Spyderco VG-10 Durability Review

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Hey guys. I have some info regarding Spyderco's VG-10 (Delica 3).

During the summer I work in landscaping which provides a great opportunity to test different blades. Today I had my Delica 3 with me. I keep this knife razor sharp which it was today. Sharp enough to push cut paper or shave with no pressure. The edge is not thin either. I keep the angle at 40 degrees inclusive with the Sharpmaker.

Today, I used it to cut nylon rope which is wrapped around trees to keep the branches tucked in during transportation. The nylon rope is not thick at all, nor is it new. There were about 25 trees plus an extra cut every once in a while so roughly 30 cuts on the nylon rope in total. Also during lunch, I whittled 3 or 4 sticks (twig size). By whittle I mean put sharp points on either end. That is IT. The blade wasn't used for anything else.

When I checked the blade at the end of the day, the entire edge was DULL. And I don't just mean it can't shave anymore. I mean it can't do ANYTHING anymore. I can run my fingers across the blade with A LOT of pressure. I can see the flat edge when I hold it in the light. The blade doesn't even come close to biting my fingernail.

To me, this is very surprising. In my opinion, today was not a rough/tough use of a knife. The cutting was very simple and very easy. For comparison, my Tenacious (with Cr13MoV steel) goes for DAYS without coming close to needing a sharpening. The Tenacious has been used for cutting stems, small branches, whittling, rope (same amount as the Delica cut today) and even slicing (not batoning) through .5-1'' thick (green) branches. (Yes, it can be done :D Yes, it was just for fun ;) ) After all of that I could still shave with it. Not exceptionally but it could still be done. Point being, it was no where NEAR dull.

So that was my experience with Spyderco's VG-10. Up until today, I had never used VG-10 for any real work besides opening a couple boxes and food prep.

I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say: If you've had the same experience; if you think what I did was tough work for the blade etc.

Time to start sharpening ;)

Thanks for reading.
 
Yeah, I find different steels excel at different tasks. VG-10 rolls badly when I use it on certain materials. Nylon rope...particularly the stuff that has been out in the sun and hardened up a bit, seems to be very tough on it.

I find VG-10 works very well on soft materials like rubber, cotton rope, and cloth. It also is fantastic for meat preparation.
 
VG10 was designed for the pruning industry in japan to give some insight, i have had great luck keeping a super edge on my VG10 blades. i like how it rolls instead of chips, also if you are gonna be cutting a lot of fiberous material you might want to look into picking up a SE, serrated edge, knife. it would do really well at that :thumbup:
 
gundude73 said:
VG10 was designed for the pruning industry in japan to give some insight, i have had great luck keeping a super edge on my VG10 blades. i like how it rolls instead of chips, also if you are gonna be cutting a lot of fiberous material you might want to look into picking up a SE, serrated edge, knife. it would do really well at that :thumbup:
Click to expand...

I know it would I'm not doubting that. What I'm trying to show is that the Tenacious with 8Cr13MoV performed 90% better than than VG-10. I know SE are what you "should" use but my point is that VG-10 dulled in 15 minutes of work (collectively), which in my opinion was not very tough to begin with.

To be more clear, I started the thread in a "Uhhhh, that's not right..." sort of way. I'm not really wondering what I should have used for the task, I'm more concerned with the fact that what I chose to use failed miserably despite it's reputation and what it is supposed to be capable of. :confused:
 
ans7812 said:
I know it would I'm not doubting that. What I'm trying to show is that the Tenacious with 8Cr13MoV performed 90% better than than VG-10. I know SE are what you "should" use but my point is that VG-10 dulled in 15 minutes of work (collectively), which in my opinion was not very tough to begin with.

To be more clear, I started the thread in a "Uhhhh, that's not right..." sort of way. I'm not really wondering what I should have used for the task, I'm more concerned with the fact that what I chose to use failed miserably despite it's reputation and what it is supposed to be capable of. :confused:
Click to expand...

I would check for a wire edge on your VG10 blade.

I have done much side-by-side edge retention testing. VG10 always performs significantly better than 8Cr13MoV.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641279
See chart in second post.

If your 8Cr13MoV blade outperforms your VG10 blade doing EXACTLY the same tasks, then I'd first check for a wire edge or other similar issue.
 
knarfeng said:
I would check for a wire edge on your VG10 blade.

I have done much side-by-side edge retention testing. VG10 always performs significantly better than 8Cr13MoV.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641279
See chart in second post.

If your 8Cr13MoV blade outperforms your VG10 blade doing EXACTLY the same tasks, then I'd first check for a wire edge or other similar issue.
Click to expand...

Good call, knarfeng. I'll lay money that a wire edge is exactly the problem. :thumbup:
 
Hi Ans,

Sorry for your disappointment.

Sounds like a sharpening issue to me. If you'd like to send it to us, we can check it out.

sal
 
knarfeng said:
I would check for a wire edge on your VG10 blade.

I have done much side-by-side edge retention testing. VG10 always performs significantly better than 8Cr13MoV.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641279
See chart in second post.

If your 8Cr13MoV blade outperforms your VG10 blade doing EXACTLY the same tasks, then I'd first check for a wire edge or other similar issue.
Click to expand...

Absolutely correct! There is no way 8Cr13MoV should be outperforming VG-10 in my opinion. Sounds like a definate sharpening issue as knarfeng has said. Most likely the VG-10 blade had a "wire edge" when he started cutting. A "wire edge" on a blade will give the false pretense of being sharp but cause the blade to go dull almost immediately when a cutting chore begins because the "wire edge" will break off leaving the remaing true edge which will be dull.
 
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knarfeng said:
I would check for a wire edge on your VG10 blade.

I have done much side-by-side edge retention testing. VG10 always performs significantly better than 8Cr13MoV.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641279
See chart in second post.

If your 8Cr13MoV blade outperforms your VG10 blade doing EXACTLY the same tasks, then I'd first check for a wire edge or other similar issue.
Click to expand...

+1.

I like VG-10 a lot, though I am looking forward to the GIN-[1 | 2] steels they will be working with.

I remember finding a knife with "good" steel (compared to, and not knocking, 420HC / 440A/B) and it knocked my socks off. I could whittle an entire stick away and still have a great edge, vs the almost instant dullness that came with other knives.

I know realize that a part of my poor performing steels was my inability to properly sharpen. :D
 
My Spyderco kitchen knife in VG10 has been great in edge retention. I have had it for 1 1/2 years and only stropped it once, a month ago. It gets frequent use in cutting veggies, pineapples, and anything green.
It does much better than my knives in 440C or carbon steel.
I did use a vg10 bladed Rookie to slice a shipping label off of a box. It didn't hold an edge as well as I expected - it didn't dull completely, but cardboard is abrasive.
It is not blue steel at RC64.
 
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VG10 in my Delica 4 has served me well on soft stuff as well as on wood. I've cut my fair share of rope, although to be fair it was natural and not synthetic. Never had a single issue.
 
I am always surprised how quickly my edges drop off in landscaping applications. Everything seems to have dirt or sand on and around it. Cutting clean wood or rope is easier on the edge than dirty stuff.
 
I have a VG-10 FFG Endura that serves me well for camping and other "dirty chores" but does require re-sharpening fairly often to keep a hair-popping edge. I really don't mind because resharpening this steel takes about 5 minutes. IMO, this is comparatively short in contrast to some other blade steels I have that hold an edge longer but can be a bear to resharpen (ala BG42 and ZDP189).
 
Yeah, Im still on the fence when it comet os G10. I have several and have mixed results with the steel.
 
As long as the edge is good and one isn't cutting dirt with it VG-10 and VG-1 will hold an edge for a very long time.
 
Like others here I think your edge was either "bad" to begin with or you were cutting dirt.
 
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