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Originally Posted by mumbleypeg
I'm just venturing a guess on the Stainless/ Tool steel question. Tool steels have higher carbide content which gives them their hardness. (here comes the guessing) Stainless has a higher chromium content which increases corrosion resistance but limits the hardness.
BTW, great thread.
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Your more right than you know. There is an entire area on the "tool steel alloy composition chart" where tool steels are stainless because of the addition of chromium. You swerved into something here too, too much chromium displaces other alloys and isn't as hard of a carbide.
Maybe I should explain what knifemakers call stainless, tool steels containing 14% chromium are considered pretty stainless. 14% is the threshold of "stainless" in a tool steel. D-2 has about 12% chromium and has some stainless characteristics but is more prone to the surface discoloration some folks call rust. The D-2 certainly doesn't rust much compared to other non-chrome tool steels.
An interesting thing to know about 14% chromium tool steels like 154CM (common good blade steel) is that the kind of heat treat can change the ability to not stain. Some of these steels have two distinct final temper ranges, high and low. When 154CM is tempered in the high temp range of over 900 F, the chromium carbides continue to form thus pulling usable chromium out of the matrix for stain resistance. The difference is noticable especially with 154CM knives used around salt water.