Kudos to Cold Steel tuff lite and why it's insanely sharp out of the box

R

Rey HRH

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Oct 6, 2014
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I picked up a Cold Steel Tuff Lite after seeing a picture of it on one of the threads here on small knives maybe a year ago. At 2 1/2" length, it looked like a good utility knife and for wen I'm in two cities around me that allow only less than 3" blade length.

I liked the first one so much that I bought a second one. The first to keep in the car and the second to keep at home. Both knives were sharp out of the box. Sharper than any of my ZTs, Benchmades, and everything else. They stayed that one for a very long time. Hardest duty I have used the one was to cut up Amazon cardboard boxes to better fit in the recycle bin.

Today, I was going to cut up a bunch more cardboard boxes, it's been a year so I thought I'd sharpen the knife first. I pulled out my Ken Onion Worksharp with the Blade Grinding Attachment. Using the sharpie method and adjusting the angle on the sharpener until I was getting the full bevel, I discovered the angle was 11.5 degrees. I looked at a table I kept for sharpening angles and the lowest it had was 12 degrees for filets and razor blades.

So that's why it's so sharp! I've been sharpening my knives to 14 degrees. I'm going to start sharpening a couple of them to 12 degrees and see how it goes. If Japanese AUS 8A Stainless on the Cold steel can take 11.5 degrees and still be usable, I don't see why elmax, S30V, and M390 cannot. What do you think?

 
My TL's easily came with the sharpest factory edges I've ever gotten. Very thin though, as you found out. Mine measured more like 13.5 degrees per side, so I wonder if there has been a change. Hardly seems necessary if so. Great knife, I want one in CTS XHP someday.
 
I love the Tuff Lite, it's my main whittling knife. I think I've bought 9-10 of them total at this point, if you count the ones I've given away.

If you keep them thin and sharp, they work great for carving. I do prefer to take them apart and sand down all the rough edges, though (handle edges, blade spine).

Blue Sky said:
My TL's easily came with the sharpest factory edges I've ever gotten. Very thin though, as you found out. Mine measured more like 13.5 degrees per side, so I wonder if there has been a change. Hardly seems necessary if so. Great knife, I want one in CTS XHP someday.
Click to expand...

If they made an upscale version of the Tuff Lite I would jump on it, even if it was expensive.
 
Part of the reason why more manufacturers don't sharpen that low is a bit of a manufacturing cheat to cut down on machine hours. It allows them to leave the primary grind thicker and have the edge bevel still look the "normal" width. If you put that low of an edge angle on a knife with a thick primary grind the edge bevel would look huge. Make the edge angle more obtuse and it shrinks the visual width of the edge bevel until it "looks right". Overall that means they don't have to machine off as much metal from the blanks, and while it only saves a little time per unit, when you're making huge runs it adds up.
 
My Tuff Lite has a factory edge angle of 25 degrees inclusive:

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