How Do You Feel About Ultra-Hard Edge?

[redsquid2]

I got an email saying I need to try a Lauri PT Progression Tempered blade, with the spine at 52RC, edge at 63HRC. I looked online: Thompsons Knives claims these blades will stay sharp longer than anything you currently own. 63 would take forever to sharpen, right? Is it worth it? Do you think this kind of hard blade is awesome? The guy that emailed me seemed really enthused about these.

I never had a Ultra High Carbon or anything like that. My edc's have always been your Spydercos, Victorinox, Bucks, Gerbers, and SOGS.

 

[cramsey3006]

They will hold an edge for a long time at that hardness, but I think even with the softer spine, that edge may be a tad brittle. As long as there isn't a lot of lateral stress or pressure put on the blade, the edge should be fine. It is a blade for cutting, not abusing. As for taking forever to sharpen, will, with the modern ceramic and diamond sharpeners, it should be fine. I've never used one, so I have no firsthand experience with it.

Buck usually runs their knives around 59RC (from what I've read). I think that 59-60RC is a good compromise between edge holding and durability with most steels. For knives that are going to be used hard outdoors, at stuff like chopping, batoning, etc, a little lower at 56-58 is what I like.

 

[richard j]

the knives i make are made about the same way and it can take me quite some time to grind the initial edge after heat treat but they do hold an edge a long time. check out this post brian jones made about the chopper i made him. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-for-a-knife-to-do-this?p=6346837#post6346837

i also made a knife for a buddy back in 1992 that has skinned 10 deer so far and it still shaves hair.

here is a link to a post with a vid of a knife i made chopping some hard ash. before this vid was made i made one of my buddy chopping on the same piece of ash. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/t...-that-factory-edge-!!!!?p=9313785#post9313785

before either vid was made i had to strip the bark off and i used the knife to do it. after i made the vids a buddy checked out the edge and he said he could have shaved with the knife.

 

[CWL]

I own 2 of those Lauri PT blades, one is the Kellam Wolverine knife and one I made myself. They do hold their edges very well and are very easy to maintain.

I find that with all knives, if you regularly "touch up" the blade rather than let it get dull before sharpening, you shouldn't need more than a few minutes of maintenance every once in a while. These knives get to hair-popping sharpness very quickly on a leather strop, and I have used 1200 grit paper on glass to re-sharpen.

I have not found them to be brittle during usage, nor do they want to roll.

 

[Shotgun]

The more I use and sharpen knives the more I'm leaning toward softer knives in the sub 60 hardness. I may need to touch them up more but it's better then having to fix damage or sharpen from a dull state a hard knife. I don't use power tools and don't enjoy sharpening so that colors my opinion a bit.

 

[CrimsonTideShooter]

Not a lot of people know this, but hardness doesn't affect the difficulty of sharpening nearly as much as people make it out to be. It's the wear resistance that counts.


8CR at 70 HRC will still be easier to sharpen than S30V at 58.

 

[cramsey3006]

That's absolutely true. But if you are used to sharpening knives that are on the softer side and then buy something that's running 63RC, it will seem very hard to sharpen, even if it's a simple carbon steel.

 

[michaelm466]

I have some ZDP-189 (65-66HRC) and 52100(64hrc) and neither are outrageously hard to sharpen, and both I had to reprofile when I first got them because they were too thick behind the edge (took them from 40 and 50 respectively to 25-30). I also have some M4 thats probably around 63 or higher than isn't bad at all to sharpen either.