sgian dubh blades

[Mr. Woolery]

I consider it a problem any time I don't know the specifics of a blade steel. As a knife maker, I have used both stainless steels (440c and ATS34) and carbon steels (1095 and 5160) and have personal preferences based on experience.

There are stainless steels that can be pretty darned good. They will never get as sharp as a properly heat-treated carbon steel. That's just the nature of stainless steel at the molecular level. That's not to say you can't get stainless steels sharp. I don't sell a knife until I can shave my arm hair with it (well, if I can cleanly slice newspaper I know I can also shave, but I do prefer to keep my arms hairy). Thing is, carbon steels tend to sharpen faster and potentially sharper, all else being identical.

I've not tried any of the AC blades recently. I had one of their dirk blades about 15 years ago and it was in real need of regrinding before it could be made into anything other than a costume piece. After I reworked it, the steel seemed fairly good and the heat-treat was tough and springy. I gave away the result and the new owner was happy with it.

I really need to make a few sgian dubh blades soon. I have some ideas that I think would be fun. In particular, I would like to have different size options for large knife lovers and also for those paranoid states where blades have to be under 3". But that's a couple of months away, since summer is already getting full.

-Patrick

[Howard Clark]

There ARE good stainless steels out there, to be sure. Most of the good ones are rather more expensive, relatively. It is unusual to find high quality and low price in the same blade in stainless steel. Just as in any other thing, really.

The heat treatment that was applied to the blade is far more important than the actual chemistry, assuming there is enough carbon for it to actually harden in the first place. This makes or breaks the blade in terms of quality, whether it is stainless steel, simple carbon steel, or low alloy steel. The final microstructure of the steel is the main determinant for edge holding and ability to get sharp, for all steels. Often this is the thing that suffers the most in a high production environment producing low cost goods.

There are some very good inexpensive knives out there today, however. For stainless steel stuff I like the Victorinox (yes, the swiss army knife people) line of kitchen knives. They are inexpensive enough to modify, heat treated well, and made of Sandvik 12C27.

It would appear that there is a market for nice high quality sgian dubh blades.

I am curious as to how much y'all would be willing to spend on a nice kit blade, ready for a handle. I think I will start a poll survey thread about this.