poll: edge retention or ease of sharpening.?

Ben Dover

Ben Dover

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Aug 2, 2006
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I'm curious.:confused:

Which of these two factors influences your selection more when buying a new knife.

The ability to hold an edge, or ease of sharpening????
 
For cheaper knives, ease of sharpenig.

For more expensice knives, ability to hold an edge.
 
As a novice but reasonably capable sharpener, myself, I'd much rather have a knife that is easy to sharpen, even if it doesn't hold an edge as long. Obviously, the ideal is a knife that holds a good edge and is still fairly easy to sharpen, but given the choice, I'll take the easy sharpening knife any day, since I can easily/quickly touch it up as necessary.
 
Edge holding. I have sharpen less often. I have some kitchen knives in 154. They stay sharp for a good while. I would rather get out the sharpening gear less often, spend a little more time, and have the edge last longer.
 
I enjoy sharpening, so ease of sharpening really isn't a big deal to me. Sometimes, however, it's nice to have a knife that'll take a razor edge with no effort.

But I prefer edge retention especially in hard use EDC knives. I touch up my EDCs every several days on the Sharpmaker, but when they need a good sharpening I don't mind.
 
Get a sharpmaker, and even sharpening hard to manage steels is a walk in the park, its worth it
 
Ben Dover said:
I'm curious.:confused:

Which of these two factors influences your selection more when buying a new knife: the ability to hold an edge, or ease of sharpening????
Click to expand...

There are a lot of other factors that enter into the selection process. But between the two you list, the ability to hold an edge counts far more.
 
also means ease of reprofiling. I'd rather thin out/ convex the edge on 1095 or AUS8 than S30V or D2. The "lesser" steels are also a little more forgiving if I do something dumb like hit a big staple while breaking down cardboard. But I don't break down enough cardboard to need, or want, ZDP. YMMV

Frank
 
Everyday knife for EDC in town then edge holding is what I look for. Out in the wild, I want one that is easy to sharpen.

singteck
 
Ease of sharpening. At a thinned out, highly polished edge, which is what most my pocket knives have, it only takes a bit of stropping and maybe some steeling to sharpen most days. None of the higher tech steels seem to hold a razor edge longer than the lesser steels, just hold onto a slightly dulled but still usable edge for a long time. So either type of steel I end up sharpening a lot, because I like my knives quite sharp if I use them daily.
 
If you have a conflict between edge holding and ease of sharpening then the guy who made the knife doesn't understand the steel and it is used improperly.

-Cliff
 
I don't mind sharpenign my knives either and I love ym sharpmaker so I woudl ahve to say I never consider it to tell the truth...Although by nature I like knives with better steels and the better the steel, the more likely it will hold and edge longer...
 
Combination of both. All my EDCs have VG10 or S30V, which hold edge well and it is no problem to sharpen them with proper stones.
 
When i remember, the worst to sharpen were the least in edge holding. Why? Because they were somehow soft, i suppose, and kept their burr longer. Seems like the buur went over as soon as it touches the benchstone. Maybe there were other factors that decreased ease of sharpening but it never took much time to get steel grades like D2, S30V or 154CM, RWL 34, SR 101 (which should be 52100) sharp or reprofile the edge.
 
I'm a knife sharpening fanatic and sharpen after almost every use. It doesn't matter to much, as the minimum knife for me is a SAK or Case or Buck 420HC.

I've never been in a situation where I cut so much that it dulled the knife beyond it's next visit to the ceramic rod. That said, I went on a trip out west, and grabbed the S30V, just in case.

My wife used it on the way to the airport to cut a tag off her new purse, and barely got used anymore for the whole week. :p


For 99%+ percent of the population, it don't matter. For a large portion of our knife fanatics here, it probably does matter.
 
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