Corrosion Testing of 9 Stainless Knife Steels

[Keith Sinclair]

The card stock one think it was Best steels for edge retention. Graph showed thinner the edge grind more cards can cut. I could tell you that all the years in front of cutting boards. Grind is everything. It was good to see it on a graph.

Slicing lemons with pocket knives not the best blade to test with. Again thin grind carbon knives can slice lemons quite a while slicing through the seeds instead of displacing them.

Have watched NHK world on Japanese limes slicing with carbon super sharp blades clean cuts through the seeds. Acidic foods dulling knives is exaggerated again it is more about grind & edge sharpness.

One thing is Knife Steel Nerds threads I always have to check it out. No matter if I understand it all or not.

 

[kayman67]

Thanks mods for cleaning this up a bit. It got rediculous fast. It always bugles my mind when people claim that studying and testing steels and their various attributes has no relevance to kitchen knives or outdoor knives or folders or whatever. How can a study of the matterials your tool is made out of have no relevance to your tool. It seems to matter in every other industry, but when it comes to knives, all of a sudden, "Oh this test or that is not relevant to me cutting tomatoes, etc" Of course it matters, wear resistance, toughness, corrosion resistance all matter. Some claim that specific tests don't mimic exactly what they do or cut, so what? They still give you a reference point, you can extrapolate and you can draw conclusions. Moreover, suggest something better, or better yet do your own testing and present it.

Larrin doesn't tell you which steels to use for kitchen knives, he tests steels and explains his testing and conclusions. Draw your own conclusions about your own use or do your own testing and report back. So far I haven't seen anyone do this better and explain it better than Larrin, so I am not sure what some people are complaining about.

Sometimes I feel like most people who complain about these tests, didn't even read the articles.

I did this with kitchen knives to see what guys in the kitchen should expect. The carbons were very informative as the difference between a wipe and just letting the knife rest with water/moist while getting other minor stuff done, was quite important. If you wipe the blade, there is a very little chance for rust to take over fast. If not, even in a couple of minutes bad things started to happen to new knives.
But rust would take over stainless as well. I saw it just days ago. And a test like this will give an understanding on the matter. Buying something that's stainless does not make you completely forget about maintenance and such alloys will be affected, some faster than imagined maybe.

 

[Larrin]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

 

[bahamaroot]

I find it funny when I go to friends or families houses and they have a stainless knife or dinnerware that has a little rust or staining on it. They then proclaim, "How can this be rusting, it's 'stainless'!" I like to explain to them that "you're right, it is 'stainLESS' not 'stainPROOF'."

 

[Lazyboy]

Its sort of a mark of education to be able to take "imperfect information" and make it useful yourself....

At risk of being shot down for being off topic, this reminds me that there are two kinds of people: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data ...

Anyway, always an education to read Larrin's posts. Thank you, Larrin!