Originally Posted by
verktyg
0.70% is the highest amount of carbon that can be alloyed with iron in plain carbon steels. Carbon steel cutlery is usually made of .70% carbon steels. Alloy steels can utilize higher levers of carbon which bonds with the alloying elements to manipulate strength and hardenability.
Actually there are some very plain carbon cutlery steels that have ~1.3% C (Hitachi White
#1 ). A good plain carbon steel for cutlery will have in excess of 0.8% C because at that point the steel will form cementite (iron carbide) instead of ferrite (iron). For example, Old Hickory, which makes very basic knives, uses 1095 which is 0.95% C. Cutlery steels in the range of 0.7% C are generally either repurposed spring steels or stainless. However, with the exception of ball bearings and cogs, bicycles generally do not benefit from the increased hardening response or higher carbide content from high carbon steels as the brittleness associated with high hardness is detrimental and the wear resistance from carbides unnecessary.
Originally Posted by
verktyg
Thank you for putting up with my rant. I wanted to destroy some myths and misinformation. There's a lot more but I'm not writing a book....
Speaking of which I forgot to link my 531 pamphlet earlier.
https://kuromori.home.blog/reynolds-531/