Not to put too fine an edge on it...

[richard j]

i get a lot of knives in for sharpening and i cant remember if i ever had a knife with either steel come in for an edge. i probably will one of these days. get some 320 and 400 grit sandpaper and give both grits a try. i have went as low as 80 grit and had a knife sharp enough to treetop hairs. i'm going to do some experimenting with 24 grit next to see what i can do with a test blade i have.

 

[Ankerson]

I'm not sure. Ankerson polished these steels to 6000 in his rope cutting tests & they did great, but thats no statement as to how they would've done at a lower finish. These steels have inherently aggressive edges due to a high percentage of carbides (mostly vanadium) but I keep hearing that they hold their fine, polished edges well too. My limited experiences with them bear this out. I finish them on an 8000 grit DMT stone & they still feel very grabby. They bend my categories by draw-cutting like a finer toothed D2 with a polished push-cutting edge finish. I found myself wondering what the course-edged crowd's take on these weirdo steels would be.

Here is M390 @ 62 HRC with my non polished edge, the blade is .009" behind the edge with a 24 degree inclusive edge angle.

That's 460 slicing cuts on 5/8" Manila rope then cardboard after.

 

[flatface77]

Here is M390 @ 62 HRC with my non polished edge, the blade is .009" behind the edge with a 24 degree inclusive edge angle.
That's 460 slicing cuts on 5/8" Manila rope then cardboard after.

So you're saying it cuts manila & cardboard passably well?

 

[Ankerson]

So you're saying it cuts manila & cardboard passably well?

You could say that.

 

[cziv]

You could say that.

That's a real sweet fixed blade Jim. What're the specs. on that baby! :thumbup:

 

[Ankerson]

That's a real sweet fixed blade Jim. What're the specs. on that baby! :thumbup:

I reviewed it here over a year ago.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-M390-Steel?highlight=Phil+Wilson+Smoke+Creek