ATS-55

T

Taz

Joined
Apr 28, 1999
Messages
1,861
I sharpened a friends spyderco made of ATS-55. He used it over the weekend at camp for whittling sticks. It came back pretty sharp, scraped hair pretty well. I touched it up with an arkansas stone and strop, and now it pops hair and cuts really well. Where can i get ATS-55 in barstock?? How would ATS-34 compare to ATS-55.
 
i didn't really need to sharpen it up, it was basically a touch up top clean up the edge before i stropped it. It could still shave after a weekend camping and whittling sticks for people. The arkansas just touched it up and cleaned some of the gunk off of the edge, and the strop brought it right back to hair popping sharp.
 
I'm pretty sure that spyderco hardens their ATS55 to RC59 or so. Its not hard to sharpen, but Arkansas stones don't cut it any bit too fast. You definitely have to put some time in if your removing any significant amount of material.I like how it performs pretty well. Unfortunately I don't know where to get it in barstock. I would try asking who supplies spyderco with their steel, it may be admiral. I can't remember.
I can't really compare it to ATS34 to well. I have a knife in each but the one in 34 is a benchmade and hardened to RC62. I'd say that they both take about the same edge , and hold it about the same. I've never had either one chip. The edge rolled a little more easily on the 55 blade but its softer and has a deep hollow ground edge vs. the thicker flat ground edge on the 34 blade which is also harder.
Good luck finding some. Another thing you should think about is getting it heat treated. If its not part of your heat treater's normal line of steels they may not know the best sequence to put it through. It should be close to ATS34, but I really don't know.

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I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer... but I've got the sharpest knife in the room.
 
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