Old buck 440c sharpen to a toothy edge only?

cchu518

cchu518

Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
8,331
Hi peoples...I picked up an old buck 709 yearling. Really cool pen knife that I am carrying in my pocket now.

I think its made of 440c from around 1981. It was kind of difficult to put a bevel and new edge on it. I got it for 7 bucks in an eBay find.

Finally got it sharp but its toothy sharp no matter how light my stroking gets on the fine stone. It also feels like it has some spots in certain areas that I can only describe as feeling like there is a harder ball of metal deposited in that spot that didn't melt evenly or something like that.

I've ran newer knives over my stone immediately after and im not nuts, that gritty bump only happens with the buck.

The question isnt so much about sharpening so much as what is up with 440c of old. Hence in general knife.

Is new 440c like this as well? It seems very hard even more so than 154 and ats 34 which i have sharpened and had thought was supposed to be similar but a step up from it.

440a feels totally different when sharpening as compared to 440c too. How can the Rockwell be that different. I did a search for 440c and toothy edge and couldn't come up with anything definitive.
 
Buck's 440C is pretty tough stuff. I have a 110 in 440C and she's a beast. The big difference is the heat treat. I believe that 81 was around the time the famous Bos heat treat came into play
 
Your observations are correct, cchu. Buck's 440C retains a 'toothy' edge even when polished. It is that nature of 440C that I find so useful for cutting fibrous materials.
 
  • Like
Reactions: vba
Dumb question is all 440C toothy? I thought it was in my head but I feel like there's like "metal nuggets" that I can't see in the metal in some spots when I sharpen. It is hard as heck though and it stays sharp, I've been trying to cut everything with the pen knife just to see if I'm crazy and if the knife is sharp or not! It's 100% sharp and it is staying sharp, but the edge is toothy.
 
What you are experiencing are the very hard vanadium carbides within the steel. They act almost like a saw along the edge of the blade.



Above shows the relative hardness of Vanadium carbide.



Vanadium carbides embedded in steel alloy matrix. (In this case, 154CM.)

And yes, all 440C will exhibit the tendencies you mentioned, to a greater or lesser degree.
 
Thanks for sorting out the evil voices in my head APF! That was an education to say the least! Thanks for the photos and explaining it to me!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top