About a month ago, I had some spare dry ice after heat treat some stainless steel. Then I remembered that I had disassembled a Spyderco Para 3 LW in BD1N steel, and I haven't assemble it yet. I know that sub-zero treating stainless steel before tempering will (usually) increase the hardness about 1HRC. But I could not find any information regarding sub zero AFTER tempering. So out of curiousity, I throw the blade in for an hour to see what happens.
I find that after that little testing, it's much, much harder to sharpen the knife to a sharp edge. Not in a sense that it's more abrasion resistant: comparing with 420HC, D2 and M390, it's about as abrasion resistant as 420HC, a bit less than D2 and much less than M390. I just can't sharpen it to a sharp edge.
I follow all the sharpening steps: forming the burr on one side, apexing, de-burr. But still dull.
Maybe my sharpening is off, so I tried and sharpen other knives, but they get sharp, just as usuall, so it's not my sharpening.
I remembered that Outdoors55 once said something along the line of : poorly heat treated steel can't hold a edge, it'll crumble under it's own weight. Is this what happened to my BD1N?
I find that after that little testing, it's much, much harder to sharpen the knife to a sharp edge. Not in a sense that it's more abrasion resistant: comparing with 420HC, D2 and M390, it's about as abrasion resistant as 420HC, a bit less than D2 and much less than M390. I just can't sharpen it to a sharp edge.
I follow all the sharpening steps: forming the burr on one side, apexing, de-burr. But still dull.
Maybe my sharpening is off, so I tried and sharpen other knives, but they get sharp, just as usuall, so it's not my sharpening.
I remembered that Outdoors55 once said something along the line of : poorly heat treated steel can't hold a edge, it'll crumble under it's own weight. Is this what happened to my BD1N?
