What steels will take and hold an edge at a low angle

[FortyTwoBlades]

That's interesting..so what would be the hardest thing that blade has to endure. I'm taking it he doesn't scrape bones or cut through anything overly hard but I could be way off?

Dirt. Lots of dirt. I guarantee that those blades really did need resharpening much much sooner than that but if he was just powering on through it he sure wasted a lot of energy over that year. Although it's possible that he's been honing it all this time but it's now time for re-beveling to thin down the geometry again.

 

[Horsewright]

Nope he used em as is. I sharpen all his knives, edcs, hunting knives and also his kitchen knives, even his steak knives cause I made em. So when they need sharpening they come here. Dirt, mud, manure, sand, gravel etc, is what those knives get to cut. Plus the hoof itself is pretty darn tuff. He's kind of an edge fanatic playing with scapels for a living. So I keep his knives tuned. Reason he had me make these is he'd had several custom ones that simply wouldn't hold an edge as long as he liked. Granted a vet doesn't use them as often as a farrier. He's using em on one horse a day on average as oppose to say 5-10 or more. Point is it cuts through tough stuff for long periods of time. After a year they were fairly dull but did not need rebevelling just sharpening. He is here often and could of had them sharpened when ever they needed it. They were still working well. They're sitting on the bench now waiting for him to come by in the morning to pick em up.

The roundknife in the pic below I made. Its my own personal one. Its job is to cut leather by the hour, sometimes all day long and its used daily. It too is AEB-L @63 RC. It sees a stone maybe every 6 months. It will get stropped quickly 3-4 times in a day of cutting. It cuts heavy leather for a living.

 

[noob93]

Nope he used em as is. I sharpen all his knives, edcs, hunting knives and also his kitchen knives, even his steak knives cause I made em. So when they need sharpening they come here. Dirt, mud, manure, sand, gravel etc, is what those knives get to cut. Plus the hoof itself is pretty darn tuff. He's kind of an edge fanatic playing with scapels for a living. So I keep his knives tuned. Reason he had me make these is he'd had several custom ones that simply wouldn't hold an edge as long as he liked. Granted a vet doesn't use them as often as a farrier. He's using em on one horse a day on average as oppose to say 5-10 or more. Point is it cuts through tough stuff for long periods of time. After a year they were fairly dull but did not need rebevelling just sharpening. He is here often and could of had them sharpened when ever they needed it. They were still working well. They're sitting on the bench now waiting for him to come by in the morning to pick em up.

The roundknife in the pic below I made. Its my own personal one. Its job is to cut leather by the hour, sometimes all day long and its used daily. It too is AEB-L @63 RC. It sees a stone maybe every 6 months. It will get stropped quickly 3-4 times in a day of cutting. It cuts heavy leather for a living.

That's impressive sounds like it's much more wear resistant then id have thought. Hell I don't even think my 154cm iv had came close in edge retention.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

He must be really cleaning those hooves thoroughly. Hoof knives typically need pretty frequent touching up, even when made of good steel, simply because of how dirty the material they're cutting typically is.

 

[DeadboxHero]

Nope he used em as is. I sharpen all his knives, edcs, hunting knives and also his kitchen knives, even his steak knives cause I made em. So when they need sharpening they come here. Dirt, mud, manure, sand, gravel etc, is what those knives get to cut. Plus the hoof itself is pretty darn tuff. He's kind of an edge fanatic playing with scapels for a living. So I keep his knives tuned. Reason he had me make these is he'd had several custom ones that simply wouldn't hold an edge as long as he liked. Granted a vet doesn't use them as often as a farrier. He's using em on one horse a day on average as oppose to say 5-10 or more. Point is it cuts through tough stuff for long periods of time. After a year they were fairly dull but did not need rebevelling just sharpening. He is here often and could of had them sharpened when ever they needed it. They were still working well. They're sitting on the bench now waiting for him to come by in the morning to pick em up.

The roundknife in the pic below I made. Its my own personal one. Its job is to cut leather by the hour, sometimes all day long and its used daily. It too is AEB-L @63 RC. It sees a stone maybe every 6 months. It will get stropped quickly 3-4 times in a day of cutting. It cuts heavy leather for a living.

i didnt know AEB-l Could get to 63hrc consistently

do you have variation per batch?

 

[Horsewright]

Nope but I have Peters do all my HT. I ask for 63 from them I get 63RC. They are all tested too.

 

[`br4dz-]

Why not just do a low angle with a steeper microbevel? Super low angles need resharpening more often no matter the steel. Doing a microbevel afterwards will negate that and the chipping issue.

 

[noob93]

Why not just do a low angle with a steeper microbevel? Super low angles need resharpening more often no matter the steel. Doing a microbevel afterwards will negate that and the chipping issue.

Well honestly I wouldn't even know how to put a micro bevel on something and doubt I would be successful in trying. That does sound like a good idea. I'm just wondering what steels excell at holding a fine edge. So many people talk about toughness iv even had knife makers try to convince me s60v is tough. Maybe they can make it tough with a thick geometry but I don't believe that is a tough steel at all. They say a2 is super tough yet iv watched a video of a bark River chip out whittling a chop stick. My point is I'm just looking for some real world experience and knowledge so I don't have salesmen blowing smoke up my arse.

 

[shqxk]

Fine grain steel with low carbide amount at high hardness like AEB-L, 52100, W2, O1 etc.

 

[Cobalt]

They say a2 is super tough yet iv watched a video of a bark River chip out whittling a chop stick..

I would not blame only the steel for that. Factory burned edges can fail prematurely, poor heat treats will not maximize the steels properties, etc. The steel is only part of the mix.

 

[jpm2]

Even the sweetheart king of tough can be made to fail.

 

[noob93]

Even the sweetheart king of tough can be made to fail.

Yes of course anything can fail but I'd have to say if we were talking pure toughness 3v is not first. S7 5160 and infi in that order come to mind. What happened to cause that kind of damage though I mean 3v from what iv read should be plenty tough.

 

[Cobalt]

Yes of course anything can fail but I'd have to say if we were talking pure toughness 3v is not first. S7 5160 and infi in that order come to mind. What happened to cause that kind of damage though I mean 3v from what iv read should be plenty tough.

What I mentioned above most likely

 

[jpm2]

The thing is, we shouldn't be talking pure toughness. If I wanted that, I'd just sharpen up some mild steel.
When it comes to edge holding under a variety of conditions, we should be talking edge stability, which is toughness (fracture resistance) and strength (deformation resistance), and edge retention (wear resistance, adhesive and abrasive). To answer your question, we have to find the best balance of all those.

 

[noob93]

The thing is, we shouldn't be talking pure toughness. If I wanted that, I'd just sharpen up some mild steel.
When it comes to edge holding under a variety of conditions, we should be talking edge stability, which is toughness (fracture resistance) and strength (deformation resistance), and edge retention (wear resistance, adhesive and abrasive). To answer your question, we have to find the best balance of all those.

That doesn't answer my question

 

[jpm2]

That doesn't answer my question

Excuse me, let me rephrase that. To FIND the answer to your question, we have to find the best balance of all those. (reference to post #34)

 

[bodog]

That doesn't answer my question

He's right though. If you're talking about really low angles, which I don't really understand why you'd want that, then you'd probably want to maximize toughness and hardness over the other factors that are included in choosing a knife steel. The size of the blade, what you're going to do with it, how it's designed, etc., all needs to be thought of. Machetes aren't thick for a reason yet they're made to wail on tree branches, dirty grass, and sticky, hard vines all day long. Get a knife as thin as it can be and still do the work required of it and keep the edge anywhere from 15 to 18 degrees per side.

If you're looking for a chopper then you'll want a different steel that can handle decently low angles than if you're talking about a kitchen or EDC knife.

I have a very thin kitchen knife made of 52100 at, IIRC, 65 RC. I don't need to take it to absurdly low edge angles. I keep it at 15 degrees per side and it cuts like a laser because it's thin. It keeps its edge because of what I cut with it and because it's hard and tough, especially at that hardness. I wouldn't want the same thickness in a chopper, though. The edge angle would likely stay the same.

So no one can answer which would be best. 1) because no specific taskings have been laid out, 2) people's opinions are all over the place, 3) there's no scientific study that takes a bunch of steels and each steel getting 15 different heat treatment processes leading to hardnesses ranging from 55 to 70 RC(if possible) and using those steels in multiple thickness ranging from very narrow to very wide and then having them tested from 5 dps up to 50 dps doing repeatable testing with a lot of real world things that get cut.

If you need to lower your edge angles to less than 15 dps, and your edge doesn't fall apart at those angles, then you need to reduce the thickness because you're not being tough enough on the knife to need it that thick. Taking it to less than 15 dps is a crappy way to make up for having a knife that's too thick. Throwing a microbevel on a ridiculously low angle edge is reality telling you to send your knife in to be thinned down and then keep your normal edge at whatever angle your microbevel was.

Having said that, 4V or M4 at 64 could probably handle most of what you could throw at it in a variety of designs and cutting a ton of different things. It wouldn't be that great in a corrosive environment though. Still no reason to go lower than 15 dps. There's really no reason to leave an edge so unsupported when all you have to do is reduce the main bevel and/or spine thickness (total behind the edge thickness up to and including the spine) to dramatically increase cutting performance. I've personally seen no steels be able to handle 10 or 11 degree dps without crumbling in real world use unless the stuff I was cutting was ridiculously soft and non-abrasive. Or maybe I just like to be harder on knives than other people.

 

[mycough]

He's right though. If you're talking about really low angles, which I don't really understand why you'd want that, then you'd probably want to maximize toughness and hardness over the other factors that are included in choosing a knife steel. The size of the blade, what you're going to do with it, how it's designed, etc., all needs to be thought of. Machetes aren't thick for a reason yet they're made to wail on tree branches, dirty grass, and sticky, hard vines all day long. Get a knife as thin as it can be and still do the work required of it and keep the edge anywhere from 15 to 18 degrees per side.

If you're looking for a chopper then you'll want a different steel that can handle decently low angles than if you're talking about a kitchen or EDC knife.

I have a very thin kitchen knife made of 52100 at, IIRC, 65 RC. I don't need to take it to absurdly low edge angles. I keep it at 15 degrees per side and it cuts like a laser because it's thin. It keeps its edge because of what I cut with it and because it's hard and tough, especially at that hardness. I wouldn't want the same thickness in a chopper, though. The edge angle would likely stay the same.

So no one can answer which would be best. 1) because no specific taskings have been laid out, 2) people's opinions are all over the place, 3) there's no scientific study that takes a bunch of steels and each steel getting 15 different heat treatment processes leading to hardnesses ranging from 55 to 70 RC(if possible) and using those steels in multiple thickness ranging from very narrow to very wide and then having them tested from 5 dps up to 50 dps doing repeatable testing with a lot of real world things that get cut.

If you need to lower your edge angles to less than 15 dps, and your edge doesn't fall apart at those angles, then you need to reduce the thickness because you're not being tough enough on the knife to need it that thick. Taking it to less than 15 dps is a crappy way to make up for having a knife that's too thick. Throwing a microbevel on a ridiculously low angle edge is reality telling you to send your knife in to be thinned down and then keep your normal edge at whatever angle your microbevel was.

Having said that, 4V or M4 at 64 could probably handle most of what you could throw at it in a variety of designs and cutting a ton of different things. It wouldn't be that great in a corrosive environment though. Still no reason to go lower than 15 dps. There's really no reason to leave an edge so unsupported when all you have to do is reduce the main bevel and/or spine thickness (total behind the edge thickness up to and including the spine) to dramatically increase cutting performance. I've personally seen no steels be able to handle 10 or 11 degree dps without crumbling in real world use unless the stuff I was cutting was ridiculously soft and non-abrasive. Or maybe I just like to be harder on knives than other people.

OP, take the time to digest this, there is some relevant stuff for you here. Experimenting with thin edges can be fun but my bet is you drift back towards 15° when all is said and done. In my business, 12° is sometimes preferred for specialized use on proteins but most of my work knives are nearer 15°, even my nicest, thinnest, most expensive veggie knives and gyuto/chef knives.
For your "hard" use knife, m4 from a good maker would be a solid choice. Read about the blade sport choppers, m4 pops up as the steel of choice many times.
Have fun in your choice process, let us know what you come up with.

Russ

 

[Cobalt]

That doesn't answer my question

You probably need to state what your uses will be in order of importance.

Cutting/slicing, chopping, batoning, prying, etc. What will the knife be used for. A steel for a pure slicer will be different than a steel for a chopper. Edge angles will be different as well.

So you need to state what the uses are. You would never go rock crawling with a lamborghini, right?

 

[marthinus]

If you need to lower your edge angles to less than 15 dps, and your edge doesn't fall apart at those angles, then you need to reduce the thickness because you're not being tough enough on the knife to need it that thick. Taking it to less than 15 dps is a crappy way to make up for having a knife that's too thick. Throwing a microbevel on a ridiculously low angle edge is reality telling you to send your knife in to be thinned down and then keep your normal edge at whatever angle your microbevel was.

Having said that, 4V or M4 at 64 could probably handle most of what you could throw at it in a variety of designs and cutting a ton of different things. It wouldn't be that great in a corrosive environment though. Still no reason to go lower than 15 dps. There's really no reason to leave an edge so unsupported when all you have to do is reduce the main bevel and/or spine thickness (total behind the edge thickness up to and including the spine) to dramatically increase cutting performance. I've personally seen no steels be able to handle 10 or 11 degree dps without crumbling in real world use unless the stuff I was cutting was ridiculously soft and non-abrasive. Or maybe I just like to be harder on knives than other people.

In my experience with the right steel you can go below 15 dps without the edge falling apart with knives that are thin.

14C28N at 18 degrees inclusive cutting zip ties

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcNegxd4pPs

H-1 at around 10 degrees inclusive (almost full zero to the primary) cutting through chicken breast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tMi4exFe3k

Nitrobe-77 at 12 degrees inclusive being used as a scraper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHQnl498f9Q

Here is my grandfathers carpenters axe with a 20-25 degrees inclusive (70 year old axe head). I replaced the handle. It was used in gold mining and I have only maintained the edge at that angle. Recently split around 40-50 pre-cut logs containing nots with some blunting through rolling, but no fractures of the edge etc.

I recently had a friend visit with an O1 chefs knife. We sharpened to 20 degrees inclusive and proceeded to test the edge by chopping into a 1/4 inch dowel and prying with the blade. We did not have any fractures of the edge and it was ground to 0,014 of an inch (not as thin as he usually does), but for its intended use of breaking some bones more than adequate.

For your "hard" use knife, m4 from a good maker would be a solid choice. Read about the blade sport choppers, m4 pops up as the steel of choice many times.

And yet it suffers from work hardening in those competitions?

There is a tendency for CPM M4 to work harden in the very thin geometry of a knife blade. Blade sports competitors push the limits and some of these very thin blades work harden and fracture or crack after a year or two on competition, and are replaced. Personally I used 52100 clad with 15N 20 for several years, and the knife is still undamaged. For large blades I prefer high Carbon to stainless or high speed steel. I like to think that my blades will outlive me.
There are many special purpose steels that will give exceptional life with light cutting tasks. Many of these steels will be used and do well in folding knives, it depends on what you like in your knife.

Dont get me wrong, I love CPM-M4 but I agree with the below.

You probably need to state what your uses will be in order of importance.

Cutting/slicing, chopping, batoning, prying, etc. What will the knife be used for. A steel for a pure slicer will be different than a steel for a chopper. Edge angles will be different as well.

So you need to state what the uses are. You would never go rock crawling with a lamborghini, right?

Depending on intended uses etc there is a steel for the right job and we have been spoiled by choice really to meet all demands.