How does the famous Buck 420HC compare to the TruSharp in terms of sharpening?
Essentially identical in grinding/honing ease, in my experience. The almost complete absense of hard carbides in 420HC (ANY of it, regardless of brand) means grinding it is easy, especially on much harder man-made stones, like AlOx, SiC and diamond hones. The lack of hard carbides has the bigger impact on sharpening 420HC, and the differences in RC hardness (HRC 55-57 for Case, HRC 58+/- for Buck) are almost insignificant when grinding on such stones, which are HRC 70s and higher. On an alternate hardness scale like Knoop, the hardness difference between steel & stone is more obvious, with either of the 420HC blades being < 700 Knoop, whereas the stones' abrasives will be at least 3X+ that hard, at 2100 Knoop (AlOx), 2600 Knoop (SiC) and 7000 Knoop (diamond). If anything at all, you might notice a difference in grinding speed on Arkansas stones ('novaculite' natural abrasive at Knoop ~825) when removing a lot of metal; but, for upkeep & light honing, even Arkansas stones handle 420HC very easily.
The most noticeable difference will be in burr removal; the slightly harder Buck blades will shed their burrs more easily (they'll break away with less effort, because they're a little more brittle), whereas the slightly softer Case's burrs tend to hang on a little longer, because they're more ductile. The more ductile Case edges, I've found, are a little easier to take and hold really fine shaving edges (when specifically used as such), because steel that ductile at the edge is less prone to breaking off, per an equally thin & ductile burr. When I've sharpened Buck blades to similar shaving sharpness, at least some of that very fine edge is usually quicker to break away, like the Buck's burrs will do, due to higher brittleness at the slightly harder RC. I often notice, even when stropping the Buck's edge on plain leather, it is very quick to strip fine burrs away, and with it some of that super-fine shaving sharpness as well, if I overdo it on the strop. Alternately, if doing the same with a Case Tru-Sharp edge of similar shaving sharpness, the bare-leather stropping acts more to straighten and realign a very fine, folded burr, which then can then help it retain that shaving sharpness. Taking that point a bit further, this means I can rely more on stropping to maintain a fine edge on the Case blades, but I avoid stropping the Buck edges too much, and instead take them back to a stone if the edge sharpness degrades a little bit.
David
