SOG Tanto Aegis- Bad Heat Treat?

R

robin0999

Joined
Jul 14, 2012
Messages
8
Hello, Bladeforums.
A couple days ago, a friend of mine gave me a black coated, tanto-style SOG Aegis with a combination edge for free (He had gotten bored of it, moved on to a Spyderco Native.) Upon my receiving it, the blade had barely any edge at all- wouldn't even cut me if I dragged it across my skin. So, I just took it to a stone for ten or so minutes and got it pretty damn sharp. However, after only cutting a few pieces of cardboard with it, the edge deteriorated nearly completely again. It wasn't a lot of cardboard- less than half of a relatively small-medium box. This is the first knife I've used that has AUS8 steel, however it seems that this is dulling way too fast, even for that. Can anybody offer any insight into this? Is AUS8 really that poor of a steel, or is my heat treat bad? If it is a bad heat treat, is there anything I can do about it?
Thanks in advance. :)
 
It could be that the heat treat is off, or it's intended to be that way so it is easy to resharpen (intentionally soft). I had the spear point aegis a few years ago and mine did the exact same thing. However the edge rolled on mine. I was cutting up some cardboard that battery backups came packed in. I must have cut approximately 30 yards worth of cardboard when it snagged. I used a kitchen steel to fix the edge, and I sharpened it up a bit and ended up giving it to a contractor friend that really liked it.

AUS8 steel is not bad, I have other knives with that steel that performed really well. Cold Steel Recon 1 Is one that really stands out. That knife has cut through dirty carpet, cardboard, twine, and a number of other things and has kept a working edge. Just as an example.
 
Hmm. So it's not the steel, then. I guess it was kind of silly of me to assume any kind of steel would dull THAT fast, lol. I don't think they made it this soft intentionally, because I can't imagine ANYONE thinking a knife dulling out after about a minute of cutting to be a desirable trait, regardless of how easy it is to sharpen.
Another thing that makes me suspect it's a faulty is the fact that it's not even particularly easy to sharpen- at least not as easy as the very rapid dulling would suggest. My 8cr13mov blades get touched up in thirty seconds or less on a strop, this one I haven't actually been able to bring back to really sharp with a strop alone.
 
Weird, my SOG Trident does the same thing. Like, I cut five pieces of paper and all of a sudden, I can't even cut myself anymore. And this is after about like fifteen minutes on diamond sharpeners. I need to chat with SOG on this. . .
 
Huh. So other people are having this sort of issue. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I was hoping on contacting them about it and sending it in for a new one, but if this is a common occurrence, I feel like they wouldn't be very compliant...
 
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