#Steel
Entries from the glossary on this subject.
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.
The heat treatment that sets an instrument’s final hardness. Under-hardened steel goes blunt in months; over-hardened steel chips at the tip.
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 German martensitic stainless steel used for grooming and surgical instruments — hard enough to take a fine edge, stable enough to resist rust.