Yes, strikes me as odd too. Interesting though nonetheless.
I was expecting a carbon steel blade and was after one. But this has had me thinking. My reason for wanting carbon over stainless was due to the oft quoted sharpness thing...
(I hope I have this right)
"Carbon steel will hold a keener edge but it will dull quicker than stainless steel, but that's okay because carbon is easier to sharpen in the field than stainless."
Define "easier" in this sense. Is it down to physical effort, materials required, technique, a combination of things or something else entirely?
Also, now I think about this some more, I've never sharpened any knife I've had 'in the field' anyway, so it's an academic point only.
Baffled of Bristol.
Internet 'facts' are great aren't they ?
Some of them are even true...
To echo and expand upon Shinken's reply, most stainless steels are at best about 2/3 as tough as carbon steel and any knife you want to be tough should be tempered back a little more to be a couple of points softer.
Lumping carbon steels together is a step too far for me as well - D2, for example, is a carbon steel, and it is a bugger to sharpen by comparison to A2, or L6, or the 10x series carbon steels, so the concept that carbons are easier than stainlesses to sharpen is a flawed argument at best.
There's a lot of knives being made at the moment that are far too hard. Fine for slicing - not so good for harder work, and a lot of folks have high expectations of them and some of them wonder why they end up holding the handle in one hand while the blade...
A lot of people are saying how tough ESEE knives are - that's for four main reasons:
1. simple carbon steel
2. well executed heat treating
3. lower hardness than 'normal'
4. edge geometry that is slightly overbuilt
In plain English they took a slightly out of vogue but superb (if simple) carbon steel, tempered it back a couple of points softer and left the edge ever so slightly thicker, and hey-presto, it's a tough as old boots knife.
Knives are a lot more predictable in the field than many users realise.
High hardness + high load = broken knife
Lower hardness (slightly) + high load =
It's a simple equation which, unfortunately appears to be lost on many.
Ignoring laminated blades, if you want a tough stainless knife nothing comes remotely close to 12C27 and yet a lot of people look down on it as a poor cousin to the currently popular and in fashion stainless steels.
If you want even tougher, you go for any of the simpler carbon steels and selectively harden or temper them to have a softer back with a hard edge (but still no more than around RC57 - 58) and be amazed at what they can do.
High hardness is all well and good, in the right context, but it is overrated and vastly misunderstood.
Anyone who wants to argue the point should go away and Rockwell test some of the 'high performance' knives from ESEE and Cold Steel, which should really open a few eyes when the Rockwell readings are regularly 56 - 58; kind of flies right in the face of the current vogue of complex stainless steels (which are inherently less tough) at high hardness (which introduces greater likelihood of failure).
Let's look at that again, shall we ?
Less tough stainless + high hardness = ...
I'll get my coat, yet again...
