a knife you have on you is more often than not relegated to a jack-of-all trades role, which may include fairly hard wood tasks of splitting, with batoning not out of the question and prying them apart for firewood. This would account for my apparent premium on overall toughness with the ancillary benefits of edge holding and rust/stain resistance.
Yes, that is similiar to my own woodcraft use. Again, these are not uses that require extreme toughness such that shock level steels, or similiar are needed. Shock level steels are, in my opinion, best suited for heavy impact use, where there is a good probability of contacts with inclusions, rocks, hard knots, etc.
A 6" long balde that is 1/8" thick is usually not swung with enough force that shock steel is required to withstand the impact stress. I can understand the can't be tough enough standpoint, and I would usually agree. However here. since you are "paying" for that toughness with the wear resistance and corrosion resistance you are loking for, perhaps you should consider a stronger, less tough steel.
Again, I think A8 would still be a great choice, as would something like 52100 or L6 if you would be willing to disregard corrosion resistance. If you really want more toughness, then consider going to a spring steel like 5160. It is massively tough, but still more wear resisitant than shock steels.
Check out some of the ABS style knives, from makers like Ray Kirk, Brian Caffery and Nick Wheeler. You will be amazed at the level of durability these knives have, while at the same time they have incredibley high performance geometry.
Also, correct me if Im wrong, Id really prefer the HT at that Rc because it wont be a pain for re-sharpening with an ordinary flat kitchen stone but at the same time wont be so soft that Id have to do it frequently.
The sheer amount of metal you have to remove with each sharpening is, to me, more important than the steel composition when determining ese of sharpening. I have knifes in very hard, very wear resisitant steels (like M2) that are typically thought to be hard to sharpen. Just the opposite is true however. Because the steel is strong and hard, it can be run at a much lower cross section, therefore their is only a small amount of metal that has to be removed, even for a full edge reset. Removing a little bit of ahrd, wear resistant metal is a lot easier for me than removing a largeer amount of softer steel. As well, when steel is run hard, it is more likely to forma crisp edge under sharpening, whereas a soft edge (58 would be about medium) is much more prone to burr formation, which really increases sharpening time,especially if you use V-rod devices to sharpen. See Cliff's *numerous* posts on the subject, as well as some very informatice posts by Jeff Clark and Joe Talmadge.
with an ordinary flat kitchen stone
If you are gonna spend the money on having a custom knife built, factor in the price of good sharpening equipment as well. However, it doe snot have to be expensive, I have sharpened knives to frightful levels using sandpaper and a drywall pad.
But again, I am by no means the "expert" opinion you seek. Just throwing my two cents worth and that is probably overpriced!
Very nice illustration of the various important tradeoffs. In fact, anyone just getting started in understanding steels should save this one away.
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