Mystical Edge Retention

E

El Jay

Joined
Mar 29, 2022
Messages
199
Hello all. After 20 plus years of this hobby one thing has eluded me. I cannot find a knife that holds a good edge after about 60 cuts. I have tried stainless steel and carbon steel. My cutting chores are plastic wrap, plants, fruit, meat, plastic banding, tape, cordl and blister packs. No matter the steel I get about the same amount of cuts. The only difference is that the carbon steels are easier to maintain and restore. I've used a Sharpmaker and freehand sharpening methods. I'm not cutting into a board or hard surface. The best results are Opinel's carbon and the worst is S30V. Your thoughts? Thanks for all replies.
 
El Jay said:
Hello all. After 20 plus years of this hobby one thing has eluded me. I cannot find a knife that holds a good edge after about 60 cuts. I have tried stainless steel and carbon steel. My cutting chores are plastic wrap, plants, fruit, meat, plastic banding, tape, cordl and blister packs. No matter the steel I get about the same amount of cuts. The only difference is that the carbon steels are easier to maintain and restore. I've used a Sharpmaker and freehand sharpening methods. I'm not cutting into a board or hard surface. The best results are Opinel's carbon and the worst is S30V. Your thoughts? Thanks for all replies.
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Greatest majority of the time you have edge retention problems, it's geometry. It's a painstaking process to figure out what the steel type in combination with how you use it.
 
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El Jay said:
Hello all. After 20 plus years of this hobby one thing has eluded me. I cannot find a knife that holds a good edge after about 60 cuts. I have tried stainless steel and carbon steel. My cutting chores are plastic wrap, plants, fruit, meat, plastic banding, tape, cordl and blister packs. No matter the steel I get about the same amount of cuts. The only difference is that the carbon steels are easier to maintain and restore. I've used a Sharpmaker and freehand sharpening methods. I'm not cutting into a board or hard surface. The best results are Opinel's carbon and the worst is S30V. Your thoughts? Thanks for all replies.
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It would be helpful to know which steels you've been using, you may have just gotten all low hardness, low carbide steels. However, all you have to do to make knives you already have last longer is to use smaller edge angles. For example, going from 15 dps to 11 dps should roughly double your edge retention.

Or just choose steels in the top half of this chart:

MagnaMax-catra.png


Another issue is you may just have unrealistic expectations of edge holding. A knife may lose its razor edge quickly but will still cut well long after that.
 
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Yes, I understand your point of view. I own knives with everything from 3CR13 to magnacut. All of them will dull with use eventually. Cardboard is the worst because of the abrasiveness. Some certainly hold an edge longer, but when cutting rope for example whether you do 10 cuts or 100 they will eventually dull and need to be resharpened.
Not a problem for me since I am stropping or touching up my knives every day anyway because I enjoy it. So to me I feel like the much higher price of super steels probably isn't worth the huge increase in cost. Of course all of it is subjective depending upon the user and uses of the knife. Personally I am good with aus8, 420hc, 4116, 440A, etc. Unless I am going to be doing a lot of cutting or I really need the added edge retention for some specific reason.
 
Synov said:
It would be helpful to know which steels you've been using, you may have just gotten all low hardness, low carbide steels. However, all you have to do to make knives you already have last longer is to use smaller edge angles. For example, going from 15 dps to 11 dps should roughly double your edge retention.

Or just choose steels in the top half of this chart:

MagnaMax-catra.png


Another issue is you may just have unrealistic expectations of edge holding. A knife may lose its razor edge quickly but will still cut well long after that.
Click to expand...

The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Rex 121 from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry it.​

GLRt5yp.jpg
 
Blues said:
^^^^^^

Much better to have it handed to you than pulled from a stone...

(lateral forces, don't you know?)
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If it was in the stone outside awhile it might just be a rusted off stump of a blade too.
 
That’s strange, I have noticed the exact opposite of your experience. Maybe it’s the way you sharpen your knives or the way you use them. I’ve had a few in s30v and 20cv that were micro chipping at first but after a few sharpening and getting into new metal they were great holding an edge for a long time and through a lot of material. I think the factory edge was done with to aggressively and burnt the apex and pulled carbons loose.
 
We’ve been chasing the wrong rabbit! Instead of hardened steels that hold a longer edge but are incredibly hard to sharpen. I’m waiting for a steel that gets sharpened as you use it! Imagine that!!!

Btw, this idea is trademark, copyright and patent pending so I will expect royalties! 😂
 
Heat treat and geometry.

I have a great custom kitchen knife in MagnaCut that I used every day for over a year without sharpening (including processing 50lbs of bison for a catering event).

I have a great custom hunting knife in 15N20 that I used to process an entire deer from skinning to separating joints. Still sliced paper afterward.

On the other hand, I’ve had crappy folders in S90V go from paper slicing to paper smushing in a single cardboard cut.

I will say, I do like MagnaCut, as I feel from a subjective standpoint that you get good mileage out of the edges while still stropping back or sharpening up easily. I once endeavored to sharpen an S90V PM2 and found it a little difficult.
 
There's a principle that all steels lose their razor sharp edge at the same rate, but steels with high edge retention go from moderately sharp to dull much more slowly. Those supersteels are more difficult to sharpen, so they take more time to recondition and you may not be able to get them as sharp depending on your sharpening ability. That's why straight razors are almost all carbon steel. A moderately sharp razor is essentially useless, so using carbon steel increases the chances the end user can get the blade shaving sharp and it's less effort to keep it that way.

All that is to say, you probably have some unusually high requirements in what you consider sharp. Where most people would continue using their knives for a while longer, it sounds like you sharpen your knives as soon as that razor edge is gone, so carbon steels make more sense. I'd focus on steels like 52100 and O1 for carbon and 14C28N or 154CM for stainless.
 
navman said:
Stellite/talonite has entered the chat.
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When we visited Rob Simonich out in Montana, on the way back we stopped at the Little Big Horn battlefield and I plunged my Talonite blades into the soil to blood them in Rob's honor. (Rob was an (honorary) member of the Blackfeet nation.)

I never dulled a knife that quickly in my life. LOL.

Thankfully, they sharpen up quickly.
 
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