This page explains where the facts on this site come from and how to read what it says.
How to read this site
This is an editorial reference, not a storefront. It is independent: it explains things rather than selling them, and nothing on a page is placed because someone paid for it. The depth is layered, so you can stay at the comparison index for a quick overview or follow an entry as deep as the sources go. Where the evidence is thin, or the experts genuinely disagree, the text says so rather than papering over it.
Where the facts come from
The backbone of the steel coverage is published metallurgy. The single most important source is Larrin Thomas and his Knife Steel Nerds work, the most rigorous public writing on how knife steels and their heat treatments actually behave. Edge-retention claims draw on CATRA data (a standardized abrasive cutting test used across the industry to measure how long an edge lasts), and composition and hardness figures trace back to the datasheets published by the steel mills themselves. Beyond that, the site draws on peer-reviewed metallurgical literature and on the catalogs and statements of the makers who work the steel every day. Where a primary source exists, the site uses it.
Product links and their status
Every product link aims at a specific product page, not a brand homepage or a category listing, so a recommendation takes you to the actual knife. Each link is tracked by status while the site is maintained: verified and correct (✅), needs a manual check before it is trusted (⚠️), or a placeholder still to be resolved (🔍). Anything found broken, pointing to the wrong product, or tied to a brand the site will not cite (❌) is removed before it goes live. The goal is simple: a link either works and is right, or it is not there.
Correcting the record
A lot of what gets repeated about knife steel is wrong, and this site corrects it rather than passing it along. A few examples it documents directly: ZDP-189 looks like it should be highly stainless on paper (around 20% chromium), but so much of that chromium is locked up in carbides that little remains free to resist corrosion, which is why Spyderco's Sal Glesser has called it among the least corrosion-resistant of their stainless steels. FRIODUR is not a steel but Zwilling's ice-hardening process. FC61 is the Sandvik alloy 13C26, not a powder steel. ACUTO440 is made by Aichi Steel in Japan, not by Uddeholm, despite a widespread claim otherwise. And the common belief that German brands use the steel Nitro-B is mistaken: its real users are Italian production brands. The site would rather be accurate than flatter the conventional story.
Artisan-first, and fair to makers
Maker selection here puts artisan and boutique smiths first. Large production brands are not banned, but they appear sparingly and only where one is genuinely the best example of a steel or technique, and when a brand is the sole legitimate example, the reason is documented. Brands are described factually, never used as targets.
There is one hard exception. Bark River Knives is never cited under any circumstances, following a confirmed 2026 scandal in which knives labeled as premium CPM-154 were found to contain cheap 8Cr13MoV; the company is no longer in business. Where accuracy and a maker's marketing collide, accuracy wins.