Tough to sharpen

[Walt2]

I just finished sharpening a small double edged boot knife, with a 31/4 blade, for someone else, that turned out to be one of the toughest knives to sharpen that I have ever ran across, even though I was using diamond stones. It finally took a very good shaving edge. The knife was purchased in 1986 and has never been sharpened. It was made by Frost Cutlery and is marked "River Boat Tickler" on one side of the blade. It is also marked "Surgical Stainless Japan". No indication just what alloy.

 

[Matt Shade]

Tough because the alloy is crap. It was tough to get a fine edge because your stones could remove so much material at a time.
Frost Cutlery isn't known for much more than wall hangers and fantasy knives. Surgical Stainless is just "great sounding bullshit", a marketing term. Its not a specific alloy but to the average guy it sounds awesome right? I mean a scapel is super sharp so it must be good **** right? Or were they referring to the stainless countertop? or the table? or the tweezers? Cutco labels their knives as high carbon surgical stainless, and use 440A. Not bad for a kitchen knife but not exactly what you expect to get when they call it "high carbon surgical grade stainless steel".

 

[Walt2]

I have sharpened a lot of knives in the past 50+ years marked surgical stainless, but never one like this. The metal was not easy to remove with the diamond stones. That is what was surprising. It took a lot of time. I have sharpened S90V(420V) with less effort than what this stuff took.

 

[Jeff Clark]

The original bevel probable ended 1/16" and was ground with a crude obtuse edge. You had a lot of extra material to remove (on two edges) to put a decent edge on the blade. I would also guess that despite the label the alloy was really one of the high-molybdenum alloys that the Japanese used in a lot of kitchen knives in the 80's and 90's. Even in comparatively thin kitchen blades those alloys are an extra pain to sharpen. They are the reason that I try and avoid high molybdenum alloys like ATS-34.

 

[Wirebender]

Matt- Back in the '80's, Frost sold a lot of knives made in Japan that were pretty good knives. I used a couple for years before I lost them. IIRC, Frost had a catalog similar to SMKW. I ran into one of those boot knives too. Hardest thing I had ever seen. I wish I had kept it to compare it to some of the knives I have now.