Thanks for all the pictures. It's very dangerous hanging out here. You guys make me want to spend my mortgage payment.

This has been a great thread -- thanks to all for contributing. There's nothing like seeing with one's own eyes and your pictures have accomplished this. Personally, I think a pickled blade looks great. Would I want every knife blade to like like this? Maybe not, but I might want a user to be pickled, especially if I know there's no harm done and there may even be a rust-protective effect of the pickled layer.

All of this raises an interesting question in mind. If pickled blades look great, and there is a protective effect, and carbon has other advantages in edge retention and sharpening, why isn't carbon our collective first choice in a blade material? Is it simply because a pickled blade looks like a used blade and we know it will be harder to sell?

I'll be honest about this and say that even though a pickled blade looks, in some respects, better to my eyes than a shiny new blade, I'd pay more for a blade that looks brand new than one that has sat in pickle juice for three hours!

The other question that is even more interesting to me than the relative value of pickled vs. non-pickled knives is whether pickling is as (technically) protective of the blade as stainless is. In other words, if you took a pickled carbon blade out in the woods for three months, how would it hold up relative to its stainless brethren? I suspect that the stainless knife would resist rust better but don't have the knowledge to answer this question.

So I'll throw the question out to all of you -- If you could only take one Randall with you in the woods for three months, and you needed this knife for your survival, would you take a pickled carbon blade or stainless?

As a newbie to this forum, I apologize if I'm asking a question that's too controversial or provocative, but I'm sincerely interested in picking blade material based its performance and durability rather than its looks. Again, thanks for the input!

John

In a scenario you describe, I would have zero issues taking my cabon model 18 exclusively for that 3 month stint.

For just three months and for strictly a survival situation, I honestly don't think it would really matter since a rusty blade will work as well as a shiny one. What MIGHT matter is how easily the blade can be sharpened in the event you lose or don't have with you a decent sharpener. If I had to use a river stone or my boot for a strop or some such thing, I'd rather have carbon.

I've heard that carbon is tougher and/or less brittle, but I don't have any personal experience with that. If it's true about carbon, then in a survival situation I'd rather have a tough rusty blade than a shiny broken one.

You didn't ask about handles, but I think that handle material is a greater variable than steel. I would have complete confidence in carbon or stainless steel, but I'm not so sure about stag or wood versus micarta for toughness.

I guess for me it would be carbon primarily because my favorite Randalls are carbon, 8, 23 and 12-11. I would not have any qualms taking them into the field for 3 months.

Carbon for me. Think of all the soldiers who have carried carbon Randalls into war for longer than 3 months.

And all of them had rust and stains. But that is part of it. In conditions like Vietnam I could see loosing the edge fairly easy to rust.

If carbon steel never rusted we would all use it!

Here is my pickled #1. I like the grayish black color and it lowers the maintenance quite a bit.

Pretty cool!

For night ops a blackened blade is an advantage-- you sure don't want anything shiny!

Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ