Cold Steel Serrations Surpass My Expectations

C

Confederate

Joined
Sep 5, 2005
Messages
2,826
Well, I finally had to do it. The floorboards of my wife's rental condo squeak and the downstairs neighbor makes it difficult to rent the place out. She's been a nightmare for the tenants, calling them on the phone or confronting them coming in or out of the building. Anyway, my job today was to cut away the old carpet and drill holes and insert screws along the wood floors to try to hold down the squeaking. This required cutting a lot of carpet, which my wife would roll up and carry away.

I used an old 5-inch Cold Steel Vaquero for the job and was prepared for the worst. I mean, I expected broken teeth, a dull blade and more wear and tear than I care to put on any of my beloved folders. But after two days of cutting carpet, it took only about 15 minutes to get back to maximum sharpness, and I did it with a Lansky dogbone sharpener while watching TV.

Not only was cutting the carpet remarkably easy, I didn't have to keep sharpening the blade as I did when cutting carpet a few years ago with a plain edged knife. Just lift and cut. Anyway, all the teeth survived and my Vaquero did the work admirably. I've always considered carpet cutting one of the most grueling jobs for a knife and didn't know how it would turn out. The blade was an AUS8A blade, too.

I'm not going to make a habit of using it on carpet, but I am happy to see that it did the job so well and so long without the wear I was expecting. I can see where serrations of any kind might actually have a legitimate place on a knife. Still, I don't like a lot of those overly bumpy patterns. Anyway, :thumbup: on a job well done.

(/BTW, the only reason I agreed to do it was that my wife promised me that she'd get me a new knife if anything happened to my CS. It was a reasonable offer, but she doesn't have to get me a new knife. Not yet, anyway.)
 
That's where serrations excel in my experience. Times when you are doing a lot of cutting and know you will dull your blade. A dull SE cuts better than a dull PE. However, if you're like me and carry sandpaper in your wallet so your knives are never dull... ;)
 
Yep, but the small serrations on the CS ripped through that carpet like it was nothing.

Then, afterwards, it cut paper straightly. I would have hated to try cutting that carpet with my CRKT chisel grind knife! It's barely sharp when it's sharp.

Pocket sharpeners like the Lansky dogbone are nice to have. Some of the other X sharpeners I've tried get so packed with black steel that I can't do a lot of sharpening before it needs washing.

Sharpener_2.jpg
 
CS serrations do cut pretty good, only con to 'em imho is man it is hard to sharpen them, i had to sharpen one of the big ones (vaquero grande) for a bud a while back and it took a while lol.
 
I was thinking about getting one of those medium sized Vaqueros from Cold Steel (well, any serrated blade from CS to be fair...) as they seem well priced. I was worried about being unable to sharpen such a small serrations with a Sharpmaker. Any of you have tried to do so? Did you managed to get them sharp again?

Mikel
 
SIFU1A said:
CS serrations do cut pretty good, only con to 'em imho is man it is hard to sharpen them, i had to sharpen one of the big ones (vaquero grande) for a bud a while back and it took a while lol.
Click to expand...

After getting an edgepro I tried out their recommended sharpening method for serrations, and it worked excellently on my spydercos. I'd wager it'd work even better with the cold steel serrations. Best part is you can do it even if you don't have an edgepro, though it's makes it really easy and you're guaranteed a perfect edge with it. Before I got one I tried this out freehand and got servicable but generally poor results, I always sharpened at too steep an angle. All you gotta do is sharpen on the side opposite the serration grinds, trick is you need to do it at a very low angle, almost flat to the blade.
 
My experience with Cold Steel serrations (I habitually carry an X2 Voyager as my EDC) is that the smaller sections of serrations are a $#!#^ to sharpen, but do cut well. After using the blade for some tougher tasks, a few of the fine-pointed sections of serrations have bent, broken, or chipped.

While in such a large blade like the X2 Voyager or the Vaquero Grande, in a smaller blade I much prefer the design of Spyderco's SpyderEdge. My SE Military cuts much more smoothly than the teeth of Lynn's patterns.

Both are effective, just my input. :)

God bless.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top