The easiest way to learn about knives and steel is probably through my book: Knife Engineering; Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry. However, all is not lost if you want to start on the website. Look at the following articles first to get started.
I have articles categorized so you can see which look the most interesting to you without going through every page of the blog. To start, here are a few introductory articles:
I took micrographs of 42 knife steels – and used the images to describe the different types and what controls their properties
How to Pick the Best Steel for Every Knife – a guide in selecting steel for different knife types and production methods
How to Design Knives that Do Not Fail – An introduction to failure modes of knives – chipping, rolling, etc. and what controls those failures
Introduction to Heat Treating – What a Good Heat Treatment Can and Cannot Do
Steel and Knife Properties
Strength and Hardness of Steel
“Flexing,” as opposed to bending and it staying bent, is controlled by a non-intuitive set of properties: Why Doesn’t Heat Treating Affect Steel “Flex”?
How Does quenching steel make it hard? What does carbon do to make it hard? What Makes Quenched Steel so Hard?
How is strength measured anyway? What steel are they comparing to when they say spider silk is stronger? Is Spider Silk Stronger than Steel?
Does hardness correlate with strength? Does Rockwell hardness predict toughness and wear resistance? Rockwell Hardness is the Megapixels of Knife Steel Specs
Toughness
Read about what makes some steels tougher than others, and How Chipping of Edges Happens at a Microscopic Level
There have been a variety of toughness testing methods used on knives themselves as opposed to measuring steel properties. Here is a summary of the published studies: Tests of Knife Edge Toughness
Grain refinement has been promoted by many knifemakers as a way to achieve super steel properties. I describe the process in Austenitizing Part 3 (see under the Heat Treatment category). This article is all about how grain refinement changes properties: How Does Grain Refinement Lead to Improved Properties?
At cold temperatures steel has lower toughness. There are steels to select and heat treatments to perform to maximize low temperature toughness, however. Learn Why Cold Steel is Brittle.
Knife Design is also an important part of avoiding cracked and broken blades. Learn about why in How Stress Risers Lead to Broken Blades
Corrosion Resistance
I generated a new simple corrosion resistance experiment to compare and rank steels with. Corrosion Resistance Testing
How Heat treatment and carbon-chromium balance affects corrosion resistance, why D2 isn’t stainless, and How Much More Chromium Does D2 Need to be Stainless?
I ranked steels in terms of corrosion resistance after describing the methodology for doing so in Which Knife Steels Have the Best Corrosion Resistance?
I did a sharpness study with three knives using steel with different levels of corrosion resistance to learn if Acidic Food Affects Edge Retention.
Edge Retention
I did my own large edge retention study of 48 different steels with identical knives. Read it here!
CATRA testing of 154CM, CPM-154, Effect of cryo, edge angle, sharpening, and thickness behind the edge on edge retention: Maximizing Edge Retention – What CATRA Reveals about the Optimum Edge
A major knife company sent me a massive dataset of CATRA tests and I analyzed the steel factors that affect slicing edge retention like hardness, carbide type, and carbide volume in Which Steel Has the Best Edge Retention? Part 1. I then analyzed the edge wear behavior itself and answered questions like which steels lose their initial sharpness the fastest in the Part 2 article.
I compared the predictions of CATRA generated in the articles above and compared them with published rope cutting experiments to determine if CATRA is a good prediction of “real” knife performance in Can CATRA Predict Rope Cutting Performance?
Edge Stability
Edge stability is a bit difficult to understand without a good background about what it is. Essentially it is a combination of both strength and toughness for avoiding both rolling and chipping. What properties provide better edge stability? Which steels are more stable?
What is Edge Stability? Part 1
What is Edge Stability? Part 2
Sharpness and Cutting Ability
Cutting ability and sharpness are not the same thing. Edge geometry matters independent of sharpness for cutting. Also I define what sharpness is, because I bet you don’t know: Sharpness vs Cutting Ability
Rating Steel Properties
There are a lot of articles out there with ratings and rankings for the various knife steels to know which is better than which. Do they know what they are talking about? Or are they using random number generators and fancy bar charts? Find out in Ranking the Steel Ranking Articles
What is a super steel? Why are they super? Are they actually super? How many times can I write the word super? Super? Super Steels vs Regular Knife Steels
Knife Making
Is sharpening with a grinder bad? Should you use stones instead?
Heat Treatment and Processing of Steel
13 Myths about Heat Treating Knives
My analysis of Frank J. Richtig’s legendary heat treatment – I don’t agree with the prior proposals
Forging
Which Steels are Easiest (and Most Difficult) to Forge? The factors that control difficulty in forging and how to avoid failures
Cold Forging or Cold Rolling is sometimes performed on steel after annealing and before austenitizing/hardening. Read more in Cold Forging of Steel
Forged vs Stock Removal Knives I ended the old debate. Ok, probably not.
Annealing
How Annealing of Steel Works – Subcritical vs Transformation Annealing
Annealing Part 2 – Temper Annealing, Cycling, and Final Properties
Austenitizing
Heating to high temperature prior to quenching to harden steel. Read all about it in:
Learn what is going on in the steel when you heat it up to high temperature: Austenitizing Part 1 – What it is
Should you austenitize at a higher temperature or a lower temperature? Temper lower or higher? Austenitizing Part 2 – Effects of Properties
What is the difference between preheating and prequenching? Which “pre” treatment should you use? Does a triple quench work? Austentizing Part 3 – Multi-Step Austenitizing
Can you trust your magnet during heat treating?
Quenching of Steel
What happens in the microstructure during quenching and what martensite is: What Makes Quenched Steel so Hard?
How fast do you have to quench? Hardenability of steel
Cryogenic Processing of Steel
How cold temperatures lead to the transformation of retained austenite to martensite and how to maximize hardness with cryo in Cryo Part 1.
How cryo affects toughness and strength in Cryo Part 2.
How cryo affects wear resistance in Cryo Part 3. It’s complicated.
Tempering
All of the changes that happen in steel during tempering. What are you trying to accomplish during tempering? What Happens During Tempering of Steel?
What is Tempered Martensite Embrittlement? Why shouldn’t you temper between 500 and 700°F? Silicon Additions for Improving Steel Toughness
Austempering and Bainite
Learn about austempering, what bainite is, and whether bainite leads to higher toughness than martensite: Bainite vs Martensite – The Secret to Ultimate Toughness?
Steel History and Design
Carbide Types in Knife Steels I wrote about the different carbides in steel including what makes one form vs another and how the different elements interact.
Damascus Steel has been around for centuries, and there are a lot of myths all about it. There are two types called pattern-welded and wootz. Find answers to questions like whether damascus cuts longer than “normal” steels: Five Myths About Damascus Steel
Tool steel was invented in the 1860’s, but really took off from some incredible developments in the 1890’s and early 1900’s: The History of the First Tool Steel
Stainless Steel was invented pretty shortly after the explosion of new tool steels and high speed steels in the early 1900’s. There were several people working on stainless steel in the same time period, but the man who first produced it commercially was particularly interesting, because The First Stainless Steel was for Knives
Tool Steel and High speed steel development continued through the transition from tungsten to molybdenum and large additions of vanadium. And James P. Gill, an amazing metallurgist, wrote amazing books about steel metallurgy that hold up today: The Development of High Vanadium Steels, M4, and the First Tool Steels Book
How 154CM was developed, why there is so much molybdenum in it, and how it took over 440C’s crown as the top stainless steel: 154CM- Development, Properties, Use in Knives, and Legacy
Want to know how powder metallurgy works? How is it made? How does it improve steel? Are there videos? Yes, yes there are: What is Powder Metallurgy?
I wrote about the history of carbon and stainless steel in knives. Who used stainless steel first? Why did stainless steel have a poor reputation? I interviewed several interesting people including the late, great A.G. Russell (RIP) to understand the history of custom knives: Carbon vs Stainless Steel in Knives
D2 has been around for a long time. Where did it come from? Why was it used in knives? Does it hold up against newer steels? All About D2 – Development, Use in Knives, and Properties
Before its bankruptcy, Crucible metallurgists made an improved version of 3V that has never been offered for sale: 3V Modified – The Lost Crucible Steel
Nitrogen-alloyed steels like Vanax and LC200N are the new hotness. How do they get nitrogen into the steel? Why add nitrogen at all? Nitrogen-Alloyed Knife Steels
All about tungsten alloyed steels like the Blue Series, 1.2562, 1.2442, 1.2519, O7, V-Toku series, etc: Is Blue Super Steel Actually Super?
All about what cobalt does to steel and whether N690 and VG-10 have similar properties: Why There is Cobalt in VG-10
Does Silicon improve steel properties? What makes shock resisting steels so tough? Silicon Additions for Improving Steel Toughness
Analysis of the new Damasteel products N11X and Damacore DC18N. What is it? Do you want it? New Steel Analysis – Damasteel N11X and Damacore DC18N
History and Properties of 52100 Steel – What 52100 was developed for and when, why knifemakers started to use it, and what the chromium does to change its properties relative to 1095.
Niobium-alloyed knife steels – What niobium does to steel and how it can lead to very good combinations of properties that the steel companies have not yet fully taken advantage of. Discussion of steels like S35VN, S110V, Niolox, and others.
All About AEB-L – Properties, history, development, best uses, and more about AEB-L. The most complete collection of information on AEB-L.
H1 Steel – How it Works. H1 is very different than other knife steels, known for its excellent corrosion resistance.
The History of 3V, Cru-Wear, and Z-Tuff Steel – CPM 3V is a powder metallurgy version of a steel invented in 1964 that you’ve never heard of
New Steel Bohler M398 – analysis of a new Bohler steel with high wear resistance, including comparisons with current alternatives
A2 Steel – History and Properties. A summary of the history of how A2 was developed, who used it first in knives, and how it compares to other steels
XHP Steel – History and Properties This steel is an interesting one because it was designed to be a cross between D2 and 440C.
Super Hard (70 Rc) High Speed Steels – The history and design of knife steels that can reach 70 Rc.
Crucible S45VN – Background information on a new Crucible CPM stainless
Nitro-V – A steel developed for New Jersey Steel Baron
O1 Steel – The original oil hardening steel with an odd history
The History of Powder Metals in Damascus – I interviewed many of the top Damascus steel makers from the late 90’s and early 2000’s about a key point in Mosaic Damascus development
VG10 and Super Gold 2 (SG2) – Takefu Stainless Steel History and Properties
ZDP-189 and Cowry-X – High hardness stainless steels are not actually stainless
Heat Treatment Recommendations and Testing of Specific Steels
Micrographs of Niolox, CPM-154, and AEB-L
Does forging temperature affect toughness? What about a triple quench? What tempering temperature should you use? Cru Forge V – Toughness testing, Process, and Background
This article covers a lot of heat treatment parameters for Z-wear to find the optimal heat treatment: Toughness Testing – Cru-Wear, Z-Wear, Upper vs Lower temper, Cryo vs No Cryo
How to heat treat 5160 for optimal toughness. It has a surprisingly narrow range of optimal temperatures
I wrote about what limits hardness in stainless steels, using Vanax as an example.
How to Heat Treat 52100 – a range of heat treatment parameters and toughness tests to find the best heat treatment of 52100
All About AEB-L – Includes a section on optimizing AEB-L heat treatments
Steel Alternatives
There is an interesting Youtube channel where a guy makes knives out of weird materials like chocolate, wood, Jello, and conch shells. What can we learn about knife materials from his videos? The Sharpest Youtube Channel in the World
Sandrin Knives produces blades made from pure tungsten carbide. What is tungsten carbide? How do its properties compare to steel?
Quizzes
Results and analysis of Steel Nerd quiz
Reviews
Kevin Cashen made a DVD where he introduced heat treatment to novices focusing specifically on 1080 and 1084: Read Review – Kevin Cashen’s Guide to 1080 & 1084
A list of recommended books on knife design and metallurgy to get you started. One of them is free! Book Recommendations for the Knife Steel Nerd
Book Review – Damascus Steel Swords: Solving the Mystery of How to Make Them
Interviews
Phil Wilson is an awesome knifemaker who is very thoughtful about how he approaches knife design: Interview with Knifemaker Phil Wilson about Performance Blades and His Journey with Knives
I interviewed Zvi who started the website Zknives.com which has a lot of awesome articles and of course the mega-sized knife steel composition database.