"Upgraded" steel

A

Adamar

Joined
Dec 9, 2008
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231
I am looking to get another Sebenza. I have had 6 CRK knives in the past; sold 5 and lost 1. IMO, the one weakness in the knives was the lower heat treat at 58-59. I always felt the s30v/s35vn blade performance was a bit lacking in comparison to Spyderco and Benhcmade. It appears that CRK finally agrees with me (and many others) who felt the heat treat was too low. The new knives are now at 59-60 RC. For those of you who have the knives with the higher heat treat, what are you thoughts? Are you noticing any performance differences between the 58-59 and the 59-60? Thanks.
 
I have written this before but I feel it's worth repeating. From the factory most of my CRKs have come with a very soft edge, most likely from powered sharpening and buffing, they have required full diamond stone sharpenings to reveal good steel. The change in sound on the stones is very noticeable, it goes from the sound of rubbing timber to the nice shink! noise you expect from hardened steel.

After that is done the edge holding goes from loosing shaving sharpness in a couple of cuts of cardboard to the equal of any S35VN steel I have tried. Water cooled sharpening or similar would negate this....
 
Jimbo75 said:
I have written this before but I feel it's worth repeating. From the factory most of my CRKs have come with a very soft edge, most likely from powered sharpening and buffing, they have required full diamond stone sharpenings to reveal good steel. The change in sound on the stones is very noticeable, it goes from the sound of rubbing timber to the nice shink! noise you expect from hardened steel.

After that is done the edge holding goes from loosing shaving sharpness in a couple of cuts of cardboard to the equal of any S35VN steel I have tried. Water cooled sharpening or similar would negate this....
Click to expand...

I have heard of this on several other steels depending on the heat treat but never on CRK. Since you mention it I feel like my 25 has got better with time and sharpening/stropping.

I should be getting a new sharpener here soon but I don't want to take off more steel than needed so it'll be a while before I test this theory again.
 
I wonder if CRKs would cut and hold an edge better and out of the box if the edge bevels were standard V grind instead of convex. Others may disagree, but IMO, there is no advantage to having convex edge bevels on a thinly-ground blade. It tends to thicken the edge (even if only slightly), and seems to lessen the edge's 'bite'. For me, it's the only thing that keeps some CRKs from being as near to perfect as is humanly possible. They're still great, though.

Jim
 
Yes. I had a 2011 large 21 that would loose an edge very quickly. I have an umnumzaan with the higher hrc and it holds an edge much longer.
 
Remember one point of Rockwell is like an order of magnitude higher than one point lower. I have some customs done by the same guy and the higher ht is noticeable. 2 or 3 points with certain steels will skitter across a worn dmt plate whereas the softer ht will sharpen normally.
That being said, sebenza are made so you don't need to be a knife nut to sharpen them. They could use ANY steel, and this is what they chose.
When someone quotes them as being butter soft I just giggle.

Russ
 
I think Reese Weiland made some super steel sebenza blades for guys years back, I bet they weren't cheap...
Russ
 
I only just now got a newer one. Time will tell. The stock edge seems to maybe have lasted a little longer. I just put a 19 dps edge on it and then used sharp maker. So now we wait and use and see what happens.

I do think the softer edge is better for most users. It is easier to sharpen. And never really bothered me.
 
I thought that this would have been said already, but it was confirmed from CRK that they have been running the 59-60 heat treat on all of their folders since late 2013. It wasn't until this time last year that they published it. I have had no problems with edge retention.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
I have noticed a difference.

The edge holding is noticeably better, but what do I have, and what did I have before?

If I had a blade at 58 vs my current one which may be 60, it makes sense, and it's the kinda difference I am seeing...
2 points of HRC is much more than the number itself would indicate.

Thing is, 58-59 vs 59-60 just depends on what you get and what you had. Without a Rockwell tester there is no way to know, so if you had a 59 and purchased a newer CRK at 59, you are going to say there is no difference....
 
Jimbo75 said:
I have written this before but I feel it's worth repeating. From the factory most of my CRKs have come with a very soft edge, most likely from powered sharpening and buffing, they have required full diamond stone sharpenings to reveal good steel. The change in sound on the stones is very noticeable, it goes from the sound of rubbing timber to the nice shink! noise you expect from hardened steel.

After that is done the edge holding goes from loosing shaving sharpness in a couple of cuts of cardboard to the equal of any S35VN steel I have tried. Water cooled sharpening or similar would negate this....
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with this but I have no doubt others may see a bigger instead of smaller difference depending on the actual hardness numbers they have, like JR88FAN said. If you're comparing 58 to 60 you'll probably notice; if you're comparing 58.5 to 59.0 then probably not.

For awhile I thought one of my 21s (lower RC S35VN from 2012) and my Zaan (softer S30V) were noticeably softer than my other 21 (harder S35VN from 2014). But...after reprofiling them all to 15dps on my Sharpmaker, I find I can't really tell a difference. This makes me think that in my case, it is the same as Jimbo explained.
 
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I have used mine daily for almost two months with just stropping to keep a hair popping edge. After taking away the initial factory edge my Ti lock has been superb with getting a keeping a heck of an edge compared to my older models. And even more so after re profiling to about 15-17 dps slightly convexed due to the nature of hand sharpening, even with the sharpmaker. I also stopped using the white stones. I get a perfect edge that is easily brought back with the strop after using just the dark rods.
 
0ne plus for the harder 35VN.
I have two Small Insingos, one early 2012 one 2015.
I usually strop my blade every night, then use the Sharpmaker when I need it.
I found the "newer" blade requires the use of the Sharpmaker less frequently. The strop works for me and I like that better.

Is this science, no, but it's my strong feeling, and isn't strong feelings what makes us buy these knives anyway?:D
 
I too have noticed that my well used Insingo seems to hold an edge better but that may be the fact that I reprofiled to get rid of the factory edge.
 
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