S110V - post your experience

J_Curd

J_Curd

Joined
Jul 26, 2006
Messages
6,038
Disclaimer: First off, I am not a metallurgist, so take my experience with a grain of salt because I'm mainly looking for what trends other people have seen. I like S110V and this is no way a condemnation, just an exploration on results.

I first sharpened my S110V Shallot on the Sharpmaker just to get a benchmark for what to expect. It produced a tiny little burr after some elbow grease, and took me quite a long time to remove with the fine ceramic sticks and really light pressure. I probably spent an hour getting the burr off because it was clinging to the edge worse than ZDP has for me in the past. I finished, and it produced a really sharp edge, quite toothy, but I couldnt get it to shave hair. I cut a few things like paper, cardboard, wood, some small rope, plastic...performance was awesome, for utility work it cuts and holds the edge like a champ. It did rip paper during cuts.

So plagued by the lack of razor sharpness, I went back to the beld sander and raised a burr with an 80 micron belt, then a 40 micro, then 20 micron...I removed the burr with a paper wheel, then mirror finished the edge with a 1200g belt and green rouge. It definitely, definitely would shave hair. However, when I did the ol "thumb rub" test it felt dull. It smoothly cut paper . It was most certainly not dull, but in utility tasks, it didnt cut as well as the first sharpening. It's like the edge wanted to slide off of the harder materials (wood, plastic) instead of start the cut.

So I'm curious to what Im missing here and would love some feedback from anyone who has played with this steel. It's like it has two completely different personalities depending on how you finish the edge...I find that pretty intriguing.

Do the large carbides account for the micro serrations that cut so well in the first sharpening, but prevented the razor edge?

Do they also account for the "glassy" edge that I had the second sharpening that felt dull?

I'd like to find the middle ground between my two sharpenings.
 
I must have been reading things wrong, I was under the impression that it would have smaller carbides. I do not have a 'user' yet and I have not really even cut air with my first copy. My impression is/was that it would be very fine grained. If this is the case it should take a monster polish and get, uh, monster sharp. With a very high polish there would not be many micro teeth. This would lead to it not grabbing on some materials and acting as if it were much more dull then it actually is.

If there are large carbides as you say then I really have no clue (which may be overly apparent).
 
Large and small carbides are subjective to non metallurgist types. Real metallurgists and engineers actually name and measure them. They ( from S110V's vanadium, niobium, etc) are mostly going to be large carbides of the hardest type. There's a large amount of them too. More than most knifeusers are used to.

I personally use the DMT diamonds and leave it fairly unpolished.
Do the large carbides account for the micro serrations that cut so well in the first sharpening, but prevented the razor edge?
Click to expand...

IMO, yes


Do they also account for the "glassy" edge that I had the second sharpening that felt dull?
Click to expand...

Perhaps, I'm not sure though. Others have reported not being to get really scary sharp edges untill they use diamond paste. Ceramic, rouge etc doesn't do it for whatever reason. Myself I just kept it at 1200 ( green DMT), put a .5 micron diamond paste on my leather barber strop, used that and left it, satisfied.

M4 and 3V on the other hand, won't be as wear resistant in comparison but they sharpen up and strop like nobodys business and readily take hair whittling edges. Lower angles too .

Steel is funny stuff. I've had BG42 at RC 59-60 that was so different to sharpen than BG42 at RC 62-63 that it was like a completely different steel.

I just know what it does. I at times don't even know why. Sorry.

Just develop a routine that works with you and your needs, and equipment. Anything else just overcomplicates it. Joe
 
Last edited:
It really reminds me of the D2 that Ka bar used in Thorn, made Japan. Ka bar listed that steel at 60-61 rc. My s110v takes a not so razor sharp edge but holds it forever. The Ka bar D2 is quite different from Kershaw cpm d2 imo. The Ka bar is much harder to get really sharp.
 
Vanadium carbide, being significantly harder than the aluminum oxide ceramic of the Sharpmaker's rods and around the same hardness as silicon carbide, can pose some practical problems when it comes to sharpening (can't say about niobium carbide, BTW, would like to see some hardness numbers on that one.) Being a CPM steel, S110V shouldn't form the very large carbide aggregates like you get with a steel such as D2, and in my limited experience with it this seems to be so.

Of course S110V can be sharpened using diamond media, the only problem IMO perhaps being the limited choice of very fine diamond sharpening hones/rods/media that can be used to produce a fine, consistent edge. In my experience most steels achieve their best edge retention with a fine, polished edge. You often hear it said as one poster has above that these high carbide, high wear resistance steels take a mediocre edge and hold it forever ... IMO what's happening is that the initial somewhat coarser-toothier edge you often wind up with actually deteriorates relatively quickly, but the nature of the steel-carbide matrix in these high alloy steels is such that there are a lot of sharp microserrations that keep cutting performance from falling off quickly due to wear, and as carbide and steel tears from the matrix fresh microserrations are created -- sort of a self-sharpening effect.

This isn't necessarily a criticism of these kinds of steels, for some purposes such as cutting very abrasive materials or really extended use where resharpening isn't practical, they definitely have their place. But at the same time it may not be practical to expect steels like S110V to easily attain the kind of scary-sharp, fine edge you can easily get with normal sharpening with steels like 14C28N for example.
 
I've been wanting to pick up a USB microscope to examine edges while I'm sharpening. Has anyone done this?
 
One of my recent acquisitions has been the Shallot with a S110V blade.

When it got here, I was really surprised at how dull the knife was from the factory. >Very< non- Kershaw.

And I didn't purchase any special sharpening equipment at the opinion of Roger at Knifeworks (a super guy, super vendor) as he advised me to "play around with it first" if I was comfortable with knife sharpening. I thought I made a mistake on that point though, as the knife was a notch or so above a butter knife on the sharpness scale, and I was certain I would need a lot of work to get it up to speed.

Using the long butcher style 600 grit diamond sharpener I use in my kitchen knives, I carefully cut the edges back and cut off the grind marks on the edge. I cleaned the rod first, and this still took about 20 minutes. But in the end, the S110V was no match for the diamond oval rod.

After close inspection to see that I removed most of the factory grind, I took it to the ceramic crock sticks. This took another 15 minutes of careful honing to refine the edge and then to microbevel. Finally, another 10-15 minutes on the strop.

The cutting edge has a mirror finish, and will easily shave hair.

The lesson: Don't be afraid of this steel. I called Roger at Knifeworks to thank him for his sage advice, and he laughed, and asked me if I wanted to buy another knife with the money I saved on the Lansky diamond setup.

I will be interested to see how this knife/steel performs. I will not actually be shaving with it, but will be using it for work in my construction job. It will be used hard on everything from trimming wood, trimming siding, cutting small wire, opening thick cardboard appliance boxes, cutting nylon boom straps on trucks, etc. I use knives, but don't abuse them. I decided to buy this for myself because I wanted to try one of the better "super steels" just to see how super they really are. I would love a knife that would hold a good edge for a couple of weeks without a touchup.

I'll let you guys know how this steel works out in practical use.

Robert L. Witte
 
My s110v takes a not so razor sharp edge but holds it forever.
Click to expand...

People say the same thing about S30V, and before that they used to say it about D2.

What's "razor", or "scary" sharp for you, might be different from me, and we are both have different standards from Dog of war.

I didn't mean to imply I couldn't get S110 Very sharp. I can. I've found as long as a steel is hard enough to not bend and roll during sharpening I can get any steel sharp. The S110 I've sharpened can "tree top" hairs, and do the usual types of things people use as examples.

As far as Diamond sharpeners being limited you can get them from #160 up to #8,000 mesh ( 3 micron), and paste for stropping at 1, 3 and 6 microns through DMT. I've heard talk of others from different companies smaller, but I've never really needed anything smaller.

S110 is definitely a super steel by any definition. It takes a good edge, and will keep it longer than most other steels ( I can't say I've tested like some, but my subjective feeling is it will withstand wear better than most steels by a longshot)

I don't get the impression it is the steel for taking down to 8 to 12 degrees Inclusive like you can with some other steels. On the other hand, those steels won't have the pure wear resistance of S110V.

Which is more important to you?

Personally, I like both types of steels. They both have their uses.
 
I'm obviously very lucky. I have never gotten a dull knife from kershaw. My S110V Shallot came arm hair shaving sharp right out of the box. Actually, both did.

I do agree it's nothing to be afraid of. It's a great steel I want to see more of. I put it above S90V in the wear resistance scale. Joe
 
The Mastiff said:
I didn't mean to imply I couldn't get S110 Very sharp. I can. I've found as long as a steel is hard enough to not bend and roll during sharpening I can get any steel sharp. The S110 I've sharpened can "tree top" hairs, and do the usual types of things people use as examples.

As far as Diamond sharpeners being limited you can get them from #160 up to #8,000 mesh ( 3 micron), and paste for stropping at 1, 3 and 6 microns through DMT. I've heard talk of others from different companies smaller, but I've never really needed anything smaller.

S110 is definitely a super steel by any definition. It takes a good edge, and will keep it longer than most other steels ( I can't say I've tested like some, but my subjective feeling is it will withstand wear better than most steels by a longshot)

I don't get the impression it is the steel for taking down to 8 to 12 degrees Inclusive like you can with some other steels. On the other hand, those steels won't have the pure wear resistance of S110V.

Which is more important to you?

Personally, I like both types of steels. They both have their uses.
Click to expand...
Very well said, Mastiff. Even more so than most things in life, it seems that with blade steels there are always trade-offs.

Bit of clarification on what I was trying to say about diamond media ... I'm hoping that as super steels like S110V become more widespread that the range of available diamond sharpening products becomes greater and more available to general cutlery users. For example, IMO much of the great success of the Sharpmaker, Crocksticks, and ceramic rod sharpeners of various kinds is their convenience, and the way they make a consistent, sharp edge easy for a person of average skill to obtain without a lot of trouble. Now if we just had available Sharpmaker diamond rods in a really fine grit suitable for applying a more polished, final edge, we'd be all set to really maintain our S110V Shallots. :) Or a DMT extra or xx-fine diamond rod would be an option ... but according to their latest catalog they don't offer one. So for now, especially with recurved blades, sharpening is going to be tricky for many. However, again I expect to see this change.

Options. Gotta love having options. :D
 
My S110V experience is based on my Mick Strider Custom SnG 110V Nightmare Ground.
As it came from the "factory" it didn't shave hair neither I expected it to do.
Looked like being sharpened at 220-320 grit or alike.

First thing is to know what you'll use your knife for. Whittling wood? Not the best steel for push cut.
Cardboard cutting? Game skinning? Light EDC tasks? Draw cut then, thus some microserrations are required.
My hotspot stands between Green DMT and 6 micron diamond paste (roughly 1200 grit).
What is certain anyway is that sharpening steels like S90V and S110V do require diamond media.

I bought diamond compounds from DMT and Sun-Diamond
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top