Is Stainless Steel Good Enough for a Knife Blade?

As a knife-maker, and the moderator of knife (or knife related) forums for a few different internet bulletin boards over recent years, I very often hear people talking about high carbon steel being the only choice for a good knife. If they don’t say it directly, it is often something they have heard from someone else, saying something like “I was told if a steel doesn’t rust it wont make a good knife.”
Of course the up-shot of this is very often that stainless steel gets pandered, even unintentionally, and very good knives made of stainless are ignored or over looked. This is quite unfortunate, because the right stainless steel works extremely well.

I have a theory about this little phenomenon though - It is an issue of Carbon content.

Before we continue, let me establish a few “definitions”. Steel, in general, is divided up into two categories, and five subcategories that apply to the two main ones:

• Simple Carbon Steel – Steel of all types with less than 13% Chromium content.
• Stainless Steel – Steel of all types with more than 13% Chromium content.

Ø Very Low Carbon – Steel with up to 0.05% carbon content.

Ø Low Carbon – Containing 0.05 – 0.2%

Ø Medium Carbon – Containing 0.2 – 0.5%

Ø Medium-High Carbon – Containing 0.5 – 0.8%

Ø High Carbon – Containing 0.8% and higher

The higher the carbon content the better, but...

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