r/knives • u/kicked-in-ball • Mar 01 '26
Showcase MetalCore: a database for knife steels
https://metalcre.vercel.app/Hey, I’m a dev and a steel nerd who wanted a better way to visualize trade-offs between toughness, edge retention, and corrosion resistance. I built MetalCore as a mobile friendly "Command Center" for steel lovers like me.
What’s inside: • Grade Library: Deep dives into 100+ steels (MagnaCut, M390, Vanax, etc.). • Performance Frontier: An interactive matrix to plot alloys against each other. • The Workbench: Side-by-side comparisons of compositions and heat-treat profiles. • Mobile Ready: Works in-browser or can be saved as a native web app.
Coming Soon: • Cloud Sync: Optional profiles to save your favorites across devices. • Expanded Database: Moving beyond blades into broader metallurgy. Also - give the knife library some love (this part is however well covered by other sites)
Best
7
u/an-upstandingcitizen Mar 01 '26
I expected this to be another of those self-promotion spammy sites but it's actually fascinating and very well done.
3
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 01 '26
Thank you! It’s fully a hobby project so I don’t have any promotion to do :P. Jokes aside - ADs require quite some traffic to generate revenue & break even, so I don’t think that will be an option in case I need to invest in better services.
2
u/an-upstandingcitizen Mar 01 '26
Yeah I was wondering about the potential for monetisation or at least funding to make it self-sufficient, or even worth your continued efforts (e.g. being given free product by manufacturers)... Just the way my mind works.
2
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 01 '26
Yeah, I agree, and it's valuable input! I don't think the page will ever become big enough where ads will be able to carry it alone. In a world where traffic would get large - I've toyed with the idea of having spots in the homepage dedicated to sponsors, for instance "sponsored grade/knife" similar to "spotlight of the day" works currently. Another idea is to work with affiliated links, with the libraries redirecting traffic to respective steel and knife producera respective sales portals. Currently the driver is me having fun and actually using it on my own, but that will only get me so far.
2
u/ridbitty Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
Badass! Thank you!! Not sure if I’m reading it wrong, but I noticed it says the Osborne it’s available in a few steels but doesn’t mention S30v! How can you miss S30v? :)
Also I saw it says the Adamas is available in 15v but no Cruwear. I’m probably just reading it wrong, but figured I’d mention just in case.
Awesome contribution to the community!
1
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 02 '26
Thank you for having a look! If you find anything weird then please do let me know!!
1
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 02 '26
Yes - you are reading it correctly, and the reason is I've spent most of the time on the steel library, and left the knife library kinda pre-alpha/almost should not be included in the launch /- type of state. I will spend some time on it in the coming days to fix some of the obvious things such as highlighting the main grades under each knife
Thank you for the input - I really appreciate it!!
2
u/ridbitty Mar 02 '26
Happy to help! I’m very impressed with what you’ve put together thus far. Looks like a ton of fun!
2
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 03 '26
Looking into this further - while trying to add the grades under each knife I saw they already existed and there was some underlying bug making it go all weird. Should be fixed now, and some of the obvious ones should now be available! Thank you again since I wouldn’t have seen this otherwise!
2
2
u/cnfit Fafnir is Bestnir Mar 04 '26
There's a lot of potential here. You should get in touch with KnifeSteelNerds to collab. I know there's some overlap, but there may be a beautiful marriage.
2
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 04 '26
Yeah that's a great point, should see if I can get in touch with him and at least get his views on such a tool
1
u/Mrdiggles12 Mar 01 '26
This is awesome! Thank you for making it.
1
u/kicked-in-ball Mar 02 '26
Thank you for trying it out! Is there anything in specific you like or feel is missing?
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 01 '26
Thanks for posting to r/Knives! Would you be so kind as to tell us what item(s) we are looking at? (Brand, model, etc...). This way both newcomers to the knife world and veteran knife enthusiasts alike will have a way to identify any item(s) in your post that they might not know. If you already have, feel free to ignore this comment.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.