Understanding Blade Hardness - Steel Forged Knives

Menu

Categories

• Home
• Catalog
• Login / Register
• Select currency
  • Select currency
  • AUD
  • NZD
• Select Language
  • Select Language

Cleavers / Butchers Knives

Gyuto / Chefs Knives

Kiritsuke Knives

Santoku Knives

Damascus Steel

Carbon Steel

Starter Knives

Knife Sets

Dao Vua Hand Forged Knives

Understanding Blade Hardness June 04, 2020 In Blog 0 comment

When reading information about a knife you may see details of hardness of the blade, for example 60 ±2HRC.  This rating is referred to as the Rockwell scale.

The Rockwell scale dates back to 1919 when Stanley Rockwell, a metallurgist in a ball bearing factory in New England, developed the scale to measure the hardness of bearing races.  The scale quickly started to be used by manufacturers who used steel and needed a way to rate it.

So what are the ratings and what do they mean?

Below 52 HRC	Steel is too soft to make knives
52-54 HRC	Soft steel making reasonable quality knives
54-56 HRC	The hardness of many French chefs’ knives. While the steel is hard enough to use in the kitchen, the knives need regular sharpening although they do sharpen easily.
56-58 HRC	The hardness of many German knives. This steel remains sharp long enough to be used in a kitchen and is reasonably easy to sharpen.
58-60 HRC	This is the hardness you find in quality kitchen knives from Japan. These knives remain sharp for considerably longer than knives with lower HRC ratings but are more difficult to sharpen.
60-62 HRC	These knives stay sharp for a long time but can become brittle and are difficult to sharpen.
63-66 HRC	Knives with this hardness of steel become brittle and result in the blades breaking if not used properly. These knives also have a higher likelihood of corroding.

Blade hardness, Chef knife, Kitchen knife Leave a comment

Related Articles

The Essential Knives Every Kitchen Needs

June 4

Hand Forged Knives by Dao Vua

May 4

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment *

Name *

Email *

Search

Search for:

Instagram

Blog Tags

• Blade Hardness
• Carbon Steel
• Chef Knife
• Damascus Steel
• Dao Vua
• Gyuto
• Hand Forged
• Kiritsuke
• Kitchen Knife
• Nakiri

Recently Viewed Products

Latest Products

• 8 Piece Damascus Steel with Blue Resin Handle Kitchen Knife Set $469.00
• 9.4" Carbon Steel Kiritsuke Chef Knife with matching Wooden Sayar / Sheath by Dao Vua $89.00 $149.00
• 10.5" Carbon Steel Sashimi with Wooden Sayar / Sheath by Dao Vua $89.00 $149.00
• 12" German Stainless Steel Sashimi / Salmon Knife $79.00 $109.00

Recent Post

• The Essential Knives Every Kitchen Needs June 04, 2020
• Hand Forged Knives by Dao Vua May 04, 2020
• What is a Nakiri Knife? April 25, 2020
• History of Damascus Steel April 25, 2020