Old Blades Vs. New Blades

[Grease]

i want to tote around a 16-inch world war I vintage springfield bayonet. now that's a beautiful knife; made at the crossroads from the romantic era, going to the modern age.

I love that kind of knife... I've got a similar bayonet with a 10 inch blade - I love taking that thing hiking and camping. I've been so rude to that blade, and it takes it in stride and keeps on going. The weight of them is often quite useful for chopping/hacking stuff.

 

[Joshua J.]

So to FINALLY get to my point;
Question 1
Can the same quality of steel be found in older "high quality" blades as found in new "high quality" blades? And to further explain my question. Has the technology for making quality steel blades changed much in the past 50 years?

Question2
If this is the case(older steel is just as good), then what would be a good knife to look for that is around 50 years old or just WW2 era that I plan to use in Wilderness applications in the Virginia Mountains?

Thanks again for any help or knowledge yall would be willing to pass down to me. And I'm sorry for the lengthy post, but I kind of wanted yall to get a feel for where I'm coming from and what I'm looking for.

I would say that the same quality of steel can be found in 50 year old knives when compared to today, but it depends on your application. You didn't have the stupid crazy alloys like you have today (which are the ones I like the most), but 1095 from today is arguably the same as it was a hundred years ago, and if heat treated properly will perform pretty much the same. If you get a knife from Busse/Bussekin, Fehrman or ESEE it will be tougher overall, but whether or not that is significant to you depends on how far beyond "good enough" you want to go.
Most people who spend a lot of time in the bush seem to avoid overbuilt knives anyway.

For the sharpening stone, I recommend getting the biggest and coarsest thing you can find (and not necessarily something expensive). My biggest problem when sharpening is usually that I don't grind enough on the lowest grit, having a big coarse stone makes that part go much faster. If you need to take out any chips get a Worksharp, it's a little hand held belt sander. The first thing I did with mine is take off the guide, if you're used to sharpening freehand then guides are counter-productive. It's not aggressive enough to completely destroy your knife in seconds like a regular sander, but I don't think I would want to use it exclusively. It definitely will re-profile an edge faster than any stone though.