Glossary of steel and sharpening
A bevel ground as a curve rather than a flat facet. It puts more steel behind the very edge, which is why fine points survive on convex-ground blades.
Two ways to get a blade blank. Forging shapes hot steel under force; stamping cuts a cold shape out of sheet. The difference shows up years later.
A file whose abrasive is etched into tempered glass rather than glued on. It sheds no grit, washes clean, and keeps its cut for years.
The final edge put on at a wheel by a person who watches how the two blades meet. On curved instruments no machine has replaced this step.
The heat treatment that sets an instrument’s final hardness. Under-hardened steel goes blunt in months; over-hardened steel chips at the tip.
A soft full-grain leather tanned to stay supple. Used for instrument cases because it takes daily handling without cracking at the folds.
The cutting head of a nipper, measured in millimetres or as a fraction. The longer the jaw, the more it removes per cut — and the less forgiving it is.
The finishing treatment that builds the chromium oxide layer on stainless steel. It is what makes an instrument stainless — and it can be damaged.
The standard measure of how hard a blade is. Nail instruments sit around 54–58 HRC — high enough to hold an edge, low enough not to chip.
A protected designation of origin for German blades: an instrument may carry the name only if the decisive steps were done in the Solingen district.
A German martensitic stainless steel used for grooming and surgical instruments — hard enough to take a fine edge, stable enough to resist rust.