Stainless or Carbon??

**bothyman** · 28-11-2003, 23:40

Stainless or Carbon which is the better blade Material???

**Hoodoo** · 29-11-2003, 03:40

Man, ya gotta love threads like this.

Ok...so here it goes. :shock: My vote is for stainless for most slice and dice knives and carbon for choppers. The old bugaboo about stainless being hard to sharpen or not holding an edge is just that--old. There is just too much good stainless steel out there to ignore. And I especially like stainless for backpacking because it's one less thing I have to worry about during a 5 day rain. They are low maintenance.

I have some Mora stainless knives that will slice rings around some pricey carbon knives I own--and hold a pretty good edge. I love 154CM. It's just a great stainless. AUS-8 is another good one for the field. There's plenty more. BG42 and VG-10 come readily to mind. S30V is supposed to be very good although I haven't tried it yet.

Now for day hikes or short overnighters or even a weekend where blade maintenance is not going to be an issue, I'll grab a carbon blade. And I like the way a carbon blade gets all toothy when you hit it with a steel. Great for kitchen work although I prefer a stainless blade when cutting fruit like apples. No metallic tang.

If stainless does have a downside, it's probably in impact resistance. For choppers, give me good old carbon steel.

**ESpy** · 29-11-2003, 08:36

Stainless is more difficult to forge than (simple) carbon steels... :-)
High-alloy carbon steels are also a pain.

**Martyn** · 29-11-2003, 08:58

Try a search, it's been discussed at great length already.

http://www.bushcraftuk.co.uk/communi...opic.php?t=218
http://www.bushcraftuk.co.uk/communi...opic.php?t=259

**leon-b** · 05-06-2006, 16:23

i wondered this about a week ago when i was deciding whether to a buy carbon or stainless steel frosts clipper and i have decided to go for stainless for one simple reason
where i live it rains alot and i also like to go fishing so i chose the stainless due to its better water ressistance

**JonathanD** · 05-06-2006, 18:47

Hoodoo pretty much sums it up in his post there...

**addyb** · 05-06-2006, 19:26

Hoodoo! You stole my words from Leon B's stainless vs. carbon post last week! If you hadn't invented the Hoodoo hone which I am totally in awe of I'd probably be forced to have very strong words with ya! :P (kidding)

He's totally right though, stainless steel today is a huge step forward from what it was years ago. Steels like 12c27, and VG-10 are a lot better than the stainless steels of twenty years ago. Modern technology and metallurgy techniques have produced wonder steels, steels that I'm sure people could only dream of in days gone by.

In the end all you have is fashion!

Adam

**C_Claycomb** · 05-06-2006, 21:42

Locking thread....
This is going nowhere. Nothing new here....move along folks.

**C_Claycomb** · 06-06-2006, 23:15

**2blackcat** · 07-06-2006, 01:56

Thanks for the links, Chris
Only one problem
I read this forum at work and they have a filter system that blocks an awful lot of sites
I can't access blade forums, it filters it as weapons
I can't access british blades, ditto
I can't even access the gallery on this site as it's started to block it as weapons?

Just a little reminder that some of us can't be treated as adults by the firms that pay us

and don't have the freedom to look at pictures of naked blades

**Hoodoo** · 07-06-2006, 03:44

Originally Posted by 2blackcat

Thanks for the links, Chris
Only one problem
I read this forum at work and they have a filter system that blocks an awful lot of sites
I can't access blade forums, it filters it as weapons
I can't access british blades, ditto
I can't even access the gallery on this site as it's started to block it as weapons?

Just a little reminder that some of us can't be treated as adults by the firms that pay us

and don't have the freedom to look at pictures of naked blades

Hmmm, too bad. Well, you can take my word for it then, that I was absolutely brilliant in that first thread.

addyb, it's easy to steal people words when you have a time machine like I do that allows me to go into the future, gather up all the brilliant ideas I can find, then post them in the past so that I can appear to be light years ahead of you.

**Hoodoo** · 07-06-2006, 03:48

BTW, I've had pretty good luck lately with stainless for medium sized choppers. Of course, I wasn't chopping concrete blocks either.

**2blackcat** · 07-06-2006, 06:43

Quote ; Hmmm, too bad. Well, you can take my word for it then, that I was absolutely brilliant in that first thread.

**Hoodoo** · 07-06-2006, 12:49

Originally Posted by C_Claycomb

I did a little digging and found some discussions from Blade Forums which will be worth looking at. Particularly the first one, started in 2001 by Hoodoo himself!
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=118944

Some interesting links there Chris. Mucho thanks. I think I was there for about a fourth of them. That was mostly before BF morphed into something I no longer had time to deal with.

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