Sharpening K390

N

Neal Wagstaff

Joined
Apr 6, 2021
Messages
4
Hi all

My current sharpening system is King Whetstones and these work great for my Mora, CRKT and Opinel.
However I am about to receive a K390 custom knife.
As Whetstones will take a millennia to sharpen K390 i was wondering what system you could recommend?
I hear the Spyderco Triangle is good for such hard steel but curious as to what you all think would be my best option
 
I use my DMT Hardcoat diamond stone in fine and ultra fine to sharpen K390.
 
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stropping 10v and k390...

I am hoping for a simple answer to this question... Are these steels unaffected by the classic black, white, and green progression of stropping compounds? He who shall not be be named has said any higher vanadium percentage steel is not really refined by these old standbys. I have a strop...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
 
The Sharpmaker will work well maintaining the K390 if the knife is already sharp or reasonably sharp and not allowed to dull before touch-ups.
(This is putting aside the controversy over whether it would suffer carbide "tear out" or not...which some believe, and others do not, and may not concern you at all. Good results can still be had with the Sharpmaker, with the limitations stated above.)

Otherwise, imho, it would need to be bolstered by diamond or CBN rods, (if using that system), or diamond hones, whether plated or bonded.

The bonded diamonds are similar in "feel" to sharpening on ceramic, but the embedded diamond will work on very hard steels. They do not, however, remove steel as quickly as plated diamond, such as found on DMT or Ultra Sharp Diamond plates.

You can visit the Maintenance, Tinkering and Embellishment sub-forum for more information than you ever wanted to know about sharpening. (In a good way.)

I will move the thread there.
 
As mentioned I have only previously used whetstones to sharpen all my knives. Never used Diamond stones, ceramic stones or Spyderco Sharpmaker.
So I suppose my question is, what is the best way (that doesnt take an eternity) in your opinions to sharpen a K390 blade?
Not sure if the decision by me to have K390 steel on the custom blade being made was such a good idea now!!!
 
Neal Wagstaff said:
As mentioned I have only previously used whetstones to sharpen all my knives. Never used Diamond stones, ceramic stones or Spyderco Sharpmaker.
So I suppose my question is, what is the best way (that doesnt take an eternity) in your opinions to sharpen a K390 blade?
Not sure if the decision by me to have K390 steel on the custom blade being made was such a good idea now!!!
Click to expand...
Go diamond and save yourself some heartache. You can get a pretty good set of diamond stones from ultrasharp that will do the job. You are already familiar with hand sharpening with your king whetstones so no need to reinvent the wheel. Use the same technique you do with your other knives but upgrade to diamond to take care of the K390 .
 
Neal Wagstaff said:
As mentioned I have only previously used whetstones to sharpen all my knives. Never used Diamond stones, ceramic stones or Spyderco Sharpmaker.
So I suppose my question is, what is the best way (that doesnt take an eternity) in your opinions to sharpen a K390 blade?
Not sure if the decision by me to have K390 steel on the custom blade being made was such a good idea now!!!
Click to expand...
K390 is a great steel. (Visit the Spyderco forum to read accolades.) It is not stainless, so some care is called for, but it will take and hold an edge and is tough enough for most tasks that aren't abusive.

I agree with the previous poster and would personally recommend diamond. Maybe a coarser one for when you need to put some work on getting it back into shape, and a bonded version or two for maintenance. The bonded are kinder to the finish, by and large, don't have the diamond grit pulled off the plate, and seem to last a long time. They will need to be trued every so often to maintain flatness...like a water stone.

Either way, plate or bonded, diamond will do you right.
 
Thank you for all the response.
From what I hear it seems diamond stones are the way to go then. The nest logical question is what diamond stones? I have looked and they do come in extremes of price. Ranging from DMT to Nanawa diamond stones.
I would therefore need a course a medium and fine stone as a minimum I would suspect. So without breaking the bank what options on diamond stones can you suggest?
 
Neal Wagstaff said:
Thank you for all the response.
From what I hear it seems diamond stones are the way to go then. The nest logical question is what diamond stones? I have looked and they do come in extremes of price. Ranging from DMT to Nanawa diamond stones.
I would therefore need a course a medium and fine stone as a minimum I would suspect. So without breaking the bank what options on diamond stones can you suggest?
Click to expand...

Not sure if this link will get taken down or not but there are a set of Coarse, Medium, and fine diamond stones from Ultra Sharp for right around $50.

link removed by staff (non supporting vendor)
 
Without breaking the bank, the Ultra Sharp plates seem to be about the best value. You can search on amazon. Link is not permitted as they are not supporting vendor for this site.
 
My DMTs have lasted for decades, which makes them a good investment IMHO. I don't know how other makes compare.
 
Dmts. As a matter.of.fact I only.use.dmts for my.knives. any knife. I use em dry. No water. Nada. Easy peesy. The diamond will cut any steel. I have a spydie in k390. And put a.nice.edge on it with the dmts.
 
Yep, if you are going to be getting into the "super steels", it is worth buying some diamond plates as others have mentioned.

I also use DMT. I have the DMT 6" dia sharp kit. 2 diamond stones, both double sided, so 4 grits. xtra coarse, coarse, fine, xtra fine. The set runs under a $100.
 
c7m2p3 said:
Not sure if this link will get taken down or not but there are a set of Coarse, Medium, and fine diamond stones from Ultra Sharp for right around $50.

link removed by staff (non supporting vendor)
Click to expand...

You are talking about the 6" version or smaller ones correct? I bought the 8" 3-stone set for $110 or so IIRC.
 
Great advise. Thank you. I will look at the reviews on both Diamond stone recommendations and order the Diamond Stones today.
 
sharp_edge said:
You are talking about the 6" version or smaller ones correct? I bought the 8" 3-stone set for $110 or so IIRC.
Click to expand...
Yes I was referring to the 6 inch set. Id prefer the 8 inch myself but the OP did say that they were looking for something that wouldnt break the bank and the 8 inch variety comes at double the cost.
 
Lots of keys have been struck over this very topic (sharping vanadium alloyed, high-carbide-volume steels) on this forum. A simple search will likely inundate you with more info than is easy to process in a sitting. Depending on your preferences, it is worth noting that for coarser grits, most find that more conventional abrasives do fine on them (as the abrasives grains are significantly larger than the problem-causing carbides). Particularly with coarse silicon carbide stones, they are not respecters of steels. These are a lot cheaper than coarse diamond plates.
 
Mossyhorn said:
Mistake on my part. I Meant K390 and the Hardcoat stones by DMT do a fine job.
Click to expand...
Yes they do. (I've got most all of 'em in various sizes but for the Medium Extra Fine...I believe it's called.)
 
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