MagnaCut customs - Books Closed

Test knife. Ground on ceramics, 36 grit, 120, 220, coarse Scotchbrite satin. Sharpened to 20° per side, About .010" - .012" behind the edge. Edge flex and return to true on brass. Shaves hair. Demolishes cardboard with a long lasting aggressive bite. Anecdotally speaking, this is pretty exciting. Going to put it through some abuse tonight and tomorrow before I grind more of them.


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I forgot to mention: Zero rusting while wet grinding, which is exciting.
 
David Mary said:
Test knife. Ground on ceramics, 36 grit, 120, 220, coarse Scotchbrite satin. Sharpened to 20° per side, About .010" - .012" behind the edge. Edge flex and return to true on brass. Shaves hair. Demolishes cardboard with a long lasting aggressive bite. Anecdotally speaking, this is pretty exciting. Going to put it through some abuse tonight and tomorrow before I grind more of them.


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I forgot to mention: Zero rusting while wet grinding, which is exciting.
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looks like a mean cutter that will hold a great working edge.
 
That seems to be the case so far. I was able to cut a lot of cardboard, but it wasn't a slicey edge. It was a zippy edge. And despite the thick stock, the cuts were so easy to keep straight. No signs of stopping, other than getting gummed up with adhesive, but a cleaning and it went back to zipping through cardboard. I had to apply good pressure (thick blade stock), but with a lot of other steels, those types of cuts seem to more often turn into snags, but MagnaCut just didn't want to snag when fully sharpened. Just cut, cut, cut.

Everything about how it feels and behaves makes sense with it being very fine grained. When grinding, it feels dense and strong. Heat build up is slow, and even when the geometry started to get thin, it was an easier matter than usual to keep the blade cool.

So far I like it a lot.
 
I was alternating paper and cardboard, but then included 220 grit worn ceramic belts. I made 5 cuts, starting on the cloth side of the belt, then the edge showed little if any sign of it when slicing paper and cardboard, then I made two cuts into the belts grit side first, and test after each cut. There was noticeable degradation in the knife's ability to slice paper, but it kept cutting cardboard.

Pocket diamond sharpener and a few minutes of restoring a tip to heel apex, with a good ten minutes on the Sharpmaker to regain hair shaving edge.

I am liking where this is going, and have some tests remaining. But it feels like there's some neat stuff going on in that matrix.
 
I tried to use the tip of my MagnaCut wharncliffe for some drilling into soft wood, and chipped the edge at the tip. I was not gentle with it, but this would not have happened with AEB-L or LC200N (I have tried). I might have to push these up to .020" behind the edge or more.
 
So it's definitely not invincible, nor does it hold a candle to the toughness of tough steels. It cuts like crazy though, and I can't get it to rust so far.
 
Here it is post chip-removal and a couple minutes of aesthetic/ergonomic tweaking:

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So while maybe MagnaCut is not your chopper and beater steel (at least not at super thin geometries), it's doing everything else very well.
 
I think this is going to require me to grind my secret "ridiculous" knife and test it before I send out anything from this run. It is a larger knife that I expected to see some chopping, so I want to get a feel for what type of edge and geometry will handle it.

Thanks again for bearing with me as I continue to learn this new steel.
 
David Mary said:
I think this is going to require me to grind my secret "ridiculous" knife and test it before I send out anything from this run. It is a larger knife that I expected to see some chopping, so I want to get a feel for what type of edge and geometry will handle it.

Thanks again for bearing with me as I continue to learn this new steel.
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Thanks for taking us along and allowing this peak into the learning process.
 
Hurrul said:
Thanks for taking us along and allowing this peak into the learning process.
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You're welcome.


Also I should clarify that AEB-L at 63+ did have some tendency to chip when used very hard, but at this hardness (61-62), I have not seen this kind of chipping. LC200N only goes to about 60 RC, and I have never seen it chip that I can remember. I'm a bit of a rough knife user....
 
tinfoil hat timmy said:
fun ride! cant wait to see what's at the other end
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So far my guess is knives with good geometry, a little thicker behind the edge than what I'll do with AEB-L, 15N20, 1084, or Z-FiNit, and 20° primary edges, instead of my usual 15° with 20° microbevels. But I think these will cut very well because that geometry is still not bad, and the edge apex itself of a MagnaCut blade seems to be the real selling point for its ability to cut and withstand some rougher use, rather than the ability to simply go extremely thin with super edge stability.

But on soft materials, pretty much zero with a 20° microbevel should probably handle it.
 
So I spent more than a couple hours grinding this into shape.

MagnaCut test knife 2

Didn't even get to sharpening it yet. I started with the diamond plate, but stopped as soon as I started, because I am not going to spend the last two hours of Saturday night sharpening a knife that will take minutes on the grinder Monday. Then testing.

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But that will be one big knife and one small for testing. I should get a good idea of the abilities and limitations of the steel.

See you all Monday.
 
Good afternoon friends. This week is going to be a slow starter for me here, as I'm reorganizing some things at home and in the shop with the goal of allowing me to work more efficiently going forward. Also Tuesday and Wednesday are the Feasts of St. Bartholomew and St. Louis IX, which I am required to observe. Thank you for your patience.
 
Today I put a handle on my large test knife, and got the handles started for the first two commissions in line. Unfortunately it looks like all the photos taken after 11:00 am today on my phone did not save. I'll see if I can fix that and get some photos up here.
 
How silly. All I had to do was reboot my phone, and then all the photos showed up. But then I couldn't load them on my computer! And there all I had to do was remove the USB cable from the computer, and replug it. Removed some material in the tang so these will be nice and light. I always want my knives to be a joy to handle. Then I rounded off the edges of the slot with the diamond bit in my dremel.

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These will be scales for the smaller of the two fighter. Python bolsters, OD scales on top of orange G10 liners.
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The goal for tomorrow is to get these finished up so they can go out the door Monday. Should be doable, one handle to assemble, then two to shape, and three sheaths to make. I think I can get it all done tomorrow so I can hopefully start the next commissions on Saturday and maybe even have one of them ready to go out the door Monday. Fingers crossed.
 
Who, the biggun? Yep, she was originally modeled after yours mister, though maybe a bit bigger. ;) Then I made a few little nips and trims here and there to suit my preferences.
 
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