11/18/2025: I added that the book is now available in South Africa from SD Knives & Supplies.
Links to buy are at the bottom of the article!
Video
Knife Engineering
In recent years, I have been mostly known as the “MagnaCut man,” but before MagnaCut, my biggest success was probably with Knife Engineering. When I started my website, Knife Steel Nerds, I hadn’t thought about writing a book because I thought I was doing a website instead. But I soon realized that a website works better for individual articles than it does for introducing an entire subject. So that led me to writing the book Knife Engineering: Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry. That allowed people to learn the subject in order with all of the appropriate introductory material. The book has been a big success with many copies sold and many rave reviews from knifemakers and knife buyers alike. I tried very hard to make the subject as easy to understand as possible, and so it has been gratifying to hear people say that the book was exactly that.
The Second Edition
So why a second edition? There are a lot of reasons:
1. Since the first edition, I have tried to do as many experiments as possible in areas that I only had prior scientific journal articles to reference for those subjects. These included studies I performed on thermal cycling of both carbon and stainless steels, comparing different types of quench oils, and the performance of Damascus steels. There is an extra chapter in the second edition from one of these studies, all about forge heat treating. I always learn new things by conducting experiments for myself, and of course, I can test knife steels that are currently popular among knifemakers and knife companies. This significantly improved those sections of the book as the data was more directly applicable, and I could compare different types of heat treatments to give better recommendations.
2. One thing that surprised me a bit was that many knifemakers bought Knife Engineering just to see the heat treatment recommendations in the book. So I improved that section by including recommended forging, normalizing, and annealing temperatures for each. Before, those temperatures were only found for select steels in other parts of the book. I also updated each recommendation with whatever new testing I had done since the first edition. The new recommendations section also has its own table of contents with all of the steels listed.
3. New formats and wider availability – since the first edition was published I now have the option of printing the book in hardcover. I have seen some very tattered looking paperbacks of Knife Engineering! I also am publishing a PDF digital copy to Payhip. So the book will be available in paperback, hardcover, and PDF. The PDF edition also means that the book is available anywhere in the world. Before if you were in a country where print on demand was not available the book could be costly to import.
4. There are also many miscellaneous figures and experiments sprinkled throughout the book that make it significantly better when it comes to supporting information. It would be a bit tedious to list them all, but several of them haven’t even appeared on my website. In the first edition I restricted my own heat treating experiments primarily to a later chapter called “Practical Aspects of Heat Treating.” I moved most of those into the relevant chapters including many new experiments – annealing, austenitizing, tempering, etc. That way the new stuff is incorporated into the book and also the reader can learn about it within the chapter rather than a disconnected place later in the book. Overall the text is about 15% longer in terms of word count.
5. An index – the most requested missing thing from the first edition was an index. This was surprisingly painful to make. I had to double-check each page number, and it took forever. I think this is like smoking a pack of cigarettes, where each one removes 28 minutes off the end of your life. That definitely happened when I double-checked the index.
6. Improved formatting – I learned a lot about formatting books while working on my other book, The Story of Knife Steel: Innovators Behind Modern Damascus and Super Steels. There is a lot of extra white space in the first edition, and I wanted to make it look more professional. There are a bunch of charts and figures that look washed out, and so I redid them all to give them more contrast.
7. References – the first edition has the references I used at the end, but I did not include reference numbers within the text. This was a decision I made to improve the flow of the book and so as to not scare away general readers. But I regretted it almost immediately. Readers wouldn’t know which references are backing up which points, so figuring out which to read would be very difficult. I also knew that adding them back in would be way more work than including them in the first place. The references are small “superscript” numbers and I don’t think they have affected the flow of the book at all.
How to Buy
I spent 18 months working on the second edition. I thought it would take me a few weeks and get it knocked out. But it turns out making a new edition of a book is nearly as much work as writing a whole new one. Sometimes it felt like more! So I am excited for people to read it and hear what they think about the new and improved book.
Here are links to buy:
Worldwide
PDF: https://payhip.com/b/98jgz
There is also an available PDF bundle for $10 off if you get both Knife Engineering and The Story of Knife Steel: https://payhip.com/b/XFyLU
I have not put any DRM or anything on the PDF. There is a tiny watermark at the top of the page that gives an order and name so that if the PDF is distributed we know who did it. Please don’t steal the book.
United States
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYWBPFWF
Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYW8DRGX/
If you don’t see your country below I recommend the PDF.
South Africa: Paperback
United Kingdom: Paperback, Hardcover
Netherlands: Paperback, Hardcover
Japan: Paperback
Australia: Paperback
Comparisons
The hardcover is definitely my favorite version. I’m glad that is an option now. The PDF is great if you have an iPad or can’t get the book in your country.
If you never got a copy of The Story of Knife Steel make sure you get one of those as well!
Wow you do great work. The knife industry is lucky to have you and all your efforts. I loved the first two books and I’m getting the 2nd edition hard cover now. Thanks for everything you do.
Thanks!
oh my, some of these edits and overhauls make me wince in recognition of the absolute ballache they must have been for you. especially if you initially tackled the book without thinking you’d eventually need them, like inline references and an index.
Thank you for being such an asset to our community Larrin! I just ordered both books and I’m excited to expand my knowledge.
Already bought the paper back version, but I really wanted PDF version…
So take my money lol
Awesome! Just ordered the combo in PDF; it’s nice being able to have the info on my computer and not need to find where I put the book!
Spiral bound would be great
Hi! Is there a Spanish version of the book? Would you be open to a translation of it for the spanish-speaking countries?
There is not. A translation is probably too difficult logistically.