What Kind of CUTTING Jobs Make Your Blade DULL?

[GarageBoy]

Kevlar thread. My school has an obsession with this stuff in the Freshman engineering class

 

[Guinness70]

when i cut the sandpaper to line the bottom of the birdcage. reaps havoc on my current cheapo EDC. dont think the blade is even 420...
just checked : stainless steel... oi vey... yeah, nearly worn from sharpening.

 

[knarfeng]

when i cut the sandpaper to line the bottom of the birdcage. reaps havoc on my current cheapo EDC. dont think the blade is even 420...
just checked : stainless steel... oi vey... yeah, nearly worn from sharpening.

Sandpaper is hard on every blade steel. After all, you are running your blade into rocks.

 

[shecky]

I was cutting some bamboo. Both green and dry. The green stuff is pretty hard on the blade. The dry stuff can be damn near like rock.

 

[Blop]

Rockwool is my favorite.

 

[dantzk8]

* What types of steels hold up better to what cutting tasks?

To make short and simple:

For cardboard: tough steels like 1095 carbon steel to avoid microchipping.
For wood slicing or pushcutting: strong steels like zdp189 to avoid edge rolling.
For wood chopping: tough steels.
For carpet: wear resistant steels like cpms30v.
For food: stain resistant steels like vg10.

Heat treatment, sharpening angle,coarsed or polished finish can make the difference as well for the same task.

dantzk.

 

[Myal]

+1 for bamboo
my wife used my HSS bowie to cut the lawn edges , that blunted it good but we had pretty lawn edges too ...
carving wandoo , mulga , gidgee , mallee etc , the hardwoods do it to my knives but it takes a lot of ding to blunt it .
skinning a sheep one that had been in a sandstorm wearing about 5 years of fleece ...
that realy blunts a knife fast