How Difficult Is 20cv to Sharpen (and Live With)?

Mister Coffee said:
Anybody care to recommend a good diamond paste/spray/emulsion? Thanks.
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I've tried a few, and the ones I like best are the CBN emulsions from KME, but they're pricey.

I'd defer to BBB's expertise as he's tried many more. You can check his recommendations here:

Recommendation? - Brand of 1 micron diamond spray?

Hi Blade Forums brothers and sisters. Any thoughts on brands is appreciated. Most of my blades I sharpen with a DMT Coarse/Fine bench stone. Next I have been using a strop (not a Razor Strop) with some generic green compound. It makes a little difference but I want to try one more thing that...
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Mister Coffee said:
Anybody care to recommend a good diamond paste/spray/emulsion? Thanks.
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The KME Emulsion's that were mentioned by another poster were made by Ken Schwartz and Ken has since passed away.

The best emulsion I have found is Gunny Juice it cut's a lot faster then any other diamond emulsion or diamond paste.

Gunny Juice use's diamonds and fluids that have been deionized and the reason for that is because particle's as small as 1 micron attract to each other and clump and basically make a bigger particle.

I use Gunny Juice on Basswood that I get from hobby lobby and it's more durable then leather and balsa but not so hard the emulsion and diamonds can't penetrate the basswod.

https://www.gritomatic.com/products...2&_sid=d23f9b124&_ss=r&variant=33189376786541
 
Man, I've seen a lot of good feedback for Gunny Juice, but I'm not feeling it. I've got the 3 and .5 micron and find it just okay.
 
3D Anvil said:
Man, I've seen a lot of good feedback for Gunny Juice, but I'm not feeling it. I've got the 3 and .5 micron and find it just okay.
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What is it about Gunny Juice that you don't like.

I know found me the last 2 times I got emulsion from Ken Schwartz it sucked really bad and didn't seem like it was cutting at all,I know a lot of other people reached out to me on facebook and asked me if I was having problems with it and told me they were as well.

What are you using Gunny Juice on and what are you going for mirror polish or just a deburred edge.
 
wade7575 said:
What is it about Gunny Juice that you don't like.

I know found me the last 2 times I got emulsion from Ken Schwartz it sucked really bad and didn't seem like it was cutting at all,I know a lot of other people reached out to me on facebook and asked me if I was having problems with it and told me they were as well.

What are you using Gunny Juice on and what are you going for mirror polish or just a deburred edge.
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It's not that I dislike Gunny Juice--it's just that I find it *okay* and not meeting the hype. I've used it on everything from Henckels stainless to Maxamet, and many in between. I've used it for mirror edges as well as for edge touch ups. The only apples-to-apples comparison I can do is the Gunny .5 vs the KME/Schwartz .5. Between the two it isn't close. The KME emulsion cuts faster and leaves a brighter polish. I bought the KME emulsion maybe six months ago, so perhaps more recent batches have been inferior. I did recently buy a bottle of the KME .1 micron and, tbh, I don't see much difference between it and the .5.
 
3D Anvil said:
It's not that I dislike Gunny Juice--it's just that I find it *okay* and not meeting the hype. I've used it on everything from Henckels stainless to Maxamet, and many in between. I've used it for mirror edges as well as for edge touch ups. The only apples-to-apples comparison I can do is the Gunny .5 vs the KME/Schwartz .5. Between the two it isn't close. The KME emulsion cuts faster and leaves a brighter polish. I bought the KME emulsion maybe six months ago, so perhaps more recent batches have been inferior. I did recently buy a bottle of the KME .1 micron and, tbh, I don't see much difference between it and the .5.
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I found the way that Gunny Juice takes a bit to absorb into wood or leather effect's how much diamond goes on the first time because you need to put in on a lighter coat the first time.

I have found if you apply Gunny Juice on a brand new strop you need to reapply it because the first coat is lighter.

If you have noticed that Gunny Juice doesn't absorb in very fast that's an effect of the fluid being deionized.
 
I carry a Hinderer every day, usually in M390 and occasionally in 20CV. Both take hair popping edges. The first step is setting a bevel on a DMT Coarse, which is 325 grit. Use some real pressure and a only two to four passes are needed to reset a nice bevel. I really lean into it.

Then, believe it or not, what I found works best is a Dan’s Soft Arkansas to clean up the apex, followed by a Dan’s Black Arkansas.

Use a light careful touch on the Arks, this step is cleaning up and refining the apex. Food grade mineral oil from the grocery store is the lubricant.

That’s it, no strop. The Arks take the place of the strop.

The Arks shouldn’t work on M390/20cv, but they do, and produce a fantastic edge. I stumbled onto trying them, when I was struggling to put an edge on my first Hinderer and nothing seemed to produce really great edges including Atoma plates on my Edge Pro.
Touch up on the Arks is quick and easy between resharpening. The bevels seem to last a long time with this steel doing typical EDC tasks such as cutting boxes.
 
jeffbird said:
I carry a Hinderer every day, usually in M390 and occasionally in 20CV. Both take hair popping edges. The first step is setting a bevel on a DMT Coarse, which is 325 grit. Use some real pressure and a only two to four passes are needed to reset a nice bevel. I really lean into it.
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You do what works for you, but using heavy pressure on diamond plates is believed to shear the diamonds and cause excessive wear. Eventually you will end up needing to replace your DMT prematurely. The general consensus from a lot of people who have experience in this area is to use light to moderate pressure only and let the diamonds do the work without overly damaging the working surface.

Not trying to tell you what to do, but just something to think about. You might be better off with a course silicon carbide stone if you want to lean on it.
 
Arkansas stones are not diamond, that’s why he can lean into it.
They are a softer stone which is why he said they aren’t supposed to work on those steels. But as he said, using that method is getting good results so I m not gonna argue with results.
I use Diamond Matrix stones and yes, a light touch works much better.
 
Chalby,

just passing on what works for me on what was a blade that seemed to defy other more usual methods.

DMT makes more new coarse mesh plates everyday for the price of a tank of fuel- well actually less than that now. 😊. Just guessing it costs less than the strops and sprays people are discussing. No big deal if it needs replacing, I have a spare sitting on the shelf waiting for its turn. The current one is a couple of years old and doing fine.

If two or four passes a few times a year wears it out, there is a real quality problem. I use it every fall on my hunting knives with more wear resistant steels, M390, 10V, S110, K390, and M4. So far, it is holding up, but if it wears out, great, it did what it was purchased to do.

The DMT mesh plates seem pretty durable. I still have my first DMT Fine I bought in the 70’s and it still works and I still use it.

The only diamond plate that I ever really flat burned out was a Smith’s coarse I used to rework a couple of garage sale purchased oil soaked badly dished Washitas. I never liked the edge it produced, so said what the heck, let’s see what it can do. It was far more durable than I would have imagined. Now I use the concrete street curb for the first pass on those projects, but that is for another discussion.

Last night, I used my Atoma plates to flatten and lap both sides of a good stack of Arks including five blacks and two translucents up four 10”x3”’’s. They did not break and are still working fine today.

These stones and plates are tools. Take care of them, but use them.

And fwiw - yes, I still use SiC oilstones. Sharpened six of the neighbor lady’s badly chipped kitchen knives on a SiC oilstone yesterday. Different tasks, different tools, but they are tools meant to be used.
 
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sickpuppy1 said:
Arkansas stones are not diamond, that’s why he can lean into it.
They are a softer stone which is why he said they aren’t supposed to work on those steels. But as he said, using that method is getting good results so I m not gonna argue with results.
I use Diamond Matrix stones and yes, a light touch works much better.
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He was talking about DMT not Arkansas.

J jeffbird all good, as I said just sharing some info.
 
jeffbird said:
The first step is setting a bevel on a DMT Coarse, which is 325 grit. Use some real pressure and a only two to four passes are needed to reset a nice bevel. I really lean into it.
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Why are you doing that , what's the point to do that way ? Are you in a hurry somewhere ? Why not eight passes and let the diamond to do the job ?
 
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