Case tru sharp edge holding?

As been mentioned, a fine wire edge may roll or fold and make the blade feel quite dull. I strop or drag the blade through some wood in order to break that edge. The steel seems to work pretty good once done.
 
Thanks for the ideas. I'll take the sodbusters from a 40 to a 30 degree bevel and go with a coarser finish. Might take me a while to resharpen and try out; I'll report back afterwards.
 
I generally don't have a problem with getting Case knives sharp whether CV or Tru-Sharp however I have a Sodbuster and Sodbuster Jr. in CV. The Sodbuster Jr. could be sharpened to a very fine edge but the Sodbuster just wouldn't get that sharp or stay sharp very long. I decided to reprofile the Sodbuster to 15 dps and now it performs as well as the Jr. at 20 dps.
 
I have a Sodbuster Jr which takes a screaming edge easily and then loses it almost immediately. Once went from shaving sharp to 'won't cut paper' after opening a thick cardboard envelope. I don't have the gear to do it and having it reprofiled to 30 inclusive would cost me more than the knife did. Not been impressed with the steel.
 
Pomsbz said:
takes a screaming edge easily and then loses it almost immediately. Once went from shaving sharp to 'won't cut paper' after opening a thick cardboard envelope.
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That really does sound like a straightened wire edge (burr) folding over on you.

On the original topic - you know, I can't really tell you. I know I can make a Tru-Sharp blade pretty sharp. But my cutting needs are so limited that I hardly put enough stress on those sharp edges to tell you how long it holds up. I bet that if I were a very frequent knife user that I could tell you how well the edges last, but I am not. So they seem to last pretty much forever for me, once I get them sharp in the first place.

Your best friends, when learning to sharpen, are a very bright light, a marker pen (Sharpie), a high power magnifier like a loupe, and some time and patience. It is when you look at an edge and see "aha, I see what I did there" and then go back to the stones with that new insight, that you make progress. After a while of doing that, somehow your hands and eyes and ears learn what they need to know. Also - the sun and moon must be in the right alignment. ;)

In general, I like Case Tru-Sharp stainless. I have gotten lazy and end up stopping after a 400 grit Norton India "fine" and de-burring on loaded leather strop. I have gotten, on rare occasions (sun and moon aligned) true "hair tree topping" sharpness from that process on that steel. On bad days, just regular shaving sharpness.

Don't be shy with this steel. Hit it with a coarse stone until you get a burr on both sides, deburr, then refine that fully apexed edge. It will cut.
 
jc57 said:
That really does sound like a straightened wire edge (burr) folding over on you.

On the original topic - you know, I can't really tell you. I know I can make a Tru-Sharp blade pretty sharp. But my cutting needs are so limited that I hardly put enough stress on those sharp edges to tell you how long it holds up. I bet that if I were a very frequent knife user that I could tell you how well the edges last, but I am not. So they seem to last pretty much forever for me, once I get them sharp in the first place.

Your best friends, when learning to sharpen, are a very bright light, a marker pen (Sharpie), a high power magnifier like a loupe, and some time and patience. It is when you look at an edge and see "aha, I see what I did there" and then go back to the stones with that new insight, that you make progress. After a while of doing that, somehow your hands and eyes and ears learn what they need to know. Also - the sun and moon must be in the right alignment. ;)

In general, I like Case Tru-Sharp stainless. I have gotten lazy and end up stopping after a 400 grit Norton India "fine" and de-burring on loaded leather strop. I have gotten, on rare occasions (sun and moon aligned) true "hair tree topping" sharpness from that process on that steel. On bad days, just regular shaving sharpness.

Don't be shy with this steel. Hit it with a coarse stone until you get a burr on both sides, deburr, then refine that fully apexed edge. It will cut.
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I only have a sharpmaker and a strop. That's the thing, the knife is so cheap and other knives work so much better that I don't feel the drive to bother trying to force it to work. I did EDC it for 6 months but a SAK holds its edge far longer, cuts better and doesn't require workarounds when sharpening.
 
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I started with a Sharpmaker. Still have it, still use it. I get beautiful, polished, sharp edges off of it, as long as the original bevel is 30 or 40 inclusive. One thing I have noticed, and others have posted as well, is that those ceramic stones seem to be very prone to creating a wire edge on the "gummier" steels like Case Tru-Sharp. They seem to just end up flopping the burr back and forth rather than removing it. Case CV does better with the Sharpmaker in my experience. Near mirror edges with not as much of a burr to deal with.

I'm a big Victorinox fan myself, and that's a pretty good steel. My wife carries one (Electrician) and uses the heck out of it. I am always having to resharpen that thing for her, so maybe I should get her to post as to what she uses it for.

In the generally available pocket knife steels, I'd have to rate Queen D2 at the top (if you can sharpen it.... boy did that stuff teach me a few lessons on how to sharpen) GEC's 1095 and 440C pretty high, Buck 420 HC very good, Rough Rider 440A respectable, Case CV, then Vic stainless and Case Tru-Sharp about equal. Now you'd think that me putting Case Tru-Sharp tied for "last" makes it worse, but it's pretty much my daily carry, and I really like it. Good enough for what I need, no fuss, and sharpens back up without a lot of gear.

Kind of like if I could buy a car that does 150 top speed, another that does 120, and a third that does 90. But I'll never exceed 75, so what difference does the top end speed make to me? None. That's Case Tru-Sharp to me. Good enough for me, but I recognize its limitations, which I never exceed.
 
jc57 said:
One thing I have noticed, and others have posted as well, is that those ceramic stones seem to be very prone to creating a wire edge on the "gummier" steels like Case Tru-Sharp. They seem to just end up flopping the burr back and forth rather than removing it.
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I totally agree. After shining up an edge with the fine white hones, I often have to use some method of burr removal on softer steels.

jc57 said:
In the generally available pocket knife steels, I'd have to rate Queen D2 at the top (if you can sharpen it.... boy did that stuff teach me a few lessons on how to sharpen) GEC's 1095 and 440C pretty high, Buck 420 HC very good, Rough Rider 440A respectable, Case CV, then Vic stainless and Case Tru-Sharp about equal. Now you'd think that me putting Case Tru-Sharp tied for "last" makes it worse, but it's pretty much my daily carry, and I really like it. Good enough for what I need, no fuss, and sharpens back up without a lot of gear.

Kind of like if I could buy a car that does 150 top speed, another that does 120, and a third that does 90. But I'll never exceed 75, so what difference does the top end speed make to me? None. That's Case Tru-Sharp to me. Good enough for me, but I recognize its limitations, which I never exceed.
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Very well put!!!
 
Hi, OP here.

Well, that was a quick test. I think to elaborate on this steel/sharpness discussion, maybe some background is needed.

When I first posted, the sodbuster took down maybe 125 feet of cardboard boxes. I was annoyed, because I needed to put the knife on the strop twice during that time to continue working though the boxes. From experience, I knew that another knife (opinel 8) would have gone through the boxes with less effort and maintenance.



After reading here, I took the knife down to 30 degrees inclusive, at around 800 grit, followed by stropping.

Just now I went through about 50 feet of cardboard box, without the need for stropping.

Not scientific in any way, edge retention seems certainly no worse at 30 vs. 40, I don't know if I could really say if edge retention was any better - it could be, but I didn't feel like cutting extra cardboard just for the heck of it.

It did, however, cut easier with less effort at the 30 degrees.

Looking at the edge afterwards, well -I've got 2 chips on the edge - I think this is due to me hitting a bunch of metal staples in the cardboard, and maybe hitting the concrete floor once or twice.
 
Mora2013 - your blade will cut! :D

(Please forgive me the "Forged in Fire" reference; I couldn't resist.)

Jeff
 
Pomsbz said:
I only have a sharpmaker and a strop. That's the thing, the knife is so cheap and other knives work so much better that I don't feel the drive to bother trying to force it to work. I did EDC it for 6 months but a SAK holds its edge far longer, cuts better and doesn't require workarounds when sharpening.
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What work around?
 
changing edge bevels to either 15° or 20° per side is pretty much required in order to use a Sharpmaker. I use a diamond hone for that, then switch to the Sharpmaker once the angles are matched.

In the DVD that comes with the Sharpmaker, Sal Glesser recommends 20° per side for most knives. (and says that he recognizes that this is a more acute angle than what is commonly found on knives.) I follow that advice for my kitchen knives and for other knives with steel in the 55 HRC realm. I use 15° for knives with blade steel in the 58-61 HRC realm. Case hardens their blades to 55, so they are sharpened to 20° per side. Buck hardens their blades to 58-59, so those get hardened to 15° per side.

The literature that came with my old Lansky crock stick, which I've had since the very early 80's, said that those rods were set for the "traditional knife angle" of 22 1/2° per side. That angle does make sense for being the traditional angle. By eye you can set 90°, then take half of that by eye to get 45°, then take half of that by eye, to get 22 1/2°.
 
I sharpen my TruSharp at a 40 degree inclusive angle. I tried 30 degrees, but ran into too many edge deformation issues on the very soft steel.
 
sticktodrum said:
If you want, I'll reprofile the edge on that for you, to 15 degrees per side. It'll make your Sharpmaker's angles more useful to you.
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Thank you Sir! I don't live in the US otherwise I'd take you up on it.

Buzzbait said:
I sharpen my TruSharp at a 40 degree inclusive angle. I tried 30 degrees, but ran into too many edge deformation issues on the very soft steel.
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This is the problem, earlier in the thread it was suggested that 30 inclusive would solve the problem of Trusharp but your experience says otherwise. In the meantime my Sodbuster Jr is probably going to stay in the cupboard. :(
 
Edge deformation issues will happen to the steel at 30° or 40° (or 50°, etc), as that's a function of the type of usage, and secondarily, the steel. Deformation at narrower geometry is visibly more noticeable; at wider geometry, it'll still happen, but just manifests itself in increased dullness, with the 'deformation' being a flattening or rounding of the apex, as opposed to rolling. That 'flattening' of the apex is what originally drove me nuts over softish steels (mid-50s HRC and lower) at 40° geometry, as they never even cut very impressively on their best day, and only got much worse with some use. That's when I finally started taking them narrower, with improved results. Point is, the edge will still cut better, even with some edge damage, when at narrower geometry. And with this particular steel, whatever deformation happens is still easier to fix at narrow angles. This is why kitchen knives in similarly 'soft' stainless are relatively easy to maintain at 30° and narrower edge angles by 'steeling' for long periods, before having to take them back to the stones. A slightly dulled 40° edge more often justs rounds off with much steeling over time. Ironically, that's because the thicker edge is more resistant to rolling, and therefore the realigning or 'unrolling' that makes maintenance by steeling work better, and for longer, with narrower geometry.


David
 
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A new slimline trapper I got had nice bevels, but had that rough edge left by the belt. I tried free handing with Sharpmaker brown stones to smooth it out as best I could. I pulled it through an end grain piece of pine to remove the wire edge. I can't see the wire edge with a 10X Loupe, but that might not be enough magnification.

I think Jason B recommends a coarse diamond stone followed by diamond paste on a balsa strop.
 
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