Knife Engineering: Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry

by Dr. Larrin Thomas

How to make the highest performing knives. A book for knife enthusiasts, knifemakers, and bladesmiths. Not a how-to on knifemaking or bladesmithing but an in-depth exploration of the effects of different steels, metallurgy, heat treatments, and edge geometries on knife performance. This book provides ratings for toughness, edge retention, and corrosion resistance for all of the popular knife steels. Micrographs of over 50 steels. Specific recommended heat treatments for each steel. And answers to questions 1) Does a thinner or thicker edge last longer? 2) What heat treatment leads to the best performance? 3) Are there performance benefits to forging blades? 4) Should I use stainless or carbon steel? All of these questions and more are answered by a metallurgist who grew up around the knife industry. The book now has conversions to Celsius throughout after feedback from Global readers.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

450 pages, Paperback

Published July 16, 2020

Reviews

[Jeff B · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who likes knives but doesn’t make a living from them, perhaps I’m not the target audience here, but I would have preferred if the engineering was explained in relation to the practical use cases more, and the design tradeoffs made more apparent.

[Leen Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with loads of usefull information. Very information dense. Brought in a very understandable way, even for the technical illiterate among us. Allthough it tends to be a bit dry here and there

[Joshua King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Demystifying the good ole ' boys club that is smithing. Dr. Thomas is a giant in this field - and we are standing on his shoulders.