Cts-xhp

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Robert Ptacek

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Oct 8, 2013
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308
I have been thinking about picking up a Recon 1 and wondering how hard it is to sharpen?They say it is "stainless D2" and you hear about all the trouble people have sharpening it.I plan to reprofile it on a coarse benchstone and finish on my Sharpmaker.What say you?
 
You can do it on the SM but diamonds make the process a much happier experience.
 
Easier to sharpen than S30V. Responds best to diamond hones. Judging by my American Lawman, you won't have to do much re-profiling if any. Great steel. CS knives are cutters. The Tri-Ad lock was stiff at first but smoothed out after a few hundred openings. A tiny bit of lube helps, plus you can adjust the pivot. Had to take the clip off and bend it out a bit as it was too tight.
 
Cold Steel generally uses a thin (20-degrees on each side) edge on most of their folders.

They will cut really well.

The exception to this is the Swift, as it has a saber-grind and is thicker behind the edge than the others in their line-up.
 
Diamond for best results. Silicon carbide abrasive paper works reasonably well too. Standard Lansky hones skips over my Talwar XL edges hardly doing much.
 
Sharpens and strops easily. I don't know, not much of a difference from their AUS8 in terms of difficulty to sharpen.
 
I havent noticed it being any harder to sharpen than any of the "super" steels. I guess its all relative though. Normally im using diamonds though or reprofiles and sharpmaker on touch ups. i havent tried to reprofile it yet. Only touching it up so far.
 
Responds great on my leather strop with green polish...have cut up tons of boxes and haven't had to put it on the sharpmaker yet. Seems to take a keener edge on the strop than my S30V knives. Really like this steel!
 
I purchased the cts-xhp american lawman mini from the jungle sight and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the edge retention department. I'm wondering if I got a counterfeit because the factory edge was mediocre so I reprofiled it and after cutting up plastic wrap, zip ties, boxes and once accidentally, lightly running it over staples it won't even cut paper. The Cs products I've owned in the past with aus8 out perform this.
 
jbmonkey said:
I havent noticed it being any harder to sharpen than any of the "super" steels. I guess its all relative though. Normally im using diamonds though or reprofiles and sharpmaker on touch ups. i havent tried to reprofile it yet. Only touching it up so far.
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I use Japanese Water Stones, and the edges polish up, and pop hair just as easily as anything else I put to them.
 
ChrisJS1 said:
I purchased the cts-xhp american lawman mini from the jungle sight and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in the edge retention department. I'm wondering if I got a counterfeit because the factory edge was mediocre so I reprofiled it and after cutting up plastic wrap, zip ties, boxes and once accidentally, lightly running it over staples it won't even cut paper. The Cs products I've owned in the past with aus8 out perform this.
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The final sharpening for almost all brands of knives is very easy to mess up because they are using powered sharpeners.

This is usually a paper wheel with some kind of polishing compound applied to it.

It is very easy for them to overheat the blade and burn the edge. Or even get a wire edge from uneven sharpening of the blade too.

Then when you go to use the knife, the edge goes dull real quick.

This why a lot of experienced knife users and collectors will sharpen a knife, brand new, right out of the box.

Also, cutting zip ties and lightly hitting staples by accident can be rough on an edge too.
 
I'm actually not sure what's the deal with the diamond stone etc.. i've been free hand sharpening all my knives using the standard spyderco sharp maker stone, the brown one and the white one and it's been working great for all steels, including M390 and CPM20CV which is supposedly the most wear resistant steel in my collection. So yeah, IMO good quality ceramic stone is all you need...
 
hkyew said:
I'm actually not sure what's the deal with the diamond stone etc.. i've been free hand sharpening all my knives using the standard spyderco sharp maker stone, the brown one and the white one and it's been working great for all steels, including M390 and CPM20CV which is supposedly the most wear resistant steel in my collection. So yeah, IMO good quality ceramic stone is all you need...
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Aren't they the same?
 
Jonslaught said:
Aren't they the same?
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Yeah they are, M390 is from my Benchmade 710-1401 and CTS-204P(my bad, not 20CV, see, they are the same that's why i got mixed up) is from my ZT0562CF.
They aren't particularly harder/easier to sharpen actually, they only thing is that they don't form a burr at all so you can't really strop it with the green/black compound. In fact in my experience you are actually gonna dull the knife if you strop it. This is because the Chromium Oxide(from the compound) is gonna remove the softer medal leaving the harder carbides behind as toothy edge..
 
I couldn't find a more applicable thread, so I'll ask here. I recently got a Talwar XL that was advertised as the new CTS-XHP version. I trust the dealer's information, but there is no marking on the blade or box that explicitly says that it's the new version. I do think I heard that the first batch didn't have a marking. Is this true? Is there any way to confirm it is CTS-XHP?
 
ALLHSS said:
I couldn't find a more applicable thread, so I'll ask here. I recently got a Talwar XL that was advertised as the new CTS-XHP version. I trust the dealer's information, but there is no marking on the blade or box that explicitly says that it's the new version. I do think I heard that the first batch didn't have a marking. Is this true? Is there any way to confirm it is CTS-XHP?
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i think in this case there is probably only 3 options:
1. use it to find out, as the difference in the edge holding ability should be big enough to tell the difference.
2. return it and buy a new one and explicitly ask for the one with XHP marking
3. send it to CS and they can probably tell you which model this is.

Also, there are minor change in the lockbar pin location in many of 2015 models, not sure if Talwar XL is one of them. You can find a picture of a pre 2015 version of the XL talwar online and compare it with your knife. If the pin location is different, then you may have newer one.

This is why I only buy the black coated version of 2015 models as the DLC coating is day and night from the old teflon coating.
 
hkyew said:
i think in this case there is probably only 3 options:
1. use it to find out, as the difference in the edge holding ability should be big enough to tell the difference.
2. return it and buy a new one and explicitly ask for the one with XHP marking
3. send it to CS and they can probably tell you which model this is.

Also, there are minor change in the lockbar pin location in many of 2015 models, not sure if Talwar XL is one of them. You can find a picture of a pre 2015 version of the XL talwar online and compare it with your knife. If the pin location is different, then you may have newer one.

This is why I only buy the black coated version of 2015 models as the DLC coating is day and night from the old teflon coating.
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Thanks for the suggestions!

I don't want to return it, as it was the last in stock and it was at a really great discount price. I did call to make sure, but the person I spoke to didn't know (I don't think they were an owner, or knife person). However, I don't think this dealer would have misnamed or misrepresented the listing.

I'd also prefer not to send it in, as I don't have experience with Cold Steel's warranty department.

I'd like to look into the pin placement method, but haven't had much luck seeing the difference.
 
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