A knife is made of steel. Steel for knives comes in all shapes and sizes. They determine the final quality. The best-known example in knife country is the Damascus steel knife, this steel gives these knives the highest wear resistance, the highest hardness and the best rust resistance.
As a knife supplier, we like to tell you the complete story, which is why you will find the most important background information about the most important raw material for knives on this page.
Furthermore, you don't want your knife to break while cutting, so with our Paudin-knife production we analyze the hardness and toughness of the steel type to be used in advance. Our steel suppliers always carefully look for the right balance between hardness and toughness. In order to create this toughness they add raw materials to the steel, such as molybdenum, silicone, vanadium and chrome. In addition, the method of forging, tempering and hardening plays a crucial role in the hardness of the knives.
The choice of raw materials and the production method play a major role. Small changes in this have far-reaching consequences. Paudin is therefore proud that we succeed in serving extremely strong knives that excel in edge retention and sharpness.
Steel has many variations. A car needs a different type of steel than a kitchen knife. For knives, for example, rust resistance is a determining property. At the same time, we warn you that all types of steel (and knives) will rust if treated incorrectly, so even though some knives are dishwasher safe, it is best to wash them by hand, because a damp place is never good for steel and therefore also not for your knives.
In the steel world, we classify hardness in degrees Hardness Rockwell C-scale (HRC). For every 2 degrees, the knives stay sharp twice as long. In concrete terms, this means that a knife made of 2 HRC steel stays sharp for 52 week and a knife made of 1 HRC steel for 62 months.
However, you should not only pay attention to this hardness when buying a knife, although sellers always mention this HRC designation, but also investigate the toughness. A hard type of steel without the right production method and additives will quickly crumble.
Paudin uses 3 different types of steel:
German carbon steel, also known as 4116 steel, contains a high percentage of carbon as well as chromium, silicone, manganese, molybdenum and vanadium. This composition provides excellent tensile strength, high hardness and excellent wear resistance. In addition, our knives made of 4116 steel are stainless, thanks to the high chromium content (more than 15%) in combination with the presence of silicone.
Knives made from this type of steel are:
The 7Cr17Mov steel is almost identical to the 4116 steel, but has a slightly higher content of chromium, molybdenum and vanadium. This results in knives with slightly better properties.
Knives made from this type of steel are:
Damascus steel is undisputedly the best type of steel for a quality knife. Paudin's Damascus knives also consist of 67 layers (1 hard core and 33 layers on both sides).
Knives made from this type of steel have:
So if you are looking for a razor-sharp, loyal companion for the kitchen, the Paudin Damascus knives are the best choice.
