Author: Larrin

History - Articles - Books

Who is the Greatest Knife Steel Metallurgist of All Time?

Larrin

Thanks to Blade HQ and Dale D. Miller for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!

Metallurgists

I have enjoyed writing many articles about the history of different knife steels over the past couple years of this website. It has been very challenging to track down the history of different steels to see where they came from and how. I decided to write an article about some of the greats who have made contributions to knife steel and knife tests. Many of these metallurgists didn’t know they were developing steels that would be used in knives. Some were developing tool steels or high speed steels. However, their steels have since been used in knives or their steel designs influenced other steels which have been used in knives. To keep this article manageable in size I have focused on those that developed steel or tests of knives. In other words, those that studied different aspects of steel are not included. Some notable people that were omitted for this reason include: read more

Forging, Toughness

Toughness Improvement of High Carbon Tungsten Steel 1.2562

Larrin

Thanks to all the new Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters that have joined since our big article on CATRA testing. The response has been phenomenal. We only need 4 more supporters to reach 200! Brandon Percival, Jason Stone, Fixall, John Schmidt, Adam Ringgenberg, Adam Webb, Shah Paul, Andy, Chad Shoopman, Dylan Giagni, Adam Nolte, John Scarborough, Datafox, Ben Secrist, Noah, Josh – REK, Robert Towe, NJO, Dd, Andrew Bounds, Nathan Gee, and hsc3. read more

Niobium-Alloyed, Nitrogen-alloyed, Super Steels

CPM SPY27 Experiments – Toughness, Corrosion Resistance, and More

Larrin

Thanks to A.N. Nash, Matt Collingwood, Noah Cowan, James Pierce, and Jay Caponetti for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!

I have a new CATRA edge retention testing machine. I will be posting results as they come in to Patreon and articles summarizing the tests will come later to this website. If you want to see tests as they are completed come join us on Patreon. read more

Forging, Toughness

Ranking Toughness of Forging Knife Steels

Larrin

Thanks to Dinkma, Gavel John, and Roger Rozenberg for becoming Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters!

Low-Alloy Steel Testing

Over the past two years or so we have tested the toughness of many knife steels using a simple charpy impact test. You can read about the specifications of the test on this page. With the samples tested in this article I got a lot of help from Warren Krywko and Devin Thomas as well as donated steel from Alpha Knife Supply, Barmond Special Steels, and Achim Wirtz. This article focuses on the toughness testing performed on “low alloy” and carbon steels that are often used by forging bladesmiths. It is possible to forge high alloy steels, of course, though it does not appear to be very common even today. read more