Knife you couldn’t get sharp?

Pinnacle64

Pinnacle64

Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
271
Have you ever had a knife you really like, but the sucker is impossible to get sharp? I have a LionSteel with sleipner steel love the design and style, but no matter how hard I try can’t get it hair cutting sharp. I have dozens of blades using super steels Cpm 30/35/20/90/110v, M390, M4 and etc etc can sharpen all of them to hair popping sharpness.

Just frustration for me tried DMT diamond stones, sharpmaker and leather strop with compounds nothing works just feels dull. Any ideas other than send it to a professional and pay them(which is next).
 
I assume you have reached a burr and all that judging by your previous steels. At what grit does it feel like it’s sharpness is degrading after you properly deburr?
 
In my limited experience what you are describing indicates a possible heat treat issue.
The fact that you have good results with all those other blades would rule out technique IMHO.
 
Megabassx7 said:
I assume you have reached a burr and all that judging by your previous steels. At what grit does it feel like it’s sharpness is degrading after you properly deburr?
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Around 2000-4000 grit the edge just feels rounded off to the touch.
I’ve beat myself up thinking I’m doing something wrong so today I grabbed two other folders and did the same process to all three models back to back. The other two are scary sharp??

I don’t consider myself a expert sharpener by any means maybe just slightly above average so there is room for a mistakes. 4000 grit is the smallest I have to go also.
 
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Pinnacle64 said:
Have you ever had a knife you really like, but the sucker is impossible to get sharp?
Click to expand...
Yes but it has been more than a decade. About any SAK.
Once reprofiled it is a dream to use.
Without the reprofile it is hard to hold a tiny blade like an SAK at about a 45° angle (well it feels like it ) and keep it consistent and once it is sharp it lasts for the length of time it takes to cut up a shoe box.
Reprofile it and don't drop it you will cut your foot off.

Chances are if you grind half the thickness of the blade away behind the edge then lay the sharpening bevels back a few degrees on each side . . . baddabing baddaboom.
(but then that's true of about any knife you buy unless Big Chris or Phil Wilson made it.) ;)
 
When I didn’t really know how to sharpen a knife. I had a VG10 Endura 4, and I tried and tried to sharpen that thing with little to no results. Fast forward a couple years, now I can get a nice hair popping edge on CPM S30V.
To the OP, if you can get a hair popping edge on s110v, I rule out your technique and equipment, more than likely Lionsteel either messed your blade up or they got a batch of bad Sleipner in.
 
Pinnacle64 said:
Have you ever had a knife you really like, but the sucker is impossible to get sharp? I have a LionSteel with sleipner steel love the design and style, but no matter how hard I try can’t get it hair cutting sharp. I have dozens of blades using super steels Cpm 30/35/20/90/110v, M390, M4 and etc etc can sharpen all of them to hair popping sharpness.

Just frustration for me tried DMT diamond stones, sharpmaker and leather strop with compounds nothing works just feels dull. Any ideas other than send it to a professional and pay them(which is next).
Click to expand...

Is it the Lionsteel Sr1? I have two variants of that knife the sr1a (d2) and the large lionspy (elmax). Both knives were a pain in the butt to get sharp for two reasons.

1: the angle of the edge bevel is extremely wide, especially at the front edge of the knife where the edge turns upwards towards the tip. (I swear to god the inclusive edge angle must have been like 80 degrees at the front end of the blade.)

2: the sr1 family (including sr2 and sr11 flipper) come with a convex edge. This means as you sharpen the knifte it will feel like you are laying the edge flat on the stone but are actually not hitting he apex. Cover the edge bevel with perminant marker. As you sharpen the marker will wear away letting you see if you hitting the apex.
 
I’d say thin the edge down and give it another shot. Sounds to me like it’s a wide angle and that’s usually the case I run into while following the factory edge. I seldom follow it anymore because this is what you run into
 
Thinning out the edge will solve these issues about 99.99% of the time.

At times, there may be a little bit of heat-damaged steel near the edge, from poor finishing or edge-setting work at the factory. In those cases, a couple or three complete resharpenings will usually get rid of that weak steel near the edge, after which it's response to sharpening, and edge-holding, will both improve.

Every knife I've sharpened and initially thought something was 'wrong' with the blade or the steel has ultimately been 'fixed' by addressing one or the other, or both, of the above possible shortcomings. It's really rare when a blade simply isn't fixable by doing so.
 
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