Ease of sharpening???

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Maximumbob54

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Looking at charts showing how Edge holding, toughness, corrosion, and ease or sharpening. Edge holding makes sense, how long will a blade cut until it doesn't. Toughness makes sense, how much of an impact can the steel take before it's damaged. Corrosion, does it rust or not and how easy.

But "ease of sharpening"...

Is this being judged by if you can sharpen with only the oldest methods? Aluminum oxide, Arkansas stones, bottom of the coffee mug??? I get it, it's fascinating to be able to pull out your Case knife and sharpening it over the top of your truck window. But we've had quality ceramics and diamond hones and more for quite a while now. I remember avoiding "super steels" because of all the talk of them being so difficult to sharpen. And then I upgraded to a kit with diamond plate hones. Now I've tackled Maxamet, S110V, and more and found them to be "easy" to sharpen as long as I'm using the right hones.

BladeHQ has a nifty chart:


quoted from BladeHQ:

Ease of Sharpening​

"Ease of sharpening refers to how difficult it is to remove material with a sharpening stone. Wear resistance, be it high or low, is the most significant determining factor in ease of sharpening. Other factors include how thick your edge is, how dull your knife was at the start, the nature of the heat treatment, and what you’re using to sharpen your knife. The ratings in this article rate ease of sharpening primarily based on wear resistance, but if a knife is difficult to sharpen, there may be other factors in play."

Once again, even mighty Maxamet felt easy to sharpen using diamond hones. S110V felt like I was just sharpening Buck's 420HC. It just feels like unless you are trying to sharpen a very soft steel then I don't know why you would want to stick with the oldest sharpening stones besides the novelty of it. But should a steel only be listed as easy to sharpen if you can pluck out a river rock and sharpen with it???
 
There's the wear resistance to each steel then there's the abrasives being used, size, bevel length, edge thickness... then there's the skill of the person sharpening, be it freehand or using a fixed angle system.... Ease of sharpening is a blanket term made up of MANY subjective factors. For example I find M4 and K390 very easy to sharpen and maintain, but for a novice those steels will be a nightmare.
 
As a kid in the 1950s I had only dished-out carborundum stones -- although there was a hard Arkansas bench stone in my great-uncle's tool chest, which I didn't know how to use (I still have it). Buck's soft Arkansas stones were an improvement, though they didn't work all that well with some of the newer steels coming along 25-30 years ago. Diamond hones have made it possible to sharpen any steel with relative ease. I prefer sharpening freehand, using an angle guide occasionally when I've messed up a bevel enough.
 
I have nothing against new super steels... I own several. But I prefer old steels that I can sharpen on stones from a creek bed. Sometimes, I actually need to do that. 1095, 12C27 and 14C28N are my favorites.

That's just my personal opinion, and I respect other views. There is no one right steel for everyone. Buy, use and sharpen the steels you prefer.
 
I bet it was meant to be comparative. For example VG-10 will be a lot easier to sharpen than ZDP-189
 
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No need to pick a side. I like them all. Understanding what is necessary for sharpening a high carbide steel makes it a breeze. So is O1 or 52100 on any stone, provided it has the proper heat treatment.
 
Once again, even mighty Maxamet felt easy to sharpen using diamond hones
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Yes, exactly. I just did some major sharpening angle change (?reprofiling?) on REX121and then mirror polish and I still catch myself thinking : that was quick and easy. The thing is now so sharp it is somewhat treetopping and no strop.
Shoutout to Diemaker's 4000 diamond Matrix stone.

At the opposite end of the spectrum :
1 ) . I will say I have been screwing around with a (black) Spyderco Salt in H2, just before I got the Rex121.
I keep reading about how fantastic H1 (H2 now) is and so I was determined to spend some serious time using and sharpening it. 🤓
Took the whole blade down to 1.8mm and full flat, and they said it couldn't be done, laid that sharpening angle way back'er.
Just to take things as far as I could; easy enough to add a couple of degrees at the edge if she rolls over too easy . . .
Besides rust resistance TOUGHNESS is what this steel is about. So far it cuts well and DOES NOT roll.

2 ) .You should try my Spyderco Squeak in N690; took a bit of edge tuning like that (see Murry Carter's YouTube on super thin / tuned edges = Western vs Eastern kitchen knives). That Squeak will slice the eye lids off a mosquito from across the room; was just a pocket fidget toy before the mod. Edge angle was way too obtuse and thick behind the edge / simply would not cut or hold an edge for a day of moderate use. She did roll over and roll over and bad / hard to get rid of wire edges until I hit the sweat spot with very gradual edge angle increases.

But I digress.

Back to # 1 above . . .
My point is that Spyderco Salt is now a very useful slicer for more every day / finer work and can be touched up with nearly any thing at hand : denim pant leg, back of a cardboard tablet. Sure it wouldn't be my first choice now to dig my way out of a submerged ship wreck but I don't do that as often as other folks.

Some times easy to sharpen (on the spot) is fun.
Some times cuts abrasive stuff all week without a touch up is fun (but needs to visit the evil diamond lair on the weekend) .
I just like it all. 🤷‍♂️
But no, I won't be giving away my REX121.

edited to add:
Squeak in N690; took a bit of edge tuning . . . She did roll over and roll over and bad / hard to get rid of wire edges until I hit the sweat spot with very gradual edge angle increases.
 
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Ease of sharpening is very tied to what you're sharpening it on. Anyone who owns a Maxamet or S110V or ZDP-189 knife knows this. It's not just "use diamonds or CBN," but which stone from within that category you pick.

There's no one ease of sharpening rating for a given steel. It can depend a lot on heat treat. There's one kitchen knife maker whose VG-10 is very easy to sharpen on a wide variety of stones. For most others, VG-10 is not that easy because it can take quite a while to eliminate the burr.
 
I include 'ease of refinement' as a bigger factor in overall 'ease of sharpening'. Ease of simple grinding, i.e., removing metal quickly, is much more fundamentally simple in just selecting the appropriate grit type & size for the job. Steels like D2 or S30V can be maddeningly disappointing if you're trying to reprofile on natural stones or many aluminum oxide stones. But swap those out for silicon carbide or diamond/cbn, and suddenly they become stupid simple to grind into shape.

But in refinement, even 'simple' steels with low wear resistance can present all kinds of tedious issues, like stubborn burrs that don't clean up easily. Or steels that don't produce an obvious burr (ZDP-189 at high hardness comes to mind), making it tricky to know if you've fully apexed or not. Or poor heat treat, which leaves the edge too flimsy or too chippy if it's thinned past a certain threshold. Poorly heat-treated steels or heat-damaged steels make it difficult to attain hair-popping edges that are also strong enough to retain sharpness and tough enough to be durable. Those are the ones that've really had me pulling my hair out at times.
 
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Simple carbon or low alloy carbon is the easiest for me especially ran at higher hardness in low sixties or so.

I don't need anything that holds an edge any better either.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Steels like D2 or S30V can be maddeningly disappointing if you're trying to reprofile on natural stones or many aluminum oxide stones. But swap those out for silicon carbide or diamond/cbn, and suddenly they become stupid simple to grind into shape.
Click to expand...

That is 100% my point.

Obsessed with Edges said:
But in refinement, even 'simple' steels with low wear resistance can present all kinds of tedious issues, like stubborn burrs that don't clean up easily.
Click to expand...

I've not had this issue. I just use diamond to the finest and clean that up with fine ceramic.

Obsessed with Edges said:
Poorly heat-treated steels or heat-damaged steels
Click to expand...

It galls me to throw away a knife but I'm not keeping trashed steel. If I can't get a reblade then it's dumpster bait.
 
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