D2 Hatred!

El Bandit0

El Bandit0

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Yesterday I went to the local range with a few buddies to sight in a VEPR-308, an AR, and put a few rounds through an obnoxious AK pistol for shins&grins. One of my buddies asked me to sharpen his BM 710SBK and thin out the factory edge. I tried ceramic sticks, diamond rods, a Silicon Carbide benchstone, strops, EVERYTHING! I worked on it for about 45 minutes and was hardly able to scratch the actual edge bevel, only managed to round off the shoulders a wee bit and wear away some of the cerakote along the edge bevel. Very frustrated and told him to send it in for warranty sharpening and maybe check for over-hardening. I have never had a blade that was so wear-resistant, even the Elmax on my ZT 0561 was easier to work with! Anyone else have this problem with Benchmade D2 or is this an oddity?
 
Nothing to do with overhardening I'm afraid. Just sounds more like a lack of patience and experience. There are lots of variables, don't know your skill level at sharpening, don't know the age of your stones, or how worn they are, technique, etc. d2 holds an edge for a really long time, and it's not much harder to sharpen at all than S30V.
 
Diamond hones work best on D2 and kissing cousins like S30V. I start with an ultra-coarse DMT, then work up through regular (red) and fine (green). D2 doesn't need a polished edge, though; some feel it cuts better with a coarser edge. It does take longer to hone D2 than some other steels, and the the burr can be persistent. An angle guide is useful for setting the bevel.
 
D2 is not particulairly hard stuff to work with , sounds to me like you were working at too steep of an angle and not getting to the edge of the edge. Did you check your angles with a sharpie..?
 
RevDevil said:
Nothing to do with overhardening I'm afraid. Just sounds more like a lack of patience and experience. There are lots of variables, don't know your skill level at sharpening, don't know the age of your stones, or how worn they are, technique, etc. d2 holds an edge for a really long time, and it's not much harder to sharpen at all than S30V.
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I agree.
 
I like D2 and find it very easy to sharpen and is not prone to chipping.
 
I sharpened 15 blades of cpm d2 @61rc from no edge at all. They were ones I made and had about a .020" flat edge. I profiled them all on my wicked edge, it took about an hour a blade.
 
I have the same knife (BM 710-SBK; black D2 combo-edge). If that one is like mine, the combination of D2 and the thick blade grind are causing most of the headaches. A large coarse or XC diamond bench hone would really speed things up. D2 is pretty easy to maintain & touch-up on silicon carbide, aluminum oxide or ceramics; but thinning, re-bevelling or otherwise doing much heavy grinding on a thick wear-resistant edge can be very slow with anything other than a good diamond bench hone of decent abrasive surface area. Makes all the difference in the world.


David
 
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The one blade I've sharpened in D2 was a Benchmade 156 that had been through two tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and never sharpened in that time. It was in very rough shape and required a lot of work. I spent around 5 hours fixing that blade using waterstones, starting with a Nubatama 150. Since it's the only D2 blade I've done, and I only used waterstones, I'm not sure how it compares. But I can tell you that it was a fight most of the way. It's the most wear resistant steel I've worked on, for a large job.

Brian.
 
Takes me hours when rebeveling knives, especially when the lowest grit available was a coarse DMT 2x6 plate.
 
Sadden said:
D2 is not particulairly hard stuff to work with , sounds to me like you were working at too steep of an angle and not getting to the edge of the edge. Did you check your angles with a sharpie..?
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This was happening to me for quite a while before I realized it,sometimes we misjudge the angle that we are keeping the blade ,I finally started using a sharpie on the edge and sharpening has been a lot easier since then.
 
I just finished putting an edge on a BK24 straight out of the box, using my Washboard - took about 15 minutes to lower the inclusive a few degrees using 180 grit wet/dry, and less than 10 minutes each on 320 and 600. Finished on SiC compound on paper and it was frightful sharp. This is my first try at D2, really like it! Took some micrographs thinking it would be interesting to discover if the vaunted 3-4u carbides could be seen in person.
 

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I sold all my D2 blades for this reason. To much time needed to sharpen properly and I could never make it happen.
 
I'll admit, d2 has been difficult to work with for me. I've only had experience with one d2 fixed blade and had to re-flat grind the entire knife, spine to edge. I tried sandpaper, a Norton SiC and diamond stones. It took a number of hours.

After that I ended up applying the final edge with my grinder. Far easier that way than with anything else I was trying.

I like it because it has excellent wear characteristics, yet will take an, admittedly light, forced patina.

I'd search for a knife I liked in m4 though since it (imo) exceeds all qualities that d2 displays and is far easier for me to sharpen. That doesn't really help you though.

The others have given some good advice. :)
 
To clarify a bit, I used a Norton SiC benchstone for most of the work, I believe my diamond rods were too fine as they hardly removed any steel. I was intentionally hitting the shoulder of the edge bevel as the edge itself was- as Obsessed pointed out- way too thick. Rev, my SiC stone is nowhere near flat, but has worked fine in the past. I usually scrub it out with comet cleaning powder multiple times during sharpening as it tends to load very quickly. I use it with either water or windex usually, but was sharpening dry this time, probably didn't help much. I'll be the first to admit I am NOT a pro at sharpening, only been doing decent freehand work for about two years or so, but I reprofile most of my own blades and regularly apply convex edges with the mousepad/sandpaper method. With the tools I had, I spent approximately six hours on my last big reprofiling on the 0561, thinning and convexing the edge and applying a mirror finish down to 1 Micron lapping film. Thank y'all for the info and advice, I have a lot to think about now!
 
El Bandit0 said:
To clarify a bit, I used a Norton SiC benchstone for most of the work, I believe my diamond rods were too fine as they hardly removed any steel. I was intentionally hitting the shoulder of the edge bevel as the edge itself was- as Obsessed pointed out- way too thick. Rev, my SiC stone is nowhere near flat, but has worked fine in the past. I usually scrub it out with comet cleaning powder multiple times during sharpening as it tends to load very quickly. I use it with either water or windex usually, but was sharpening dry this time, probably didn't help much. I'll be the first to admit I am NOT a pro at sharpening, only been doing decent freehand work for about two years or so, but I reprofile most of my own blades and regularly apply convex edges with the mousepad/sandpaper method. With the tools I had, I spent approximately six hours on my last big reprofiling on the 0561, thinning and convexing the edge and applying a mirror finish down to 1 Micron lapping film. Thank y'all for the info and advice, I have a lot to think about now!
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Flattening that stone and using some oil will make a world of difference on tougher steels, your Norton benchstone is an ideal tool for the job. The SIC fractures down rapidly when facing stuff like D2 and will load up and glaze in minutes, slowing grinding to a crawl. Used with a lube and oil in particular it will keep grinding pretty aggressively - the oil promotes a breakdown of the vitreous bond and fresh abrasive is exposed faster.
In addition to sharpening my BK24 on my WB, I also used a Norton Econo stone to grind the drop point into a bit of a clip. Didn't take a ton of stock off the spine, but enough to make a difference. Kept the surface a little muddy with mineral oil and it cut right in.
 
I rebevelled my BM 710D-2 on my Edge-Pro with water stones and put a shaving edge on it easily.
 
You should be doing that with a six pack. Take your time. I think its just a lack in experience. Smile and continue.
I use a DMT extra coarse for changing a final edge grind. Very carefully it takes about an hour on Elmax, CPM 154 as of lately. And that is with extra coarse and a smooth light handed technique. Not including then working to ceramics to finish.
 
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I've used Norton SiC stones dry and they tend to clog/glaze very quickly and once they are glazed they seem to polish rather then cut the steel. The good news is that these stones are very easy to fix by flattening them on your concrete sidewalk, just wet the sidewalk and rub your stone against it until its flat. If you don't want to go through all that another option is to pick up a coarse diamond stone, knifecenter has some 8in Lansky stones on sale for only $16 right now.
 
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