Shirogami...

[Troopah_Knives]

m not entirely sure what constitutes this difference but it seems clear that catra does not represent the specific use of a kitchen knife ideally, be it the cutting medium or the fact that other modes of failure play a bigger role xompared to catra

I have seen very little evidence or a proposed mechanism that would mean CATRA is not a representative test of wear resistance in kitchen knives. I am inclined to think that the dominant form of edge wear changes based on the steel and your technique. In your case, you might find AS has much better edge retention because your technique and setup required higher edge toughness and at some small scale your Shiro knives are microchipping. I'm not saying that is definitely the mechanism just an example. Based on the structures of the steels it is really not a surprise that the tungsten low alloy steels have very little if any improvement to wear resistance 0.5-2% volume of carbide is really not a lot.

 

[Eloh]

I think thats part of what i meant too. Its a bit hard to express my thoughts since this is a fairly complex topic and my english is lackluster.

Toughness is probably one factor, since catra methodology is really indifferent in this regard since its a linear movement wich is good to reduce variables of course.
But at the end that just means that other modes of failure or another xombination of factors becomes more important than 'edge retention' for kitchen use, chipping due to lateral stress, heavy board contact etc
Thats why i said, cutting raw meat without board contact works really well with these steels...

From my experience and different other people who have gathered data, its pretty clear that the catra test doesnt relate that well to kitchen knife use. Also it would be very hard or next to impossible to conduct a proper experiment to show exactly that....

 

[Dan-]

HDPE is a very consistent material commonly used for cutting boards. Why couldn't they devise a test with a machine that pull cut, tap chop, and push cut into HDPE?

 

[Justinv]

I have a couple more comments. First on the comments on magnacut and such there is a reason why san-mai exists to improve grinding and toughness. Yet western makers are often using monosteel. Is there no source for factory made prelaminated bars that are the norm in Japan? Shouldn’t this be both cheaper and less labor for higher carbide steels? I have never heard of soft stainless cladded 52100 but I’d give it a try. I’ve never heard of monosteel VG10, ZDP189, SG2, or any japanese powdered steel but monosteel is discussed for magnacut, s35vn, M390, etc.

Pricing is much higher in 2022. I get people wanting cheap options but those aren’t what is typically discussed here. It seems we can improve on white 2 and expect excellent and consistent HT at current prices. I’m encouraged by larrins new steels.

 

[blokey]

I have a couple more comments. First on the comments on magnacut and such there is a reason why san-mai exists to improve grinding and toughness. Yet western makers are often using monosteel. Is there no source for factory made prelaminated bars that are the norm in Japan? Shouldn’t this be both cheaper and less labor for higher carbide steels? I have never heard of soft stainless cladded 52100 but I’d give it a try. I’ve never heard of monosteel VG10, ZDP189, SG2, or any japanese powdered steel but monosteel is discussed for magnacut, s35vn, M390, etc.

Pricing is much higher in 2022. I get people wanting cheap options but those aren’t what is typically discussed here. It seems we can improve on white 2 and expect excellent and consistent HT at current prices. I’m encouraged by larrins new steels.

Shi.Han does stainless clad 52100, but he makes the bar stock by himself. There is actually pure VG10 blade like this, and monosteel aus-10 is pretty common. I think there is just not huge market in US for manufacturers to do per-laminated stock.

https://bernalcutlery.com/products/hitohira-fj-240mm-gyuto-vg10-ho?variant=39726120403096https://www.shihanfineknives.com/stainless

 

[esoo]

I have never heard of soft stainless cladded 52100 but I’d give it a try.

https://www.shihanfineknives.com/test-products-page/stainless-clad-52100-gyuto-210mm-ryk9k

 

[Justinv]

https://www.shihanfineknives.com/test-products-page/stainless-clad-52100-gyuto-210mm-ryk9k

Thanks. Can I presume it will outperform TF mabs or is that going to blow up this thread?

 

[MSicardCutlery]

Is there no source for factory made prelaminated bars that are the norm in Japan? Shouldn’t this be both cheaper and less labor for higher carbide steels? I have never heard of soft stainless cladded 52100 but I’d give it a try. I’ve never heard of monosteel VG10, ZDP189, SG2, or any japanese powdered steel but monosteel is discussed for magnacut, s35vn, M390, etc.

There's only one source prelaminated bars of carbon clad stainless in the U.S that I know of, and it's 416 and 52100, and currently only available in 1/4" thick bars. Forging laminated stainless is tricky, and needs to be done very slowly and carefully, compared to carbon steel billets anyways. A rolling mill would be ideal. There's no fixing a delamination in a billet that includes stainless, the chromium oxides are basically flux proof, and the billet has to be sealed just to set the weld initially. With the high alloy steels it's even worse. I remember reading about stainless clad M4 at some point, and IIRC the forging window is about 400F degrees wide, and as soon as forging is complete it has to be put through an annealing cycle. I suspect that if just left to air cool, that as it hardens it would sheer itself apart from the stresses imparted during forging.

For an individual maker to produce their own stainless clad, well, with all the preparatory work and then the drawing, I don't see it being cheaper overall than burning the extra belts on a wear resistant monosteel blade, just perhaps a little more convenient to grind, and that it fills a niche in the market. That isn't to say I have anything against stainless clad, just I think if done as a savings measure that it's a case of diminishing returns. If manufactured at a factory scale on the other hand, well, that could change things.

 

[ethompson]

Thanks. Can I presume it will outperform TF mabs or is that going to blow up this thread?

Ah, the classic reductio ad TF (every thread is eventually a TF thread)! Can't claim to have compared the two, but my ShiHan has by far and away the most consistent grind I've ever seen. A flawless, no low spot, thin convex grind. I've also had great experiences with 52100 and have nothing against this steel.

 

[ethompson]

Wrought iron clad magnacut is something I'd be very, very interested in. The mullet of the san-mai knife world - business at the edge, party on the cladding.

 

[M1k3]

Wrought iron clad magnacut is something I'd be very, very interested in. The mullet of the san-mai knife world - business at the edge, party on the cladding.

@Carl Kotte

 

[Carl Kotte]

Wrought iron clad magnacut is something I'd be very, very interested in. The mullet of the san-mai knife world - business at the edge, party on the cladding.

The future!!!

 

[Alex Horn]

I'll offer another perspective, as someone who has made a relatively large amount of knives in white steel.

White steel takes a great edge, yes, but that's about it from an actual user's perspective. It is easy to sharpen, but abrades away almost too fast. I've seen knives a few months old come in for tune ups that lost 1/4" of height because they needed constant sharpening.

What's appealing about it from a maker's perspective is how easy it is to manufacture. It's one of the easiest steels to forge and grind, especially when you have pre-laminated stainless or soft damascus clad bar stock. Once you know how and have the right tools, you can absolutely crank out knives in this steel. So, how do you make money on a steel that's easy to produce, but only has one redeeming quality? You market the ever-loving crap out of that one quality.

White steel has this grandiose reputation because of its "legendary" sharpness. Then you can say it's "easy to sharpen" and "holds and edge for a long time", but those are just words. Compared to high alloy steels it's easy to sharpen. Compared to Wusthof it holds an edge longer, sure. It's been marketed so well that a lot of people blindly swear by it on reputation alone. And as a lot of previous posts have shown, there are plenty of comparable or better options easily available, generally at cheaper options.

After making well over 1000 knives out of white steel, I don't think I'll ever touch the stuff again.

 

[adam92]

in the professional kitchen I tried to avoid white steel gyuto, but I prefer white steel yanagiba, as not much board contact, white steel honyaki for yanagiba is my favourite.

 

[stringer]

Thats why i said, cutting raw meat without board contact works really well with these steels...

in the professional kitchen I tried to avoid white steel gyuto, but I prefer white steel yanagiba, as not much board contact, white steel honyaki for yanagiba is my favourite.

I have tried a couple white steel knives. The only one I've kept is my Ashi Ginga Suji. No board contact white steel stays sharp forever (by that I mean that the knife gets sharpened because I'm bored long before it gets sharpened because it "needs it.")

 

[adam92]

I have tried a couple white steel knives. The only one I've kept is my Ashi Ginga Suji. No board contact white steel stays sharp forever (by that I mean that the knife gets sharpened because I'm bored long before it gets sharpened because it "needs it.")

Yes you're right, for suji it's make sense because no much board contact, but for gyuto white steel seems like lose my interest, I sold my Ashi Ginga White steel gyuto because of this reason as well, it get super sharp, but lose the sharpness fairly quick.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

I have a couple more comments. First on the comments on magnacut and such there is a reason why san-mai exists to improve grinding and toughness. Yet western makers are often using monosteel. Is there no source for factory made prelaminated bars that are the norm in Japan? Shouldn’t this be both cheaper and less labor for higher carbide steels? I have never heard of soft stainless cladded 52100 but I’d give it a try. I’ve never heard of monosteel VG10, ZDP189, SG2, or any japanese powdered steel but monosteel is discussed for magnacut, s35vn, M390, etc.

Pricing is much higher in 2022. I get people wanting cheap options but those aren’t what is typically discussed here. It seems we can improve on white 2 and expect excellent and consistent HT at current prices. I’m encouraged by larrins new steels.

Clad high alloy steels are much more common in Japan because there is more demand for clad blades for aesthetic reasons. So the steel can be made at a larger scale where temperatures and atmosphere contact can be highly controlled. At a smaller scale, it is quite difficult to get clean welds and you are somewhat limited in cladding materials. For example, wrought iron cladding is a no-go for most of these steels because the cladding needs to be forged hot but the core steels exhibit hot shortness (crumple when forged to hot). As people have pointed out, especially for expensive steel it certainly has some benefits you might be seeing more of it in the not too distant future .

As a side note, the first release of NioMax was in the form of stainless clad billets.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

HDPE is a very consistent material commonly used for cutting boards. Why couldn't they devise a test with a machine that pull cut, tap chop, and push cut into HDPE?

Assuming you control for geometry this would simply be a test of edge strength and correlate directly with hardness.

 

[SirCutAlot]

So shiro is out of date ,what about other low alloy steels like 1095/SC145/SC125/135Cr and stuff like that. They are all in the same edge retention ballbark like shirogami.

SirCutALot

 

[Troopah_Knives]

So shiro is out of date ,what about other low alloy steels like 1095/SC145/SC125/135Cr and stuff like that. They are all in the same edge retention ballbark like shirogami.

SirCutALot

At least for me when I say white class steels I mean ~1%C+ very low alloy steels. So yes all those these are out of date as well imo.

 

[SirCutAlot]

At least for me when I say white class steels I mean ~1%C+ very low alloy steels. So yes all those these are out of date as well imo.

Ok, and what about steel like Aogami 1/2, 1.2519, 1.2442 , because i don`t think their edge retention ist that much better. So maybe the knifes cut 2 times more stuff like the other mentioned low alloy steel`s.

In my business (may depend on what you have to cut) i have to resharpen thes "low" tungsten alloyed steels once a day, knifes out of SC125/Shiro etc. maybe two times in half the time.. So no advantage for me. I guess any chef here got more then one gyuto at his working place.

I do my sharpening with as fine stones as possible/useful, so Chosera 3/5k, Coticule and stuff like this, so i can not imagine "sharpening away a knife". This is sad, and may be a cause of bad sharpening habbits more then used steel ?

SirCutALot

 

[kpham12]

I’ve read a couple articles/interviews with Japanese smiths where a lot of them say they like working with shirogami because, and I’m paraphrasing here, it’s “like a blank canvas” and it’s the most commercially available steel that’s closest to old sword steel/tamahagane so it’s a bit of a tradition thing as well. So that may contribute to its popularity in Japanese knives.

Also, for the losing heel height issue, I think a lot of people can accidentally oversharpen their knives, especially if they don’t thin as they go or at least intermittently. I’ve seen some intro level “how to sharpen” vids where people are spending so much time on a 1000ish grit stone and I’m thinking “you should’ve had a burr like 5 minutes ago, why are you still sharpening?”

I’ve found if I keep my shirogami knives (any of my knives, really) very thin behind the edge, stropping on cardboard brings back the edge easily enough, then maybe just a light pass on a high grit stone or a couple swipes on a mid grit JNAT gives you back a fresh edge because so little metal needs to be removed and you won’t lose any appreciable amount of heel height for a long time.

But I think shirogami is really for a) tasks that don’t involve much board contact like stated above and b) those people who want that peak, fresh off the stones sharpness as often as possible because it’s so easy to maintain at that level. Something like R2 or even blue super will hold and initial edge longer, but takes just a bit more work to bring back.

Although I definitely get why people avoid shirogami. If I have to go through a box of oranges/citrus or tomatoes or maybe even bell peppers, I’m reaching for R2 or SLD or a nice VG-10 before shirogami.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

@SirCutAlot Im not quite sure what you are getting at but as we discussed before in the thread those steels don't offer more wear resistance but they do often offer more toughness (for a given HRC) are quite often HT'd a bit harder which can help with edge retention. Maybe its different for you but I can't tell the difference between how long it takes to sharpen Aogami 2 and the white class steels.

 

[SirCutAlot]

@SirCutAlot Im not quite sure what you are getting at but as we discussed before in the thread those steels don't offer more wear resistance but they do often offer more toughness (for a given HRC) are quite often HT'd a bit harder which can help with edge retention. Maybe its different for you but I can't tell the difference between how long it takes to sharpen Aogami 2 and the white class steels.

Sorry for my bad english, grown up in 5 different countrys, worked in even more , i don`t even know if i got a native language.
If i get it right, your thougts are that higher alloyed steels are tougher ? because they might be heat treated harder ?

SirCutALot

 

[Troopah_Knives]

Sorry for my bad english, grown up in 5 different countrys, worked in even more , i don`t even know if i got a native language.
If i get it right, your thougts are that higher alloyed steels are tougher ? because they might be heat treated harder ?

SirCutALot

Not quite. The actual mechanisms are complicated but the testing done by @Larrin suggests that steels like V-toku 2(basically aogami 2) retain more ductility than white type steels at 62+ RC.

My comments of them being heat treated to higher hardness are not related to this previous point but rather an observation of industry trends that can have an impact on the perceived edge retention of steel. For example, if everyone tried one steel at 64Rc and another at 60Rc they might observe that the first had been edge retention and attribute that to the steel rather than the hardness while in reality if both were the same hardness the second steel may have better edge retention.

I hope that clears things up.

 

[Jason183]

I’ve read a couple articles/interviews with Japanese smiths where a lot of them say they like working with shirogami because, and I’m paraphrasing here, it’s “like a blank canvas” and it’s the most commercially available steel that’s closest to old sword steel/tamahagane so it’s a bit of a tradition thing as well. So that may contribute to its popularity in Japanese knives.

Also, for the losing heel height issue, I think a lot of people can accidentally oversharpen their knives, especially if they don’t thin as they go or at least intermittently. I’ve seen some intro level “how to sharpen” vids where people are spending so much time on a 1000ish grit stone and I’m thinking “you should’ve had a burr like 5 minutes ago, why are you still sharpening?”

I’ve found if I keep my shirogami knives (any of my knives, really) very thin behind the edge, stropping on cardboard brings back the edge easily enough, then maybe just a light pass on a high grit stone or a couple swipes on a mid grit JNAT gives you back a fresh edge because so little metal needs to be removed and you won’t lose any appreciable amount of heel height for a long time.

But I think shirogami is really for a) tasks that don’t involve much board contact like stated above and b) those people who want that peak, fresh off the stones sharpness as often as possible because it’s so easy to maintain at that level. Something like R2 or even blue super will hold and initial edge longer, but takes just a bit more work to bring back.

Although I definitely get why people avoid shirogami. If I have to go through a box of oranges/citrus or tomatoes or maybe even bell peppers, I’m reaching for R2 or SLD or a nice VG-10 before shirogami.

losing 1/4 of the blade height in few months do sound crazy. I normally sharpens my knives(blue2/SKD12 Gyuto)once a week. Except for my White #1 slicer, I only sharpened it once every few months cause I only using it for slicing Sashimi. Liked others have said, I probably won’t get a white steel knives if my work tasks is to cut few cases produce a day.

 

[M1k3]

With Blue steels in general, the low amount of alloys probably does more to keep carbide size in check, than helping edge retention. Maybe? @Troopah_Knives @Larrin

 

[esoo]

In my experience, Blue 2 at 62HRC had much better edge retention than White 2 at 65HRC. It wasn't even close in my home kitchen.

 

[Troopah_Knives]

With Blue steels in general, the low amount of alloys probably does more to keep carbide size in check, than helping edge retention. Maybe? @Troopah_Knives @Larrin

Im going to keep this to Blue 2 and White 2 but it holds true for similar comparable steels.

Blue 2 is just White 2 +1.25% W and 0.35% Cr. There are a couple of mechanisms I can think of and each probably contributes a little.

1. These white-type steels struggle with excessively high amounts of carbon that dissolve into the steel when it is heated before the quench which leads to a brittle structure called Plate Martensite. The tungsten ties up of the carbon in tungsten carbides which reduces the carbon in solution and (probably) reduces the amount of plate martensite formed.

2. Tungsten carbides dissolve at higher temps so depending on the heat treatment they could contribute by "pinning" the grain boundaries leading to finer grain size. Which in itself improves toughness and finer grain size may also have an effect on reducing the formation of plate martensite as was discussed in this article.

There may be other mechanisms that I don't know about or am not thinking of.

To your second point. Yes, it seems like they don't contribute much to wear resistance but that isn't too surprising given that it is only a 2% volume and they are not evenly dispersed.

 

[Larrin]

The low alloy content of the steels is for ease of forging and heat treating with traditional methods. But it also helps with keeping carbide size small without powder metallurgy.