Thanks TH!

If you were going to purchase the Les Stroud knife would you pick Laminated Stainless Steel or Laminated Carbon, what are the thoughts of the forum? Mike

It depends on the level of care you're willing to give it.

Carbon steel tends to be easier to sharpen, more durable, and it gains a beautiful patina with age. However, it requires a bit of care to insure it wont start rusting.

Stainless steel is better for use around water, or if you aren't going to give the knife very much care (say, by leaving it in an airplane or boat survival kit year round).

Laminated stainless? What the ----?!?

I'll take the Carbon over Stainless!

Laminated steel is becoming increasingly more common. Typically they'll use a core of a steel that is less corrosion resistant, but has better edge holding abilities. This then gets surrounded by a steel with better corrosion resistance qualities. The result is an extremely durable blade with a combination of the better qualities of each steel.

It actually seems to work quite well. Fallkniven has been doing it for a number of years and their blades have been thoroughly real-world tested.

This is fairly common for a lot of Scandinavian traditional knives. Rust resistance may have entered the equation with modern steels, but the history I am told was that the laminated steel idea was all about strength. A lot of the "old" steels available suitable for making a sharp edge will not be very resistant to breaking or bending, so you envelope the "edge steel" with a more resilient steel.


Traditionally, the steel in the edge does not necessarily have good edge retention - you need to sharpen anyway, you might as well make that process easy and quick. The easy-to-sharp & poor edge retention compromise is surprisingly common in traditional Scandinavian knives.


These days, modern technology and knowledge gives a totally different control over the outcome and a vast array of steels for knife making that a traditional knife maker never could have imagined. Still, the laminated steel is a good design compromise in many circumstances.

All I can say is Thank Heaven for this new development in knives! There is a serious shortage of functional, well designed blades for those of us who get outdoors, probably no more than 1300 or so different offerings.

Assume a markup of about $50 or so for the autographed version so the knife will likely retail for about $129 which is in line with the other knives from Helle. I've never used a laminated steel knife before so I will get at least one of either the carbon or SS versions. I haven't decided on which though.
It is a simple profile knife built in the Scandinavian design with a typical single angle edge. I really like the handle, it is very attractive. Being full tang and rivited it is likely very strong. It is difficult to judge the length but I am guessing it is about 4" blade length. The only customization that I can see is the little bit of stimping on the back to aide in sparking a ferrocium rod.

I think Helle use VG10 to 59 HRC core stainless steel sandwiched between high corrosion resistant and tougher 18/8 stainless steel (Helle has a high polish for excellent corrosion resistance). So it provides a good compromise i.e. toughness with a excellent sharp edge (might chip out though if abused). The Helle Temagami signature knife looks to be an excellent knife. More bushcraft rather than tacticool style so may not appeal to everyone.

The Triple laminated Stainless steel will have the advantage of much superior corrosion resistance over the carbon steel version. The carbon steel version will most likely have little or no advantage over the stainless steel in terms off the ability to take an edge, ease of sharpening and toughness.