Condor Hivernant - 440C sharpening

R

RedneckBear

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Aug 8, 2016
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Hi,

I'm considering Condor Hivernant as my next knife. I would prefer it in Condor's normal 1075 but ... what can I do, right?

Anyway, I'm a bit unsure about sharpening the 440C steel, especially in the field. I used to have a Ganzo G727 in 440C and at home it was ok to sharpen on my Tyrolit 150/320 stone. I never had to sharpen it in the field, especially because I had no field sharpener.

Now, I've got CC4 but I'm a bit nervous if I would be able to sharpen it - as I read many times that 440C is a b***h to sharpen.

Suggestions, please?
 
You can sharpen it on silicon carbide norton stone without any problems.You can pick up folding dmt sharpener too and sharpen anywhere its easy.When you get the knife reprofile it,and thin it out behind edge,so it will be easy to touch up in field.
 
I've purchased that CC4 recently ... would that folding DMT thingy be much better?
I'm sure I'll be able to reprofile it at home, that I've done before at least. :)

PS: What "grit" would you suggest for that DMT diafold? I found fine/very_fine and coarse/fine ...
 
I would use coarse. If you need to reprofile it a coarse diamond doesn't work. A coarse SiC will. 440c can be prone to burring. Backhoning is a good way to handle this malady. DM
 
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440C is sort of odd, in that there's an obvious, distinct threshold between 'stupid easy to sharpen' and 'a real pain to sharpen', depending on which stones you might be using. I've never liked Arkansas stones for grinding it, and some aluminum oxide oilstones seem to struggle with it as well. But try SiC or diamond, and all of a sudden, one wonders what all the fuss is about, as either will eat 440C for breakfast.

On a diamond hone, it helps to oil the hone a bit (light mineral oil), because 440C and other relatively high-chrome stainless steels at typical hardness (up to ~ 60-ish HRC) can clog a diamond hone pretty fast. Seems to be worse on coarser diamond hones especially. The stainless swarf is tenacious about blanketing the surface and sticking firm, if used dry, or on a watered hone that dries up quickly in use. If one has trouble grinding such a steel on a diamond hone, it's likely because the hone is clogged up and needs to be cleaned with a good deal of scrubbing. It needs to be kept clean of the sticking stainless swarf, else it'll stop working almost entirely. The oil not only 'floats' the swarf above the surface in use, but also will keep it from clinging after the swarf settles onto the surface, so it'll still be easy to wipe clean. Oil is necessary on an aluminum oxide oilstone as well, for the same reason. SiC stones seem to be a little more tolerant of dry use (or with water), because they shed grit more easily and most accumulated swarf will go with it, so they don't clog as fast (though they will eventually).
 
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So, I'm about to buy the DMT Diafold coarse/fine for field maintenance.

As for home sharpening, I checked and my primary stone (Tyrolit) is SiC 150/320. I usually use it dry. That's the one I used for reprofiling the Ganzo 440C knife I had and it went ok, so I'll hope it would be ok this time as well. (The finer home stone I have is a Taidea 1000 grit - I didn't have that one when I still had the Ganzo but I think it would work as well.)

Thank you all very much for you advices and have a sharp day! :-D
 
440c usually likes toothy edge and for my uses it performs the best,its easily put on by coarse or xcoarse dmt.It still shaves and sometime whittles hair too.440c is good steel,all depends on heat treat.
 
The edge from sil carbide or dmt xcoarse stone on almost any steel with feather light touch at the end and some stroping on my bare palm gives me a very toothy but gair whittling edge that cuts on slightest push or pull and is pretty durable.I do not bother polishing any edge beyond spyderco sharpmaker white stone,just do not find it necessary unless im working with wood,then i strop it with leather loaded with green compound,have bunch of higher grit stones and couple Japanese stones but never use it.With high carbide steels like 440c,s30v or 154cm i do not do any polishing and still get super edge.
 
Ps.Ganzos use Chinese variant of 440c or something similar and its very good steel that is easy to sharpen ,holds edge well and produces very toothy edge with norton stone.I still think reall 440c holds edge better,as I have benchmade griptilian in 440c that holds edge better than ganzo,maybe the heat treat differs in rc ,and also Solingen bowie in 440c that has even better edge holding than Benchmade.(German 440c is excellent btw much better than Ganzo variant which I think is more like 440b)
 
Real 440c is very good steel,there is just too many steels labeled 440c but theyre not it.Chinese steels that label themselves 440c are pretty good and hold good edge ,it all comes down to heat treatment.Solingen 440c is excellent and heat treated well,id take it rather than s30v.After you get your technique down you can sharoen any steel on almost anything,i do not prefer or care for supersteels.Heat treat of specific steel is way more important for me,also ease of sharpening.Have few knives in s 30v but dont find them hard to sharpen with dmt and like the toothyness of it.
 
I do not have old buck knives in 440c but have read that the steel is excellent and holds edge well.Many people here hate Chinese steels but theyre pretty good for edc knives and some of them hold excellent esge and are also easy to sharpen
 
My impressions of what works for grinding 440C were formed based on an older '2-dot' Buck 112. Aside from it's relative hardness and good heat treat making a difference, those older knives from Buck also had relatively thick grinds behind the edge and fairly wide edge angles as well. So, in attempting to thin both the blade and the edge angle, one finds out quickly which stones aren't up to snuff for the job. I first tried using Arkansas stones to sharpen that knife at it's existing blade & edge geometry. That didn't go well for me, with the steel seemingly just 'skating' across those stones with little/no swarf removed, and I put that knife away for a long time (nearly 20 years), until I decided to take a different approach a few years ago. I used SiC sandpaper to thin the grind behind the edge, also convexing it in the process. I finished the sharpening work up through 1K or 2K SiC sandpaper. It was in doing all this, that I discovered how much easier SiC handles the work on 440C.

Aluminum oxide abrasives can still do pretty well for refining/polishing 440C at higher grit, including stropping to mirror finish. As I recall, I think I used some Simichrome paste (aluminum oxide) for stropping my Buck 112 to a mirrored convex. But for the heavy work on 440C, SiC or diamond make a huge difference in working speed.
 
440ctakes back seat from too many crappy knives with inferior heat treatments and steels that were marked 440c,real 440c with good heat treat is excellent steel that gives nice toothy edge and keeps cutting.I wish major manufacturers are still making jnives from 440c with optimal heat treat,no need for so many steels that are hyped up for marketing purposes when real 440c performs better or almost same as those.Most people dont even use knives anymore besides showing off or cutting paper ,and collecting ,thats why most of them are not tested in real world,and real 440c is one of those that work in real world.It is not hard to sharpen especially with modern equipment and depends on grind too.
 
Rust resistance comes in handy too,especially when cutting fruits vegetables and meat,esoecially for smaller blades stainless is better in my book.Large fixed blades for wood processing are better with carbon
 
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