Looking For "Sharp out of Box" slip joint.

WELL Robin those that were broken on the job were thrown away and I don't own any RR but when one of my apprentices have another RR I'll be sure to take a picture and post one up just for You;)
 
GEC hold a great edge within the limits of the steel. Case's cv is fine too.

Most of my GEC have come sharp. But if yours comes dull, a few minutes will fix that.

Queen take longer to sharpen in D2, by far, but hold an edge longer.
 
bill boyd said:
This is just nuts. I don't care how often someone repeats what they read on the internet I ain't swallowin' that Kool-Aid.
Which company, old or new, ever advertised "we use only premium materials in building our knives and send them out
as sharp as a marble so you can put the perfect edge on it".
By that logic they should just sell a blade blank so you can put the perfect grind, swedges, and nicks or long pulls as you
desire on your knife and get it just the way you want it.
Until it cuts it is just a knife looking object.

No disrespect intended to anyone but a new knife ought to be sharp enough to be usable.

Mike
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An analogy from the world of high end road bikes.

If you go to say, Target, and buy an inexpensive road bike, it will have decent pedals that you can ride while wearing sneakers. Usable right out of the box store.

If you drive down the road to a high end bike shop and if you spend $1000, the bike will have junkie disposable pedals. Spend $2000 and you almost certainly take delivery of it with no pedals at all!!

As you become an expert cyclist, you develop a strong preference for certain pedal systems for certain applications. Road racing, cross racing and free ride demand different pedals. So, why waste time and money putting pedals on a bike when the first thing the customer is going to say is, "take that crap off my bike I have my own pedals."

I think as we become expert knife users, we develop strong preferences for different sharpening styles for different situations. Also, some have strong personal preferences. Frank likes toothy edges. David likes fine edges.

For a knife like an SAK sold at Target, where 90% of the buyers will never sharpen the knife, not even with a pull through sharpener, the consumer level product had better be sharp out of the box, just like the consumer level Schwinn sold 2 isles over.

But for a knife sold to high end users who almost certain reprofile and sharpen the blade to suit their preference, why grind off metal putting an edge on it?
 
pinnah said:
An analogy from the world of high end road bikes.

If you go to say, Target, and buy an inexpensive road bike, it will have decent pedals that you can ride while wearing sneakers. Usable right out of the box store.

If you drive down the road to a high end bike shop and if you spend $1000, the bike will have junkie disposable pedals. Spend $2000 and you almost certainly take delivery of it with no pedals at all!!
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All in all, that's a pretty poor analogy. Now if you said,
Some of the bikes from the high end bike shop will have racing pedals, and some will have street pedals, and some will have no pedals at all--and a few won't even have the holes in the crank tapped for threads. You won't know what you have til the bike arrives, but the makers will accept returns, and fix most of them.
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then you might have a decent analogy to the current situation.

If the knife makers of today intend to for their knives to leave the factory with butter-knife edges, then they all would, and the makers wouldn't accept returns to have the edges finished. Part of the problem is that they clearly don't. From some makers, getting a usable knife out-of-the-box is sheer chance--and if you don't, you're often forced to rely on an often-inconsistent warranty department.

By refusing to comment on their intentions, furnishing product with inconsistent edges, and accepting returns to finish the knives, it seems the makers are acknowledging their mistakes. People claiming a benefit to unfinished knives make about as much sense as people who claim software bugs are a "feature" because you get a break when your system crashes.
 
<shrug>

When people complain about out of the box sharpness, it tells me more about their sharpening ability than it does about the knife.

Consumer level knives (like my prefered Opinel or the SAK or Bucks) that are, in the large, not likely to get sharpened by their owners should ship with usably sharp edges.

When somebody claims to be a regular knife user and claims to like sharp knives and claims to have the ability to make a knife not only sharp, but sharp in a manner that suits their taste, I don't get the fuss.

There's no way the manufacturer can guess your preferred edge setup and even if they sharpened it, it will need to touched up in a week or so of regular use. So, we're talking about the difference of a week or so.

I personally treat the first week or so of a knife' life with me as an experiment. I note the edge and study it and feed that into my experience bank. But I generally accept that I'm going to reprofile it anyway and if it comes to me dull, that's not an issue for me. YMMV
 
Thunderwood said:
The last 4 slipjoint knives I bought (case cv and bear and son carbon) came dull as a banana! Few of them even kept an edge after sharpening with a lansky!? I've been told on other forums that these knives are meant for collecting not using. I looked into GEC but I'm getting similar reviews.

My question is this: are there any factory slippies that come sharp, easy to sharpen, retain a decent edge???
Or is that a thing of the past?
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You've kicked off an interesting thread that has hit a lot of topics.

Here's my response to your direct question. Hope something here helps.

STEEL - For traditional knives, I think in terms of an over simplified view of steel.
1) Course grained: 440C, D2 (O1?)
2) Fine grained: carbon steel, 420HC, Sandvick 12C27, Victorinox Inox, 440A
3) Junk: 420J2 and the like

Blades go dull in many ways. They can abrade from a V to a U shape when you cut abrasive material. They can chip when the blade hits hard things. And then can bend sideways or roll.

Course grained steels resist abrasion better, will have a toothier edge that performs well when dull when cutting fibrous material like cardboard, rope and flesh, is harder to sharpen and has a tendency to chip.

Fine grained steels resist chipping better, will sharpen to a finer edge that performs better when cutting wood, is easier to sharpen and has a tendency to roll but not chip.

There is no right/wrong here any more than the beer/ale or coffee/tea preference.

Within each of these groups, as hardness goes up, edges resist abrasion better, are harder to sharpen and are more prone to chip. Fine grain steels in the 56Rc range are good for very rough hard use in wood. They will dull and roll but can easily be restored. Fine grain steels in the 58Rc range are good all around blades. The edges last longer than softer fine grained steels but they can be restored simply is something bad happens. Course grained steels in the 58Rc range will cut and cut and cut but if used roughly, may chip and will take a lot longer to restore. IMO, they make great deer cleaning knives. I prefer fined grained steels for EDC but YMMV.

As others have noted, the knives you have are fined grained steels in the 56Rc range. They have their place.

My recommendation is buy a DMT Fine Diamond Credit Card stone and carry that in your wallet for quick touch ups. I'll explain how in a moment. Consider this as a natural augmentation to your Lansky.

LANKSKY - The Lansky taught me my hand sharpening skills. Stick with it. Concentrate on raising a burr on both sides with your course stones (if you're not already). My standard approach is to set a back bevel of 17 degrees and a cutting apex at 20 degrees. This works well for 99% of my knives and 99% of my EDC cutting needs.

There is nothing about the Lansky that will affect edge retention, generally speaking. Mostly that is in the steel itself. There is only 1 thing I can think about using the Lansky that might effect retention for those carbon blades. If you are trying to set the cutting apex to 17 degrees on the knives you have, you may be experiencing premature edge roll. You generally need harder steel to get to smaller apex angles. My Carbone Opinels have 56Rc and for rough use, I'll set the cutting edge at 25 to prevent rolling. (I use 20 for EDC but commit to frequent touch ups.)

If either of those blades were soft stainless (e.g., Case Tru-Sharp or Victorinox Inox) the Lansky might be producing a persistent burr (aka wire edge) that feels sharp but that rolls very fast.


FREE HAND TOUCH UPS - Assuming that a blade has a decent back bevel, it's pretty easy to touch up a blade using something like a DMT credit card stone. 5 swipes per side is all it takes me to get a tiny burr and a few strokes either side will hone. A small piece of paper folded diagonally twice makes a decent edge angle guide as you get better at it (approx 22 degrees). If you carry a knife with soft steel (I do) and you like sharp blades, I think it makes sense to carry a small stone.

HARDER STEELS - If you don't want to touch up your knife as often, you might consider different steels. Some carbon steel is run up to 58Rc and the edges last longer. Varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Many fine grain stainless is run at 58Rc or there abouts. Buck's 420 HC and Opinel's Inox are in this camp. If you like a toothy edge and can commit to the initial sharpening, you might prefer course grain steels like 440C or D2. If you go that route, I would suggest getting a course diamond stone for your Lansky to speed up reprofiling work.

Hope this helps,
 
Most of the Boker, Buck and Case knives I've bought came sharp out-of-the-box. They may not have the best grind but they were reasonably sharp. Most of the Queen-made knives of whatever brand and the two GEC knives I've bought came dull. These are all, in my book, relatively expensive knives. Cheaper knives like Rough Rider, Taylor Brand Schrade, etc., all came sharp. All modern folders came sharp. Edge retention varied. After a while I finally decided, "So what".

I may not be great at it but I can sharpen a knife and I actually like the process of knife sharpening. And, since I like to fiddle around with knives, sharpening a new knife is a great way to get acquainted with it.

Should all knives come sharp out-of-the-box? Of course. But dealing with those that don't is just part of the hobby for me.
 
Most do not come really sharp. My Victorinox SAKS do come pretty sharp most of the time. Other knives from Rough Rider, Case, and GEC are really hit or miss. Some are sharp while others are not. Not traditional but my Spyderco came sharper than any other knife I purchased BUT I still sharpened anyway to get it scary sharp :D
 
Some good information has been posted above. I like the comment on the factory edge being a sort of test edge. I think I do that, unless it is dull as a post, I use it a week or so before sharpening to my desired mirror edge. Buck pocket knives are coming with a sharp but toothy edge. When I have a time I can sit down and calm my spirit, I make that toothy edge into a mirror then after that just touch it up on a fine rod a couple of strokes or just a leather strop for a good edge for a long time.

300
 
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