It’s part of what supports Boing Boing and the authors. They post links to Amazon that contains a referrer code and Amazon pays them a percentage of each sale that is made.
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http://www.totalmateria.com/articles/Art62.htm
Steel is considered to be carbon steel when no minimum content is specified or required for chromium, cobalt, columbium [niobium], molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium or zirconium, or any other element to be added to obtain a desired alloying effect; when the specified minimum for copper does not exceed 0.40 per cent; or when the maximum content specified for any of the following elements does not exceed the percentages noted: manganese 1.65, silicon 0.60, copper 0.60.
All steel is an alloy. Otherwise it’s iron. To say carbon steel is a term used to indicate that it is not an alloy would be grammatically and factually incorrect. Further, most steels contain alloying material other than carbon. But more to the point, we are talking about a knife blade and in the world of bladesmithing the term carbon steel is not used by your better smiths because smiths use high carbon steels of varying alloy and admixture in order to create a blade best suited to the purpose for which is it designed. Calling it carbon steel is one of those things that makes other knife makers mock you.
I think we’ve reached full pedant on this one.
For quick shivvs near the bench, I use my spludger, or if I’m feeling salty, an x-acto. The Opinel might come out when somebody brings their kids’ leftover birthday cake into the break room, and I have to stand my ground.
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I don’t mind, i’ve gotten some really nice deals thanks to BB and i’m happy to support a site i use frequently.
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Oiling the handle and blade with mineral oil helps prevents that. basically the wood gets so saturated with oil after a while that the humidity can’t get into the wood.
And the tradtional method of opening it:
Can both open a stuck knife. AND get it out fast for a knife fight. You can also pop it open quickly/one handed by tapping the collar on things, or against your palm. But it doesn’t work as well and the knife has to be very loose from use.
“high carbon stainless” is about the closest I’ve seen. I don’t know if its a technical term, but with knives its usually used to differentiate stainless steels that are more appropriate for blade use due to higher carbon content than some of the older styles.
You’re right, but I carry stainless because it’s less work to sharpen to a usable edge than it is to keep carbon steel intact. Sea water and sweat have been known to soak my Leatherman pretty often.
Yeah. When I have a knife in my actual pocket, it’s a leatherman skeletool cx that I got for a gift. It goes on vacation or camping and I’ll happily dive into the ocean with it.
It was wicked sharp when I got it, but with it’s thick stainless blade, incredible hardness, serations and axelike bevel, It’s just impossible to sharpen. The tools parts are more useful than the blade, which at this point is really a prybar that pokes holes in stuff.
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You can likely take the knife to someone local to grind off the serrations and make it into a normal blade. Alternatively you could get someone to replace the blade with a similar but more useful one.
Probably not worth the expense unless you’re really hardcore about keeping/using that leatherman.
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You can thin down and re-bevel the blade yourself. May be easier with a belt sander. But I don’t have one of those so I tend to start with a coarse file and move on to coarse bench stones to remove metal in bulk. Then sharpen as usual.
It’s pretty time consuming, but it’s free (save the tools). I’ve thinned out and re-beveled axes and splitting tools with a bench grinder, but with knives it tends to leave you with very little knife left.
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Accurately described!
Sharpen with variously sized diamond grit rods chucked into a drill press, near total disregard for personal safety, consumate skill and infinite patience. I haven’t got those last two traits so I get my friend Pedro the Cruel to do it for me occasionally.
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You can’t drop that in here without telling us how on Earth he got that nickname!
I presume he’s actually a sweetheart
not a bad idea if I’m careful not to ruin the temper. Just found a company in texas that sells aftermarket blades including damascus. fancy!
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It’s really hard to effect the heat treat with hand tools. With the machines is a risk. But you can avoid it by dipping in cold water regularly as you work.
It’s why I only use the bench grinder on the axe blades, more metal so harder to heat up too much. And work hardening the cutting edge on a cheap axe isn’t a disaster, And might even be beneficial. But yeah. Files and stones it shouldn’t be an issue. Take a while though.
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Sure I can! 
The original Pedro the Cruel, aka Peter the Just, was king of Castile and Leon 1350-1369.
The modern Pedro is a fine fellow, the best of friends and the worst of enemies; kind, considerate, and ruthless. Highly intelligent but self educated, he’s a talented, experienced metalworker, among other things.
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