Let's Talk About Sharpening Our Survive! Knives

I commonly convex even my thin-edged knives but always finish with a flat micro bevel that has a bit more bite and will better engage the material being cut. I also commonly back-bevel thicker-edged knives just the way you describe to scrape better slicing performance out of them.

If you are experiencing a lot of microchips at the apex or need a stiffer bevel further back or are having binding issues, then maybe you'd want to fully convex, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend fixing what ain't broke ;)
 
I've lowered the grind angle of the secondary bevel on a lot of knives to compensate for too much thickness behind the edge.
It then gets a very small bevel at the appropriate angle, say 10° to 20° depending on the intended use.
This sounds a lot like what you are describing, and it will improve the slicing performance of a knife without going to the trouble of a full regrind.
I also have some convex ground knives and I can't tell any practical difference between the two approaches.
 
Thanks. When I first got the 4.7, I started by dropping the angle down to improve slicing, but started having a micro-chipping issue following harder use tasks. I also gained a respect for how wear resistant 20CV is (total pain to reprofile). I went back up on the angle by adding a micro bevel and that helped with the chippiness. I've adjusted angles and eventually, I ended up where I am now: balanced, but not as good at carving as some of my convex knives are.
 
Fancier said:
I have kitchen knives in both 3V and 20CV, the 3V is ground thinner and holds an edge better than the 20CV under my use.
Both have been frequently used for a couple of years and neither one shows any patina or other corrosion.
I typically rinse them off and drop them in a knife block wet, so no special precautions are taken with either.
The both sharpen easily on a ceramic stone or loaded strop.
For my use there isn't any down side to the 3V, which has the plain old Peter's high temperature tempered heat treatment.
Come to think of it, both knives were heat treated by Peter's although they came from different makers and are different alloys.
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I quoted you from another thread to stop myself from derailing things... I do that sometimes.

Anyways, you are a man who knows his stuff, but "general knowledge" seems to always point to a key aspect of stainless steel being longer and better edge holding and more effort to sharpen.

Help me out!
 
Oyster mentioned the stainless thing in the other post as well. I guess I'll start doing my hand waving attempt to explain what I've experienced.
When cutting boxes at work and for kitchen use, for knives of similar hardness, I seem to do better with tool steels that contain vanadium rather than the higher chromium content corrosion resistant alloys even when they contain similar amounts of vanadium. I've upset some folks on BF trying to discuss why "tougher" alloys seem to work better for me because the material scientist types that like to engage in such discussions can become a little excitable when you try to correlate edge stability and wear resistance to impact toughness. ;)
My rule of thumb these days is that I'll go with the lowest chromium content alloy that resists corrosion in my application. I've been very happy with both 3V and M4 and I haven't had problems with either corroding. I'm not trying to discourage anybody from using M390 or 20CV, particularly if they really need the extra corrosion resistance, but I find that my edges take less damage without all the extra chromium in the steel. To be sure I'm one of those guys that uses a hand lens and inspects the edges under bright lights, and sharpens knives as a hobby and monitors the condition of knife edges pretty carefully, so keep that in mind when you consider my thoughts.
With regard to difficulty in sharpening, I'm a bit of a steel junky and I'm always looking for something new to try out and I haven't found any alloys that were particularly difficult to sharpen. My sharpening kit includes ceramic stones, DMT plates, and silicon carbide loaded strops, and they all have worked well for me regardless of which steel I'm sharpening. :thumbsup:
 
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I mentioned this question in the other thread and am repeating it here: is S!K known to grind SS versions thicker than the tool steel ones?
 
I was hoping somebody else would chime in on the edge thickness issue since I don't have my pair of 4.7 in the two alloys handy, but since they haven't and since you are still asking... I have not noticed any difference in how Survive grinds a knife based on the alloy used. I believe that Guy tests knives to determine if the steel will meet his performance expectations and rejects an alloy if it doesn't work out. I did measure primary bevel angles on all my Survive knives a while back (the data is in a post here somewhere) and I noticed that some models had slightly different bevel angles but I don't think that different alloys in the same model had significantly different bevel angles.
 
Thanks again!
I suppose it's safe to assume there will be some slight variance in grind even between knives of the same model and with the same steel. The final edge angles will probably also show some small differences since they're sharpened by hand - and certainly once I get to resharpening them - but my main "concern" was re how thin the blades themselves are ground (if that makes sense). Happy to hear that you aren't aware of any intentional differences between steels.
 
I don't have any thickness behind the edge data on hand, but the Survive new spec knives are thinner behind the edge than most other production knives.
They are still what I call a field knife, so they are thick enough to hold up without being a "sharpened pry bar".
In particular I recall the 2.7 as being ground fairly thin, but it is a tiny knife to start with.
If you are curious take a look at the pictures on Instagram and you can judge how thick the bevels are for yourself.
 
Fancier said:
I don't have any thickness behind the edge data on hand, but the Survive new spec knives are thinner behind the edge than most other production knives.
They are still what I call a field knife, so they are thick enough to hold up without being a "sharpened pry bar".
In particular I recall the 2.7 as being ground fairly thin, but it is a tiny knife to start with.
If you are curious take a look at the pictures on Instagram and you can judge how thick the bevels are for yourself.
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What got me excited about the new spec Survive knives, as well as the CPK FK, for example,was that both appear to be very utilitarian and robust in their design while still emphasizing the primary purpose of a knife, which is to be a cutting tool.

Anyway, going to give the thread back to its intended purpose: discussing sharpening!

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. Very much appreciated! :-)
 
Sorry for my delay chiming in on this - each of the S!K knives I have handed since the upgrade to the GSO-4.1 that brought the edge thickness down from ~0.030" has featured and edge right around 0.020" thick and ~20-dps. I am looking forward to the GSO-4LE to see if Guy pushes those even a bit thinner. Most of the time these knives have a primary grind ~5-dps. Never have I felt like one of my S!K tools was "fragile" or couldn't take a good beating, hence being willing to hammer them though sheet metal and the like ;) And while i wouldn't consider them to be excellent slicers, they do a fair job better than a lot of other knives on the market, and that includes folders. The Spyderco Caly3, for example, is a better slicer but only just barely, with an edge-thickness 0.015", and my factory-bought ESEE Izula came to me with a much thicker edge ~0.030".

Here is a link to my review of the pass-around 2.7 from Grog: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/survive-gso-2-7-passaround-review.1433784/
 
chiral.grolim said:
Sorry for my delay chiming in on this - each of the S!K knives I have handed since the upgrade to the GSO-4.1 that brought the edge thickness down from ~0.030" has featured and edge right around 0.020" thick and ~20-dps. I am looking forward to the GSO-4LE to see if Guy pushes those even a bit thinner. Most of the time these knives have a primary grind ~5-dps. Never have I felt like one of my S!K tools was "fragile" or couldn't take a good beating, hence being willing to hammer them though sheet metal and the like ;) And while i wouldn't consider them to be excellent slicers, they do a fair job better than a lot of other knives on the market, and that includes folders. The Spyderco Caly3, for example, is a better slicer but only just barely, with an edge-thickness 0.015", and my factory-bought ESEE Izula came to me with a much thicker edge ~0.030".

Here is a link to my review of the pass-around 2.7 from Grog: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/survive-gso-2-7-passaround-review.1433784/
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This is great. Thanks!
No, I wouldn't expect any of the S!K knives to win slicing contests as they are all geared towards heavier use and there are other options available. Still, in the hard-use category, it's nice to see blades that take edge-thickness down and rely instead on the steel and HT to provide the requisite strength.
 
My GSO-10 is easily 0.050" behind the edge, at or over 20 dps, and this really shows when de-limbing thin pine branches, as the branches just bounce around and I had to ask the man with me to hold their tips so that I could get any clearing work done at all (new factory edge)...

The GSO-10 does perform quite OK on heavier steadier limbs, because it is so blade heavy (blade heavier than I expected given the 3/16" stock and full profile tang: Remarkable design), but I always felt the standard 20 dps and over 0.040" edge base is way too conservative even for a chopper: Randalls are 0.020" at the edge and can get down to 15 dps with no problems at all (at least in 440B stainless they don't show problems): If I had used my less blade heavy Randall Model 12, I never would have needed the man's help, just because of the edge finesse.

The extra-thin handle on the GSO-10 did surprise me by being quite good: The blade heavy bias is so pronounced there is no need to lock the wrist to transfer arm weight into the hit: Just spinning the blade itself is plenty enough: This is where the broadness, fat point and saber grind mass really shine: A fun chopper to use...

For chopping blades the grinds are usually way too conservative for versatile, thinner targets: This is probably made worse by the mania for batoning...

Gaston
 
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