in the 55-58 RC range when talking about PE H1, SE H1 outclasses any carbon steel I've tried in edge holding, but I have not tried some of the more recently popularized high end carbon steels because corrosion resistance is important to me.

I haven't experienced H1 coming even close to 1095 in edge holding, but I've only experienced H1 in PE. It does sharpen as easily though.

In my experience H1's edge holding in PE is as terrible as everyone makes it out to be at factory edge angles, but drop it down to 10 degrees per side and it's much better. It's closer to VG10 for me then.

I have no idea why, but I have a significantly reprofiled Aqua Salt and Pacific Salt that cut circles around my factory edge Pacific Salt.

That's why it's one of my favorite steels even in PE. Edge holding comparable to my VG10 Police 3, stainproof, sharpens as quick as anything I own and the toughness of carbon steels. It feels like cheating, usually there is more of a compromise somewhere but H1 has it all.

It's sad its marketed as a marine specialty steel when IMO its the best steel for regular EDC knives.

[elena86]

And the winners are....THB and Stuart Ackerman I tried several times to talk Sal into the idea of releasing a folder in AEB-L but....IMO low carbon steels(less than 0,7% C) are the best of both worlds for the average user.

Marius

[JimP]

I'd give AEB-L a go, I really like Sandvik steels so AEB-L with a great heat treat would be very interesting.

[JD Spydo]

I have thought that about ZDP-189 to some degree because of the extreme bite of the edge that you can produce on a well honed ZDP-189 blade.

Also to some degree I've had the same thoughts about D-2 as well depending on the type of heat treatment. I guess I would like to know exactly what properties about carbon steel you love so well?

Also it's almost an "apple versus orange" comparison in some ways but maybe I'm overlooking something.

[Donut]

People say M390 is the stainless version of M4. Other people say XHP was made to be a stainless version of D2.

[Donut]

Cruwear and Elmax...Cruwear is the best of both worlds, IMHO.

I always thought Cruwear was not a stainless steel.