How to forge stainless steel? Forging a 14C28N chef knife

I really enjoy forging, and have ended up making mostly just chef knives.

I like that I get to use them more often than I would an outdoor style knife.

What I am not a fan of, is giving away a knife and having to explain about carbon steel in the kitchen..

It will not rust, just keep it dry. But it will patina.. it will develop a cloudy, grey patina with use from cutting acidic food stuffs. If you cut a lemon and leave it on the bench, you will shortly have a big blue or brown ring on the blade.

Like everyone else I have also done stock removal from stainless steel. It is awesome being able to grind out a blade, and grinding bevels from square stock is easier than grinding on a forged blade where nothing is ever flat and parallell :)

So I wanted to forge stainless steel, getting the best of both worlds!

I have done it a few times now, had one or two break and what seems to work for me, is to forge at a lower temperature than the steel will harden at.

If this is the optimal way to do this, I do not know. I have read you are "not supposed" to forge stainless steel, so I am keen to learn how this one works over time in our kitchen. Will it be less corrosion-resistant? Will it hold an edge as long as our other 14C28N chef knives?

14C28N is a Swedish stainless steel, the next generation of 12C27, made by the same manufacturer.

Very popular with knife makers due to ease of heat treatment and having a bunch of it at the workshop, it has been the stainless I have experimented with when forging.

Forging Stainless Steel 14C28N

• Forge from 995 C, staying low and away from heat treatment temp 1050-1090 C
• Stop forging when no longer red
• Forge in small increments, expect the steel to move much slower than carbon steel
• The steel dents more than drawing out so expect to spend more heats per process
• I "normalised" by heating to 1000 C and leaving to air cool without the stress of being hammered on x 3 ... no idea if this does anything to stainless steel, but thought it would not hurt

Hardening 14C28N:

• Sandvik says hold time of 5 min for 2.5 mm thickness, 12 mins for 4 mm 
• I held at 12 mins, thinking spine thickness and not edge thickness mattered
• Quenched from 1060 C into medium-speed quench oil for 5-10 sec
• Wiped with paper, into plate quench to help harden flat and true
• Cleaned up profile on grinder and rough grind to see tempering colours
• Kitchen freezer -20 C for 30 mins
• Tempered at 175 C for 2 hours x 2
• Estimated 60 HRC according to the Sandvik heat treatment recipe

Here is a video I made from my process, including making the handle.

What do you think of the sound of the steel, does it sound any different than hammering carbon steel to you?