S90V Cheff

[Brock Cutlery]

Kudos for posting your knife and it not being a sharpened block of steel and wood. Looks like you have a decent artistic sense of balance. Function is learned through experience and it will take a bit of time. Less if you study knives like crazy. Good advice here. so take what you will and go for it.

 

[mav17]

I have been working with cutting tools for CNC for a while and I have never seen any diference beetween N2, O1, HSS or Tungsten Carbide. I mean unless you are willing to pay for PCD or CBS. The rest is the same...

I thought working with this S90V would be pretty much as anything else... But...
IT IS NOT!!!!! this is so hard, it just chew through the cutting discs and the grinding wheels. I could shape the wheels with this steel, and the bar would remain the same, and it’s not heat treated! now I understand what you were talking about the sharpening issue!

At least I’m liking the result so far

 

[mav17]

And thanks to a friend scrap donation I have plenty of wood to choose from for the handle when the moment comes!!!

 

[mav17]

I started to file the bevels by hand, obviously a bad idea lol, after a while I decided to build a filing gig from old 2x4 I had, it can be seen in the pic below.

After an hr filing in the gig I think 1/4 of the bevels has been corrected... I mean 1/2 of 1 side, thats what I mean by 1/4.

Probably next Tuesday I’ll have time to put into this and will have the bevels ready.

 

[Allen Rummel]

I admire your perseverance. I for one don’t have that much dedication to file in bevels like that. I use a 2x72 grinder I made and S35VN that I use chews up plently of belts post heat treat. I can only say good luck and have fun.

 

[Joel Mercier]

There is no such thing as absolute best steel. You have to choose your steel depending on knife type and geometry. IMO, the best quality of a kitchen knife steel is edge stability, or the ability to obtain and keep a very fine edge without chipping or rolling. A good edge stability is obtained with a good balance of hardness AND toughness as well as a very fine carbide structure.

 

[Willie71]

There is no such thing as absolute best steel. You have to choose your steel depending on knife type and geometry. IMO, the best quality of a kitchen knife steel is edge stability, or the ability to obtain and keep a very fine edge without chipping or rolling. A good edge stability is obtained with a good balance of hardness AND toughness as well as a very fine carbide structure.

You are correct. If you are used to high hardness Hitachi White, Z-wear will feel like a coarse edge. However, if you are used to S35VN, Z-wear will feel very fine grained. Z-wear and V4E are dead Center of the toughness charts, and have enough carbides to give excellent wear resistance. You can go finer/tougher, or higher carbide/more wear resistance, but you will be trading off in either direction. I’m using z-wear almost exclusively, unless someone wants a budget knife, hamon, or Damascus.

 

[mav17]

After many other projects I finally found time to continue with this.

After filing the bevels I sanded them with 120 grit, now I will drill the 2 pin bores in the handle.

And then should it be ready to send for heat treatment? Or am I missing something?

Thank you for the replies, it’s been an extremely interesting project for me and I’m trying my best to get it right on the first attempt.

 

[Storm W]

After many other projects I finally found time to continue with this.

After filing the bevels I sanded them with 120 grit, now I will drill the 2 pin bores in the handle.

And then should it be ready to send for heat treatment? Or am I missing something?

Thank you for the replies, it’s been an extremely interesting project for me and I’m trying my best to get it right on the first attempt.

Don't forget to drill your holes.