- Joined
- Jun 29, 1999
- Messages
- 10,078
I’ve always preferred highly polished, insanely scary sharp edges. Like those you can get quite easily on high carbon steels, 52100 being my favorite. My Marble’s Campcraft and Fieldcraft in 52100 from Mike Stewart’s time there take an almost unbelievably keen edge.
The wonderful new powder steels with humongous amounts of extremely hard carbides that have emerged in the last couple of decades or so, such as S30V, S35Vn, S110V, etc., offer much improved edge holding as well as toughness over conventional high carbon steels. These will (eventually) take a fine polished edge if you have a great deal of time and patience, but they seem to perform best with a more coarse edge, great for cutting fibrous stuff, miles of cardboard, food, etc. (An exception may be Benchmade’s S30V; for whatever reason, my Mini-Rukus takes an exceptionally fine edge. Maybe that has to do with the heat treat. I’ve noticed the same with my Benchmade 710 in D2.)
A couple of the newer powder steels – CPM-M4 and CPM-3V – seem to combine the best of both worlds. My recently acquired Gayle Bradley 2 in CPM-M4, with its deep hollow grind, takes a scary edge like 52100 and holds it even better. Similarly, my Benchmade Puukko 200 in CPM-3V also takes a very fine edge, though it has a conventional V grind. Both have pretty good corrosion resistance, though they will take on a patina. And like other powder steels, you need diamond hones to cut the very hard carbides in the steel.
A couple other newer powder steels that will take a very fine edge, and are stainless, are CPM-20CV and CTS-XHP. My Spyderco Mule in CPM-20CV and my CS American Lawman in CTS-XHP are amazing slicers, though maybe some of that is due to the blade geometry; both have quite high thin grinds.
This is just seat-of-the-pants speculation on my part. For real expertise on the topic, read Larrin’s excellent new book, Knife Engineering.
The wonderful new powder steels with humongous amounts of extremely hard carbides that have emerged in the last couple of decades or so, such as S30V, S35Vn, S110V, etc., offer much improved edge holding as well as toughness over conventional high carbon steels. These will (eventually) take a fine polished edge if you have a great deal of time and patience, but they seem to perform best with a more coarse edge, great for cutting fibrous stuff, miles of cardboard, food, etc. (An exception may be Benchmade’s S30V; for whatever reason, my Mini-Rukus takes an exceptionally fine edge. Maybe that has to do with the heat treat. I’ve noticed the same with my Benchmade 710 in D2.)
A couple of the newer powder steels – CPM-M4 and CPM-3V – seem to combine the best of both worlds. My recently acquired Gayle Bradley 2 in CPM-M4, with its deep hollow grind, takes a scary edge like 52100 and holds it even better. Similarly, my Benchmade Puukko 200 in CPM-3V also takes a very fine edge, though it has a conventional V grind. Both have pretty good corrosion resistance, though they will take on a patina. And like other powder steels, you need diamond hones to cut the very hard carbides in the steel.
A couple other newer powder steels that will take a very fine edge, and are stainless, are CPM-20CV and CTS-XHP. My Spyderco Mule in CPM-20CV and my CS American Lawman in CTS-XHP are amazing slicers, though maybe some of that is due to the blade geometry; both have quite high thin grinds.
This is just seat-of-the-pants speculation on my part. For real expertise on the topic, read Larrin’s excellent new book, Knife Engineering.