Upper Limit?

[Robert Ptacek]

What is the upper limit of "high performance steel" that an Arkansas stone is able to handle?I don't mean to sharpen but to merely refine an already sharp edge.Thank You in advance.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

What is the upper limit of "high performance steel" that an Arkansas stone is able to handle?I don't mean to sharpen but to merely refine an already sharp edge.Thank You in advance.

May sound like an odd suggestion, but for me, the best way to find the limit would be to go ahead an attempt something more aggressive, like re-bevelling. I suggest this, because for me, I hit a serious 'wall' in trying to re-bevel a Buck knife in 440C on Arkansas stones. That was a definitive answer for me, as that blade just shrugged off those stones. Might've done OK with 440A or 420HC, but the extra chromium carbides in the 440C proved too much. Generally speaking, I've just come to avoid using Arkansas stones on anything with heavy carbide content, like 440C, 154CM/ATS-34, D2, ZDP-189, S30V, etc, because the carbides will always be harder than the novaculite (natural abrasive) in the Arkansas stones; this means the carbides won't be abraded efficiently, if at all, and they'll also create extra wear on your stones. Middle-of-the-road steels like 440A, 420HC, 12C27, AUS-8 and similar steels might be OK with most sharpening tasks on Arkansas stones. I think Arkansas stones are best-suited to the more basic steels like 1095 and similar.

For refining only, it's sort of a vague question, because that depends a lot on how 'good' the existing edge is, the hardness of the individual blade, what the desired edge finish will be, and many other things. I've found good use of a black hard Arkansas stone for de-burring VG-10, for example; it's still not very aggressive, but that gives some leeway in the use of pressure, and it sort of 'massages' burrs out of the steel, and gently polishes as well.


David