Years ago, I used to believe the idea that strop+compound was mandatory to obtain a very sharp edge, and that good sharpening, from dull to sharp had to take at least half an hour of meticulous stone work+stropping. I now ditched strops completely, I recognize my edges were sometimes so fatigued they collapsed immediately after minor work (and they were 20+DPS). Also, slicing aggression was basby Millscale - Experiments
Maybe hardness only have a minor role in this, as long as the grain size is very small and the carbide content is minimal seems plausible to me that steel will tend to deform rather than crack, which (I think, correct me if I am wrong) usually originate from some kind of inclusion in the steel matrix, like carbide. If I understand correctly, max hardness 1095 should have most of its carbon conteby Millscale - General
I recently did that too on some knives, a victorinox pioneer, a couple paring knives and a Spyderco Chaparral (kind of, edge bevel is still visible but it's about half a millimeter wide and a little bit less than 10tho bte, I didn't bring to zero because the less tough steel concerned me, I will eventually do in the future). Sharpening feels a lot like cheating now I will eventuallyby Millscale - Geometry
Jimmy, I'm not a knife maker, the knife I was working on was made out of a blank blade, so it was pretty much "commercially heat treated" 1095, I started the testing at zero ground, 3dps so I experienced a fair bit of plastic deformation going against small, very hard pin knots, the damage was gradually reduced going with heavier geometries, ended up about 10/12dps at a little biby Millscale - General
Wish I could share data to help, unfortunately not enough experience with steels at different hardness levels, let alone hardening and tempering, but I wanted to ask you about the blade geometry and bevel angle. Also, yesterday I was setting the edge of a moderately hard 1095 blade for work, and I noticed warping/flatteing/rolling was pretty much the only failure mode for the test work I wad doiby Millscale - General
If you have access to power equipment I imagine you can get the results you want pretty fast, how thick is the edge of your knife?by Millscale - General Sharpening
Better than any factory knife I have ever owned, except for Opinels (about the same geometry) I also reprofiled to less than 10dps at the end of the same session, that also helped a lot, if not more The very tip is still a little bit thicker than the rest of the edge, but I didn't botherby Millscale - General Sharpening
Recently reground a Spyderco Chaparral XHP using an hard, coarsely conditioned (loose 24 grit carbide) 120grit Sic stone (i guess Norton Coarse India would also work ok), entire primary grind flat on the stone, oil and very high pressure to fracture the binder, going from 0.21 to 0.07 bte took about 20 minutes, but the steel was pretty hard to grind. Then, sandpaper on firm leather (40 to 400 gby Millscale - General Sharpening
Here in Italy there is a distinction between "proper weapons" (double edged daggers, butterfly knives, swords, bayonets, knuckles etc) and "unproper weapons" (any object that can be used to harm, including sticks, rocks, heavy bags of potatoes etc). The fact is that, when asked, you should always be able to prove you are carrying the thing for a good reason (other than self dby Millscale - Video Reviews
Quotejasonstone20 I have wanted to get one for a long time. It is supposed to be a great cutter and thin BTE. Me too, I like that stock thickess for a full sized knife very much, seems to me one of the best Spyderco models for what I use a knife for (no prying, digging, whatever). Not that expensive either. Also the Byrd line is awesome, maybe I will get a Cara Cara 2 soon.by Millscale - General
http://messer-machen.de/schaerfmittel/schleifsteine/europaeische-schleifsteine/zische-silifix-120/zische-silifix-120.html]Silifix 120 rewiev Also cheap, hard stones like that in my experience work very fast if you use very high pressure, they don't dish at all and if the pressure is high enough they don't glaze either (hard bond like an India stone, but Silicon Carbide abrasive on thby Millscale - General
Ryan Rafe, Also the fact that they don't strictly require the use of lubricants, so sharpening is a lot less messy. Only thing, although I never tried really coarse plates like dmt extra-coarse, a freshly conditioned oilstone is really hard to match regarding cutting speed, talking about changing bevel angles and thinning here Also the edges always seem to came up on the toothy side, nby Millscale - Product Review/Feedback
Yesterday I too went to the hardware store and found a small sharpening stone simply labeled "corundum, double sided coarse/fine", bought it just to try out. Unfortunately, no grit ratings to speak of. After a little bit of sharpening I concluded this little inexpensive stones was as good as a Crystolon C/F, if not better grinding very fast on the coarse side and leaving a very sharp edby Millscale - Product Review/Feedback
Crystolon coarse is indeed a very aggressive stone, it releases full size particles and pretty much always deal some damage to the finish, works amazingly fast though if kept flat and conditioned. I find harder stones like Coarse India or Silifix Sic stones (German brand, cheap workhorse stones) almost as fast and much more gentle on the finish, not much abrasive released (they obviously tend toby Millscale - Video Reviews
I like using loose grit on ceramic pavement slabs, a bit messy but works very well in my experience, readily conditioning and flattening even hard bonded Alox stones like Norton India or spyderco ceramic in a matter of seconds, I use 36 grit Alox blasting grit to flatten and then various grades of Sic, never felt the need to have a proper flattening stone. That say, I I mainly use vitrified aloxby Millscale - General Sharpening
QuotecKc haha.. the very coarse venev diamond is the best i have used for thinning. its a powerhouse Saw this stones and a couple of similar kind on the net, no idea how they feel and behave, are they better that vitrified Sic for coarse grinding? Dry, oil or water as a lubricant? I usually don't do much shaping work with my plated diamond, plates seem to wear very fast when used foby Millscale - Video Reviews
The edge bevels are finished to a medium grit, Spyderco medium of fine diamond, don't remember at the moment but are not that coarse (although for very rough use work knives I sometime finish with 120 grit only The coarse scratches are the result of a quick transition bevel applied in a few minutes with a <100 grit stone and you are right, they grab a little too much when slicing dense mby Millscale - Video Reviews
I tend to use Spyderco ceramics (mostly the medium, sometimes I refine wirh the fine) for finishing the edge, these stones I believe have to be used with the lightest touch possible to achieve a good edge, if you apply too much pressure the hardness of solid ceramic will create annoying micro-burrs along the edge in my experience. 3/4 passes per side at an higher angle to microbevel are usuallyby Millscale - General Sharpening
Jasonstone20, that would be awesome, but I buy very few knives per year (right now I actually have way more sharpening stones than knives, funny) and I tend to stay away from hard to grind steel, so I usually bite the bullet and grind the primary with a good old coarse Sic stone, time consuming, yes, but I actually enjoy sharpening quite a lot, doesn't seem totally a waste of time. Carbonby Millscale - Video Reviews
cKc, S30V was indeed a bad steel to begin with, something like BD-1 or maybe even 8Cr13MoV would have been more appropriate (I'm only considering steels that Spyderco already used at the time), best would have been high hardness low carbide stainless/carbon/tool steel, but the geometry is inherently delicate regardless of the material, the customer base they have is broad and most of the pby Millscale - Video Reviews
Attached file, the knives I was talking about. CkC, I believe this is because of warranty issues only, when a knife is very cheap (Opinels for example) is unlikely to be returned after it broke doing something silly like cutting nails and prying wood apart, also professional (let's say butcher, fillet knives, Vic/Swibo etc) knives of decent quality tend to have functional edge and grindsby Millscale - Video Reviews
I really like Victorinox stainless, they do a very good heat treatment in my opinion, get a very crisp and aggressive edge quickly, grinds easily, doesn't get stubborn burrs which in my experience is common with moderate hardness stainless, almost never rust, I have an 8""Rosewood chef knife, a 5" Rosewood utility knife a couple of small paring knives like Kyley's one aby Millscale - Video Reviews
CkC, Thank your for the explanation, was very clear and it also reminded me something Cliff said in one of his videos. It is sad indeed that most of the knife manufacturers have no interest in producing blades optimized for cutting, holding a keen edge or reducing cutting strain and instead steel choice is presented as the one and only way to go, only to convince you that your tools are suddenlby Millscale - Video Reviews
Amazing, I should try that with my own, maybe it was thinned out to much to resist such loading without damagev, cuts beautifully though. I need to find a way to estimate my freehand edge angles, I profile the edge with the primary almost touching the stone, but when the bevels get tiny and difficult to see even a rough estimate becomes difficult. Edit Missed the first part, definitely doingby Millscale - Video Reviews
QuotecKc (Kyley Harris) I have been resurrecting some of my old videos that i'd made private. This one i wanted to post here purely as an example for any knifemakers who might end up seeing this. this is O1, triple tempered to 61rc +/- we live in an age where people are taking steels to extremes, going for harder and harder steels, higher and higher carbide content, all for edge reteby Millscale - Video Reviews
"Thinner edges, regardless of final edge angle, did have a small advantage in edge retention [...] This is consistent with previous studies using a fixed angle but different edge thickness" Apparently it has some effect, but non comparable to edge angle. Thank you cKc for the link, I will read the article better tomorrow.by Millscale - Video Reviews
I agree that edge retention can be influenced by the wear resistance of the alloy, regardless of the edge thickness, but shouldn't the higher cutting ability and the lower forces applied lower the amount of stress on the very apex, decreasing damage anyway? I don't know, maybe someone will enlighten us. Onestly I've never been a fan of super-high carbide steel, I believe ease of gby Millscale - Video Reviews
Jasonstone20, I've never had or used a straight razor, but it seems some are ground just like that or close. I guess blades like this are extremely sensitive to lateral forces and twisting motions, even more than a thin flat grind, probably the reason they are never used on general use knives. I've heard that hollow grinds were developed for hunting knives, to get blades with thickby Millscale - General
About his first statement, that lower edge thickness does not translate to better edge retention cutting cardboard, I believe it can be true only if the edge is so thin that it can't sustain itself during the cutting, unless you are taking that thinnes to the extreme it's unlikely in normal use, saying that in general is blatantly unlogical in my opinion. Very thin bte blades can easilby Millscale - Video Reviews