26C3

This steel has a fine carbide structure made up almost exclusively of a small volume of relatively soft iron carbides. As a result, this steel is very easy to sharpen on conventional ceramic or natural wet stones.

26C3 also known as “Spicy White” is an alloy very similar to Hitachi White Paper 1 steel. This steel is can be heat treated from 60-66 HRC depending on the desired characteristic of the blade has moderate to low toughness depending on the hardness. This is my go-to alloy for differentially hardened blades and often exhibits alloy banding for an almost wootz-like effect.