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Show HN: I built a knife steel comparison tool

(new.knife.day)
135 points p-s-v | 2 comments | 17 May 25 17:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.812s | source

Hey HN!

I'm a bit of a knife steel geek and got tired of juggling tabs to compare stats. So, I built this tool: https://new.knife.day/blog/knife-steel-comparisons/all

It lets you pick steels (like the ones in the screenshot) and see a radar chart comparing their edge retention, toughness, corrosion resistance, and ease of sharpening on a simple 1-10 scale.

It's already been super handy for me, and I thought fellow knife/metallurgy enthusiasts here might find it useful too.

Would love to hear your thoughts or any steel requests!

Cheers!

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kurthr ◴[17 May 25 18:12 UTC] No.44015987[source]▶
It seems like the steel data comes from larger database on hardness/toughness/corrosion? Can you say where that data is coming from or if it's your own measurements? If you could show the data (eg HRC) that supports the radar chart it would be easier for a purchaser to know if their steel actually meets the purported performance after purchase.

I guess what confuses me most is that heat treatment/hardening seem crucial to understanding how a knife is going to perform, but that seems left out. It's even possible to have a great treatment on a blank and screw it up (overheat) when doing the initial edge shaping. Furthermore, the sharpening angle of a blade edge seems to greatly affect edge retention especially for softer steels. It would be great to know what angles different (properly hardened) steels could reasonably support. That's something the user can control after purchase.

replies(1): >>44016950 #
1. LarsAlereon ◴[17 May 25 21:01 UTC] No.44016950[source]▶
Looking at some of the comparisons, the data appears to be (I could be wrong) scraped from this article by Dr Larrin Thomas based on his personal research and testing, possibly also including some of the other articles on his website: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/10/19/knife-steels-rated-by...
replies(1): >>44017166 #
2. Zak ◴[17 May 25 21:37 UTC] No.44017166[source]▶
There are some mismatches, such as OP rating M2's edge retention at 6 while Thomas rates it at 4.