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Knife steel selection in a working knife shop

Live tool

Steel Selector

Answer four questions - use, rust care, heat treat setup, sharpening gear - and get your three best-fit knife steels from the 33-steel database.

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Your numbers, live

Thirty-three steels in the database is wonderful for depth and paralyzing for a decision. Answer four questions and get your three best-fit steels — each linked to its full page with composition, ratings, heat treat and grinding notes.

Your numbers

Your best-fit steels

  1. AEB-Lfine-grained stainless for keen edges and straightforward sharpening
  2. 14C28Nstainless steel with balanced toughness and edge retention
  3. Nitro-Vstainless steel for fine edges

Stainless in a forge

AEB-L, 14C28N and Nitro-V heat treat fine in a forge. Bring the blade to about 1925 to 1975°F (1050 to 1080°C), give it a short soak, and quench in fast oil or between plates. Don’t go by the magnet: stainless goes non-magnetic far below that heat, so you judge it by color and practice. Expect a point or two less hardness than a kiln gives, around 58 to 60 HRC against 60 to 62, and a little less consistency blade to blade. That’s still a good knife.

MagnaCut is left off: high-carbide stainless needs a kiln’s long soak at a held temperature.

Compare them side by side in the steel database, or start with how to choose your first knife steel.

Recommendations update as you answer. The scoring mirrors the advice in the beginner steel guides — same logic, automated.

Polished aluminum drive wheel with keyed bore, three-quarter view of the dished face, on black with a purple glow
The answer is only as good as the measurement — use the setup you actually have on the machine.

The arithmetic

Behind the number

How the picks work

The selector scores every steel in the database against your answers: what the blade is for, whether rust care is acceptable, what your heat-treat setup can actually harden (a forge hardens carbon steel and the low-carbide stainless like AEB-L, 14C28N and Nitro-V, a point or two softer than a kiln gets them; high-carbide stainless like MagnaCut and M390 needs a kiln), and whether your stones can handle high-carbide steels. The scoring mirrors the advice in How to Choose Your First Knife Steel and Steel Selection by Application — this is the same logic, automated.

Browse more tools in the Calculators section.

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The rest of the calculators

Eight tools, all free, all running in the page.

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Same bench

The machine behind the math

Speed, angle and pressure only mean something on a grinder that holds its setting. I machine the parts, hand-assemble, track and test Torus grinders in Sterling, Illinois.

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One-man shop

Number not matching your machine?

Send me your wheel size, motor and VFD details so I can compare them with the belt-speed calculation.

Ask Rich a questionBrowse all the calculators