# Carbon steel vs Stainless steel vs Swedish stainless



## hentaides (Jul 6, 2015)

Hi guys. Whats the difference and why do you prefer them?

Sorry if this thread is made before


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## ThEoRy (Jul 6, 2015)

Well there are many different kinds of each, it also depends upon the maker.


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## havox07 (Jul 6, 2015)

There are many a thread on this topic. Carbon steel is the easiest to sharpen, and can take the best edge. Where as stainless sucks to sharpen (depends on the steel here still) but usually holds a use able edge for longer than their carbon counterparts. Stainless obviously does not stain, so you don't have to worry about it reacting with foods or rusting. A good compromise is stainless clad carbon which has a carbon edge. The ease of sharpening of carbon with the protection of lack of worry of stainless. 

Swedish stainless is just another type of stainless, there are thousands of different alloys of steel so you can not really go directly and compare them all. There is semi stainless which is less reactive than most iron or carbon steel yet is a sort of in between with stainless and carbon.

As theory said there really is so many different kinds of steel with different properties it is hard to be completely general. A makers heat treatment can also affect the hardness of the material and its susceptibility to chip or keep its edge.

So really it comes down to what you want. Can you manage wiping your knife down and keeping it clean? Do you live in an environment that is not ridiculously humid all hear? Then go for carbon as it will take a beautiful edge quite easily. Do you want something you can leave wet or forget to clean and its no big deal? A bit more of a ***** to sharpen but no maintenance? Go for stainless. Want the best of both worlds? Stainless clad is great, although if you sharpen a lot stainless clad is a bit more difficult to thin your knife with. These are general remarks and like I said it will vary depending on the steel whether it be white, blue, ginsanko, vg10, aebl, ect


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## Ruso (Jul 6, 2015)

As for ease of sharpening goes, in my experience the difference between good stainless and carbon is negligible. And the final edge in the real world is very comparable. Also I would go as far as saying that I have more issues sharpening pure carbon than stainless. But this can be due technique/pressure I use.


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## spoiledbroth (Jul 6, 2015)

^ I have personally found my semi stainless knives to be significantly easier to sharpen than my stainless ones: aus8, aus8a, aus10, vg10, german/chinese stainless etc. I also find they take a dead sharp edge compared to the best I have gotten from even my vg10/aus10 knives. The edge is just different, I feel. Like a hot knife through butter, I can get my semis to cut paper towel fairly cleanly while my stainless knives will just tear it to shreds.

Granted I am aware these kind of tests aren't really analogous to what kitchen knives are used for but the paper towel one is a fun party trick.


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## _PixelNinja (Jul 6, 2015)

havox07 said:


> Stainless obviously does not stain, so you don't have to worry about it reacting with foods or rusting.


That is a misconception. Stainless steel can still react and rust.


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## havox07 (Jul 6, 2015)

_PixelNinja said:


> That is a misconception. Stainless steel can still react and rust.



Well yes but 99 percent of uses it will not really do much of anything. All of my dads knives are stainless where as I have gone the carbon route.


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## spoiledbroth (Jul 6, 2015)

Stainless knives rust all the time, especially high quality ones. In my experience especially 440 and aus8 and aus10 will all begin to develop very very light red rust spots after a few hours left unwiped after cutting acidic food in a hot, humid commercial kitchen. I also see peoples home knives all the time with pits in them, presumably from being left at the bottom of the sink for days on end (home kitchens can be gross).


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## havox07 (Jul 6, 2015)

Alright well still, compared to carbon they are much less likely to rust. Yes if you abuse them they will rust but they are much less reactive than carbon knives.


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## MrOli (Jul 6, 2015)

That's where San Mai makes sense: carbon steel edge and stainless cladding.


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## Dubrdr20 (Jul 6, 2015)

I think Jon from jki has video on this matter too. Should watch the whole playlist, very helpful.


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## idemhj (Jul 6, 2015)

I am wondering why you are contrasting carbon steel, stainless steel and Swedish stainless steel. Are you, perhaps, confusing semi-stainless steel with Swedish stainless steel. Swedish stainless steel is, as already stated, just stainless steel  made in Sweden, obviously :biggrin:. And stainless steel just means that the steel contains a certain amount of chromium (some say 10,5% others say 13%, but thats not really important). Semi-stainless steel contains a fair amount of chromium, but not enough to classify it as stainless.

The reason a lot of knife makers and/or vendors state that their knives are made of Swedish stainless, is because it is generally considered to be of a much higher quality than German stainless, i.e. AEB-L (or 13C26) is much better steel than e.g. X50CrMoV15.


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## hentaides (Jul 6, 2015)

yea i was confused with semi-stainless and stainless clad. I think i will probably stick to carbon which i am new to. I have been using stainless and only learned more about carbon in this 6months >.> and this forum last 2 weeks lol


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