How to Estimate Knife Steel Properties

Patreon Thanks to our new Patreon supporters! Kyle Paxton Irving Patrick Chase Robert Angerer Willow Cheney Chris Cramer Paul Nawashar Video There is also a video that presents the same information: Knife Steel Tests and Ratings I have tested many knife steels over the past several years and reported the results in many articles. I also have an article where I created ratings for each steel based on those past experiments. In that article I spent quite a bit of space on what is behind the properties of each steel. For example, I showed an equation I developed that predicts the CATRA edge retention of different steels based on carbide types, carbide volume, steel hardness, and the edge angle of the blade. I wanted to try to demystify the ratings a bit to show that steel results are somewhat predictable based on certain factors. Of course there are always many counter-examples where we test a steel and are surprised by a result, usually in the negative direction. With enough…