On the subject of which sharpening media to use with the well known knife steels based on carbide content: did you learn anything that surprised you, or anything that was a change to the rule-of-thumb guidance that most current sharpeners follow? The OP sounded mainly consistent with that guidance unless I missed something. Cbn/diamonds for certain carbides that exceed somewhere in the vicinity of 2600-2700Hv (and still in practice, we're mostly talking here about VC in popular knife steels, true?), and other media such as alumina, SiC, etc, for things in that category of 2700Hv and below. Or if that's not the case, interested to hear what nuances you learned for optimally matching up sharpening media with steels.
Carbide Hardness Chart
- Thread starter DeadboxHero
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I haven't found any hard rules with matching softer abrasive to softer carbides, that seemed more dominated by preferences than function.
In a similar vein, but shifting from sharpening abrasives to thinking about how you'd apply what you learned to field and bushcraft knife steels choices. A lot of fixed field/bushcraft type knives in the 3.5" to 5" range lately, if people want more premium steels, are being done in things like 3V that have toughness, high wear resistance, and even some corrosion resistance.
Have any of these super-duper high HRC steels you've been checking out--like Rex 121 or "Ferro Titanit WFN"--seemed to you like a superior option to say 3V at HRC 60-61, for use in a real field knife? If yeah, what would you see as being the attributes of the blade where it would come out ahead? I guess I'm a sucker for super-duper steels, so very interested to hear of any prototype blades or things that you're experimenting with that would surpass current options.
Have any of these super-duper high HRC steels you've been checking out--like Rex 121 or "Ferro Titanit WFN"--seemed to you like a superior option to say 3V at HRC 60-61, for use in a real field knife? If yeah, what would you see as being the attributes of the blade where it would come out ahead? I guess I'm a sucker for super-duper steels, so very interested to hear of any prototype blades or things that you're experimenting with that would surpass current options.
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"field knife" is a very vague description.
I think with anything in this world, specificity is crucial for maximizing performance.
I think the user, the use and the preferences are probably more significant.
We can press a knife into roles that 3V would be better and we could press a knife into roles where something more wear resistant could be better.
I think it's just too simplistic of a view to say that something is always better as if it were baseball cards or something.
Don't kid yourself though, it takes a lot of skill and extreme cost to make knives out of extreme steels that actually cut good, So a good knife in these exotic steels does deserve some recognition.
However, I think it's easy in the steel geek world to just give customers a knife in said steel but all the attributes that make a good knife are missing because of the cost involved in grinding thinner for it to actually cut good and knowledge and testing required to heat treat to its full potential can be sometimes both elusive and expensive.
Essentially meaning the only thing people are buying is the name of the steel, but not the actual capability of what the steel can do.
Just my thoughts and opinions on the subject.
I think sharpening is a really important thing for understanding the language of the steel and why one steel would have more merit in certain situations than others and I think that at more advanced levels folks can see that a steel having certain kinds of carbides at certain volumes and sizes would be better for certain tasks than others.
I think with anything in this world, specificity is crucial for maximizing performance.
I think the user, the use and the preferences are probably more significant.
We can press a knife into roles that 3V would be better and we could press a knife into roles where something more wear resistant could be better.
I think it's just too simplistic of a view to say that something is always better as if it were baseball cards or something.
Don't kid yourself though, it takes a lot of skill and extreme cost to make knives out of extreme steels that actually cut good, So a good knife in these exotic steels does deserve some recognition.
However, I think it's easy in the steel geek world to just give customers a knife in said steel but all the attributes that make a good knife are missing because of the cost involved in grinding thinner for it to actually cut good and knowledge and testing required to heat treat to its full potential can be sometimes both elusive and expensive.
Essentially meaning the only thing people are buying is the name of the steel, but not the actual capability of what the steel can do.
Just my thoughts and opinions on the subject.
I think sharpening is a really important thing for understanding the language of the steel and why one steel would have more merit in certain situations than others and I think that at more advanced levels folks can see that a steel having certain kinds of carbides at certain volumes and sizes would be better for certain tasks than others.
In a similar vein, but shifting from sharpening abrasives to thinking about how you'd apply what you learned to field and bushcraft knife steels choices. A lot of fixed field/bushcraft type knives in the 3.5" to 5" range lately, if people want more premium steels, are being done in things like 3V that have toughness, high wear resistance, and even some corrosion resistance.
Have any of these super-duper high HRC steels you've been checking out--like Rex 121 or "Ferro Titanit WFN"--seemed to you like a superior option to say 3V at HRC 60-61, for use in a real field knife? If yeah, what would you see as being the attributes of the blade where it would come out ahead? I guess I'm a sucker for super-duper steels, so very interested to hear of any prototype blades or things that you're experimenting with that would surpass current options.