Easy Sharpening Steels?

J

jcrim007

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Sep 4, 2003
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Looking for a new EDC knife. Have a pretty narrow list of knives, but i want to check which steels are best for sharpening, before deciding on EDC knife.

I will be using a Spydie Sharpmaker 204mf!

I want; easy, fast, edge holding steels...chip resistant too!

Anyone got a list, or any suggestions?

Thanks,
 
Any Spyderco knife in S30V steel. Their knives are beveled correctly from the factory , & all you need to do for maintainance is touch up the microbevel on your sharpmaker from time to time,(white stones). Just do a search on S30V steel & you'll see. Having the knife ground correctly right out of the box makes it a breeze to keep sharp. Let us know what ya get :)
 
The easiest blades to sharpen are relatively simple carbon steels or non-stainless alloys with some vanadium in them. You could look at the Cold Steel Trail Guide with carbon-V alloy blade.

In stainless steel the thing to remember is that the more chrome or molybdenum you have in the alloy the harder it is to sharpen. Sandvic 12C27 is a simple stainless that is easy to sharpen. Alloys with a little vanadium tend to be fine grained and easy to sharpen. AUS-6 and AUS-8 fall into this category. AUS-8 holds an edge better than AUS-6. A step up from this in performance is VG-10 which is used in several Spyderco knives. It is similar to AUS-10. Fine grained, but with enough carbon and vanadium to get hard and resist wear well. I think that VG-10 is your best choice, but you may find a real bargain on an AUS-8 bladed knife.

Non-stainless Alloys that are harder to sharpen include D2 or M2 tool steels. Troublesome stainless includes 440A, 440B, 440C with excessive chromium and ATS-34, 154CM with a lot of molybdenum. These can be sharpened, but it takes significantly more effort. It helps if you have a diamond grit hone for these.
 
thanks for the replies thus far...

i am looking to get a S30V to put in my pocket, but i don't know yet. gonna have to go browse around at different stores/shops in the future.

this (posting) is good stuff though, and you can bet i will consult it while considering the new EDC.

thanks again.

anyone got anything to add?
 
well, i think i really want a BM 551. and that is 440c steel. i know that jeff clark says it is tuff to sharpen, but i can't pass it up. seems to be a lot of people's favorite knife, so i can't imagine that it is too difficult to sharpen.

thanks for the replies.
 
In my experience, 440C is not at all difficult to sharpen (much easier than S30V) and it's a pretty decent steel.
 
Even tough-to-sharpen steels aren't difficult to re-sharpen if they come from the factory with a decently thin edge. That puts Spyderco right at the top of your list. I think most of the 'tough to sharpen' posts about certain steels are more like 'edge way too thick' posts about certain knives. Even a very wear resistant steel like D2 isn't hard to sharpen as long as the edge isn't too thick, because you're not removing much metal. With that in mind I can recommend just about any Spyderco, a Sebenza, some Benchmades, and definitely the Buck/Mayo collaboration in S30V. I haven't seen the new Camillus Dominator yet, but my experience with the EDC has been that the edge is ground way too thick. Once it's thinned out it's a great knife, but getting to that point is a lot of work that shouldn't be necessary. That's my perspective on the hard to sharpen debate.
 
I've chipped out the edge on a Griptilian more than once, and they've been pretty easy to sharpen out. 440C's easy to sharpen, but holds quite a nice clean edge.

I've had trouble sharpening D2, though.
 
jcrim007,

For a very long time 440C was a knifemakers dream, extremely stain resistant, tough and easy to sharpen. Then came ATS-34 and 154CM, can be made harder, better edge retention but harder to heat treat, poor treat results in chipping. Now we advance to the CPM or S steels, the advantage is in material content control and fine grain, disadvantage is in complicated heat treat, can be hard to sharpen and price.

I wish there were more knives produced using VG-10, like Mr Clark, I think that this steel is excellent in the "bang for the buck" catagory. Very stain resistant, extremely fine grained and fairly tough, a VG-10 blade may surprise you (pretty easy to sharpen too).

All sharpening problems can be solved with diamond stones, I almost never use them, but when needed they WILL cut ANY steel. Use diamonds with care....then your 204.

Examine your budget, decide what you want, then pick the best you can afford.

Have fun!


Steve-O
 
I've found 1095 and 1084 to be extremely easy steels to sharpen. The only problem lies in that most people won't make folders from it because it's not usually available in precision ground and it's also not really stain resistant at all (far from today's super steels in just about every regard). For some reason I just have a soft spot for O-1 and 10## steels.

If you're looking for folders though, 8A and 440C are pretty decent steels and sharpen up real quick. If I were to ever get into CPM steels, I'd strongly suggest you invest in an Edge Pro sharpening system. The coarse stone puts a gritty sharp edge about 5X as fast as any other system I've tried, with the most consistent results ever, everything looked better than factory edge on that thing.

I've tried a Sharpmaker type system, and it just didn't go fast enough. It might not be a huge problem if you maintain your edge after every couple uses, especially since the new tough super steels don't wear easily. Consistent maintenance would be key. The only problem is that the Sharpmaker doesn't have a whole lot of angles available (20 and 15 degrees I think, it's been a while), so you got to do a little bit guesswork to match it to your factory edge, or take an hour or more to re-angle it.

ATS-34/154CM isn't really all that bad, though it's noticeably more difficult to sharpen than 440C or 8A if you let it get really out of shape.

Regards
 
For ease of sharpening combined with sheer cutting ability, my sweet spot is for the carbon tool steels - O-1, 1095, 1084. With good HT, these hold an edge extremely well and have all the toughness and performance you could want. EXCEPT the stain resistance.

For stainless steels, or rather high-alloy stainless steels, 440C and ATS-34 shouldn't be a problem. The Swedish particulate metallurgy steel RWL-34 (identical in composition to ATS-34) is my personal favourite. As someone has mentioned, the issue with many knives is in getting one where the grind and bevels are well thought out and the steel behind the edge is not too thick.

For field sharpening, the diamond sharpeners will make easy work of anything tougher and more wear resistant than ATS-34. I find good old stones to still work well enough on ATS-34. I guess it depends what your limits are.

The CPM's, esp 420V/S90V and 440V S60V are absolute bastards to sharpen, but like the other high-tech steels - BG42, VG10, some makers have started to use the lower end of the hardness spectrum to prevent the problem of chipping and brittleness.

My 2cents.
 
I love benchmades 440C on the 42 and the griptilian. edge does not last quite as long as 154CM or ATS34 but it gets very very close. plus you dont have to worry if it goes a while between sharpenings cause it is soft enought to sharpen quickly but stays sharp for a great amount of time for how easy it is to sharpen.

Hope this helps, Hydraulicman
 
I have never had a problem with this on any knife... I don't know what you folks are talking about. and I hammerd (literaly)the heck out of the griptilian blade. (messed up the serrations useing a dmt taperd rod type deal) and although i dented the heck out of the edge it never chiped , I clameped a vice grips on the serrations and snaped some off but it took quite a bit of force. as for the tip , I could throw it into a hard wood block from about 5 feet away and it never bent or broke.

Hope this helps,

Ps i cannot recomend throwing the knife to anyone I do not recomend that you do it
 
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