Originally Posted By: ironraven
Urban myth, hmm? Sorry atoz, I was given my first Doans over 20 years ago, and I've been using them ever since. I get about half, two-thirds as many sparks with a stainless scraper as I do carbon- same angle, same pressure, same scraper thickness (near enough- not enough for the eye to see).

There was also an evaluation of scraper materials done by a member about a year ago or so, he found a super high carbon tool steel did the very best. High chromium, low carbon steel did the worst.

Stainless sucks on ferro rods. Beginning and end of story.


The problem with carbon steel is that it's famous for rusting out. Stainless doesn't produce sparks quite as easily, but it has better edge retention than carbon steel, and you don't have to worry about it rusting out on you. I have a bowie knife, the knife is made of AUS 8A stainless steel. If I had to choose between that bowie knife and a Camillus K Bar which is made of high carbon steel, I would choose the bowie knife "hands down" even though it doesn't produce sparks quite as well.

I wonder if anything can be done to high carbon steel to keep it from rusting out, short of keeping it well-oiled. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to keep a bottle of oil in your backpack where it's going to leak all over the place, but if I knew of a chemical treatment that would keep it from rusting out, then I would seriously consider going with carbon steel.

LW.