# sharpening wear resistant steel



## tk59 (Apr 22, 2012)

I'm curious what the most wear resistant steel you've sharpened and how you managed to get the best edge on it (stones, strops, compounds, techniques, etc). I just spent a lot of time this morning trying to get DT-swr as sharp as everything else and although the edge is nice and aggressive and cuts anything in front of it, I just can't seem to squeeze that last bit of sharpeness out of it.


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## K-Fed (Apr 22, 2012)

The most wear resistant steel that I've encountered was the SRS-15 in the akifusa that I once had and found that I had to spend a bit more time on the medium stones before moving on the the higher grits and also spending a little more time stropping with a diamond loaded strop. I think simply put if it takes longer to abrade to me just = more strokes on each step to achieve the same results. I could be wrong though. Has DT commented on the steel's properties? i.e. grain size, carbide size so on and so forth?


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## tk59 (Apr 22, 2012)

Well, I was putting away my strops since they were all over the kitchen an it occurred to me that I hadn't tried anything under 0.5 microns so I pulled out my original Dave strop loaded with the 0.25 mcn polydiamond (haven't used it it at least 6 mo, maybe a year) and gave it a few passes. It's super sharp!! 
:bliss: 
Now, I just need to find out how long this edge is gonna last.

@K-Fed: I tried sharpening it several times using different stones/plates/strops, varying the amount of time spent at each stage. It definitely takes longer to get places with it but it gets there. It was just that last bit. Usually, stropping on leather w/ 1 mcn anything yields an edge that will pass any of the typical sharpness tests but on this one, it wasn't getting there before my patience ran out, lol. I don't know that Hoss has said much other than it is fine grained (I don't know how fine.) and very wear resistant.


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## K-Fed (Apr 22, 2012)

Sweet! Looking forward to a review. pics?


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## tk59 (Apr 22, 2012)

K-Fed said:


> Sweet! Looking forward to a review. pics?


Here's one. This is the knife I hand-picked for Chuck at the LV show. I've been bugging him about selling it back to me and he finally caved in favor of a carbon steel DT. The handle has darkened quite a bit. I'll post more a bit later. The other knife is my DT-ITK 270 in AEB-L.





Btw, best stone progression so far is: Gesshin 400, Sigma Select II 1.2k, insert finishing stone (nothing was particularly good), 1 mcn diamond on leather, 0.25 mcn on leather. I'll have to take this knife to JKI sometime to try the Gesshin 2k/4k on this. I have a feeling those will be winners here.


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## Dave Martell (Apr 22, 2012)

Learning this mostly from yanagiba sharpening, I've found that "double polishing" a knife can often be the trick to cleaning up a tough edge. I will go to the furthermost level available to me with stones & strops and then drop back to a mid-range to fine stone that doesn't easily create a burr and then work my way back up to the highest level again. I almost always get a much sharper (and longer lasting) edge doing this on a knife that is giving me a hard time. 

If it's a gyuto I'm working on it might pay to go one step further and drop back (for just a pass or two) to that toothy 3-5k stone and then strop on say 1mic diamond/leather so as to achieve that better all around gyuto edge. It's important to note that you don't want to create a burr here - just sort of rough up the edge a bit.


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## Dave Martell (Apr 22, 2012)

My most wear resistant experiences come from....

1. S30V

2. Aritsugu A-type mystery steel

3. Carter's damascus


Those three always stay in my mind as ones that make me work harder.


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## jgraeff (Apr 22, 2012)

The Marko prototype i had in 52100 was very wear resistant. My gesshin 400 stone barely touched that steel took a while to raise a very small burr. Although once i got it sharp it held and edge like no other. Although in the long run i think mild wear resistants is good, that way its not too hard to touch up but still holds an edge for a decent period of time.


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## TB_London (Apr 22, 2012)

Cpm Rex 121, barely any of my stones will touch it. Can't get a screaming edge on it but it stays plenty sharp for ages


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## tk59 (Apr 22, 2012)

jgraeff said:


> The Marko prototype i had in 52100 was very wear resistant. My gesshin 400 stone barely touched that steel took a while to raise a very small burr...


That's curious. I sharpened various flavors of 52100 from Marko and found the G400 easily cut all of them, including the "supercharged" versions. I did have difficulty getting a couple of them screaming sharp though.

@TB: What stones do touch that steel?


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## TB_London (Apr 22, 2012)

Did most of the profiling with diamond plates, beston 700 worked slowly, skated over chosera 1k and 5k, shapton glass 4k was very slow, shapton pro 12k worked ok. None of my king stones or naturals did anything.
0.5 micron diamond loaded strop polished up the edge well. 
First knife I've had where the burr gouged a stone, serves me right for not properly deburring religiously between each grit


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## Schtoo (Apr 22, 2012)

Stupidly hard Hitachi YXR-7...

Triple whammy of being very hard, Powder Metal and High Speed Steel. 

Thankful it's only a chisel, because a knife wouldn't be sharpenable. Too much metal at the edge in a knife, unless you went with a very small edge bevel, and even then, most stones won't touch it. 

The trade off is that it is idiotically tough. 

I don't know what you've got there, but try a softer stone run just wetted, not 'wet' or soaked. As in what should rightly be a soaking stone just sprtized with water so there are no dry spots, but no water on the surface at all. And given stone will behave very differently of course, and some stones just won't play ball. 

Anyway, this stuff got my attention. You know you've got something off the planet when a Shapton Pro 1K feels like it's greased... :eek2:

Stu.


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## RRLOVER (Apr 22, 2012)

tk59 said:


> That's curious. I sharpened various flavors of 52100 from Marko and found the G400 easily cut all of them, including the "supercharged" versions. I did have difficulty getting a couple of them screaming sharp though.





I can't say that I had any blade give me to much of a hard time sharpening,just had to work a bit harder on some.

BTW where do you store all those "other peoples knives"???


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## rhygin (Apr 22, 2012)

Very timely post. I have another of Devin's wear resistant steel gyutos, and I've been struggling to find the right combination. He mentioned using diamond plates in one of the posts, but unfortunately my only plate is XXC for flattening. I been doing 1k king, 5k chosera, and then finishing on a natural, which seems to work wonders for most of my knives - but those are almost exclusively carbons.

Guess I'll try Dave's suggestion before I take the plunge and buy some diamonds (to strop or sharpen).

For what's it worth, the steel is what it promises to be - super wear resistant with a lasting edge (and the knife is great in general). I've gotten it pretty sharp (sharp enough that it surprises me and bites me sometimes), but haven't been able to get that last bit of sharpness either.


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## ajhuff (Apr 22, 2012)

I had suggested on Devin's page when he had asked for input that there would probably be a need for diamond plates. That would still be my suggestion.

-AJ


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## Pabloz (Apr 22, 2012)

The vast majority of my knives are S35VN and I am currently only sharpening on diamond plates. 600, 1200 the 8K DMT after that strop on leather loaded with Cr2O3. Works great for my leather knives and am aching to get kitchen knife done.

PZ


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## tk59 (Apr 22, 2012)

@TB: I curious that nothing in the 2-6k really does much and natural stones just turn to nice clean mud, lol.
@Schtoo: It would be cool to see all the exotic stuff you get to work with...maybe. I guess if sharpening was a major pita, it might not be so nice.
@rrlover: Have you tried Devin's super wear resistant? I don't know if you still use Choseras but Don't bother without at least finishing on diamond or CBN.  As for where I store other people's knives... I store them at other people's homes, mainly. I do have a few extra slots in my own knife block to accomodate guests and they are always sad when they leave. 
@ryghin:Yup. For this one, I needed diamond or cbn for at least the final step. I can get most knives screaming sharp on a 5k-8k, if I'm careful but not this stuff.
@ajhuff: Thanks. I have a pile of various diamond plates. I find that they don't give the strongest or the sharpest edges and so far, I've found them to be largely unnecessary except for that final step. If you have any actual experiences with knives made of this genre of steel, please feel free to post them. That's what this thread is about.
@Pablo: I find that I still get random deep gouges when using strictly diamond plates and on this stuff, spending some significant time on chromium oxide didn't give me that super sharp edge, I was looking for. When you do make a kitchen knife out of that stuff, I'd like to try sharpening it.


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## Schtoo (Apr 23, 2012)

tk,

I can tell you this single chisel and what it's taught me in having to make up a sharpening schedule for it (the folks who make them don't have one, until I give it to them!) has definitely changed my outlook on sharpening. 

I've very much changed my thoughts from "the hardest, toughest sharpening gear is essential!" to more of a older stance, where something that is theoretically not up to snuff can get the job done better, faster and easier.

Case in point;

Sharpening this chisel with a 1-6K diamond plate gave a working edge. It worked, but it wasn't nice and edge degradation was not fast, but nothing spectacular. Certainly not good enough for a $100+ chisel that wasn't banking on it's looks.

Stones made for this stuff, better. A little troublesome, and you know which stones I mean I think.

Switching to a plain old WA 6K, running it wet then dry, got things cleaned up and then polished the heck out of the edge. Only a very small amount of edge, but that was enough. I got the needed refinement out of the edge, and the life of the edge become jaw dropping. A good white steel chisel will hack through 1/2-3/4 of a 2x4 in jarrah before it needs touching up, this thing will hack through it twice, all by itself, and still be danged sharp. 

I'm not done yet, but there's more going on than I thought (and I'm thinking about it a lot) and I'm sure that even the 'experts' are willing to admit to. Once you start getting your head around it, it's quite liberating and you can get away with danged near anything. 

But after this chisel, nothing is unsharpenable. 

Oh yeah, running this one on a King (or similar), the King stays dead, dead flat. The steel is so hard the abrasive can't touch it, so no cutting, no action, no mud, no dishing. Like I said, this stuff is mind bending.

(The plane I've got sitting on the shelf is starting to scare me. Even harder and more abrasion resistant stuff, but less tough.)

Fun, interesting and there's some new stuff coming down the pipeline as well. 

Back to work. Folks are waiting on gear, makers are waiting on words. 

Stu.


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## wsfarrell (Apr 23, 2012)

It seems there's no love on this forum for belt grinders. I have a Gihei in HAP-40 which is another powder metallurgy high speed tool steel. It was untouched by King, Shapton Pro, Maxim red aoto, Gesshin 400/2k; and I was reluctant to use DMTs on it. So I put the knife on Trizact belts on a Kalamazoo 1x42 (CrO on leather to finish) and got a superb edge. It's holding up, but I'm a home cook and don't push my knives too hard.

I'm pretty sure most U.S. knifemakers (including Devin) use a belt grinder to sharpen their knives, and the "factory" edge on those knives can be fairly decent. 

Just my $.02.


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## tk59 (Apr 23, 2012)

wsfarrell said:


> ...I'm pretty sure most U.S. knifemakers (including Devin) use a belt grinder to sharpen their knives, and the "factory" edge on those knives can be fairly decent...


Are you talking about American knifemakers in general or are you talking about people that can make a kitchen knife? Devin uses diamond plates, Tilman, Bill , Murray, Dave and Mike use stones. I bet Will and Mario use stones, too. Marko uses diamond plates (plus stone?), Stephan and Del use belts (I think Stephan might be using stones now and Del finishes on some sort of leather stropping wheel.). Kramer and Rodrigue... I don't know what they use. You wanna place a wager? 

Of course, Japanese largely use stones.


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## Schtoo (Apr 23, 2012)

wsfarrell said:


> It seems there's no love on this forum for belt grinders. I have a Gihei in HAP-40 which is another powder metallurgy high speed tool steel. It was untouched by King, Shapton Pro, Maxim red aoto, Gesshin 400/2k; and I was reluctant to use DMTs on it.




Re-e-e-e-ally???

Very interesting...

Mimics my experience with the YXR-7, and interestingly, there are ways to coax performance from at least some of those stones and make them work. Specifically the Shapton, raise a slurry on the 1K and it'll work. 5K, nope. 12K, it makes black marks, but not sharp. 

Chosera 1K, same trick to make it cut. 5K works ok without coaxing though.


The plane I have is HAP-40, and while it scares me a little, I know it's sharpenable. I also know I can grind it with relative impunity if I have to, taking care to not clog the wheel with the soft backing steel it's stuck to. 

But, if the belt grinder works, it works. No point looking much further if you've got a working solution. 

Stu.


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## TB_London (Apr 23, 2012)

tk59 said:


> @TB: I curious that nothing in the 2-6k really does much and natural stones just turn to nice clean mud, lol.


Nothing in the 2-6k range that I have works, I've heard the sigma stones for harder steels will work slowly, but haven't got any of these to try myself.
The knife will skate over the surface of most of my stones like rubbing it on an ice rink, nothing happens.

I'll agree with the observation that the shapton 12k goes black but doesn't get sharp, it's strange stuff


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## Schtoo (Apr 23, 2012)

TB_London said:


> Nothing in the 2-6k range that I have works, I've heard the sigma stones for harder steels will work slowly, but haven't got any of these to try myself.
> The knife will skate over the surface of most of my stones like rubbing it on an ice rink, nothing happens.
> 
> I'll agree with the observation that the shapton 12k goes black but doesn't get sharp, it's strange stuff



I'm not even sure the Sigmas will be of much use, that Rex 121 is nuts!

Just one thing to perhaps try if you haven't yet is to get some slurry on the stone to start with. I use a small diamond plate to do this, and I found that most of the marginal stones started working (Chosera, Shapton), albeit at reduced capacity. As an addendum to this, a roughened stone surface also seems to improve things, purely because the stone breaks up a little faster and works a little harder.

But really, I don't think I'd want to be sharpening that stuff by any means that didn't have a power cord...

Stu.


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## jgraeff (Apr 23, 2012)

tk59 said:


> That's curious. I sharpened various flavors of 52100 from Marko and found the G400 easily cut all of them, including the "supercharged" versions. I did have difficulty getting a couple of them screaming sharp though.
> 
> @TB: What stones do touch that steel?




This was one of his first knives. I believe the hardness was over 63 and heat treat wasn't as good as is now. Have tried several others from him with no problems at all. Just that one knife was pretty tough.


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## Justin0505 (Apr 23, 2012)

I'm a bit scared to say this in a post so full of expert, hardcore-freehand sharpeners... :scared2:
But this is where i often dust off the old edge-pro. It has the virtue of almost totally eliminating wobble, so the fact that a few more passes are needed really isnt that big of a deal. Plus, I have found some of the stock stones (like the 320) cut hard, swr steel very well. 

For higher grits, the jki gesshin 4k has cut evey steel that its touched... I havent fed it any dt swr or marko 52100, but i would be willing to wager the cost of the stone that it cuts thoes too. 

For final sharpening / getting the last 5% out of the edge, i have found that the "double polish" method that Dave outlined works best for me. Lots of laps on balsa with a thick load of 0.5 CBN works well, and i have found that an occasional light mist of water helps to mix up the surface when it gets too glossy.


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## tk59 (Apr 23, 2012)

jgraeff said:


> This was one of his first knives. I believe the hardness was over 63 and heat treat wasn't as good as is now. Have tried several others from him with no problems at all. Just that one knife was pretty tough.


I also tested some of the early ones but I can't say with any certainty that I got one with the same HT, he was definitely experimenting a lot at the time. Looking at the composition of 52100, I guess I have a hard time believing it gets that wear resistant but maybe it does.


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## maxim (Apr 23, 2012)

It really depend on what Natural stone, hard Range Suita can handle powder steels and wear resistant steel quite well  



tk59 said:


> @TB: I curious that nothing in the 2-6k really does much and natural stones just turn to nice clean mud, lol.


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## jgraeff (Apr 23, 2012)

tk59 said:


> I also tested some of the early ones but I can't say with any certainty that I got one with the same HT, he was definitely experimenting a lot at the time. Looking at the composition of 52100, I guess I have a hard time believing it gets that wear resistant but maybe it does.



it was the only steel i have had an issue with. I ended up using a diamond stone to raise a burr once i got the burr raised it was ok. I originally started on the G400 and couldn't raise an even burr along the edge. Once i switched back it was smooth sailing. Although with all that said i am not the best sharpener so it could have been me.


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## memorael (Apr 23, 2012)

anyone tried the Naniwa diamond stones? maybe those work better.


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## tk59 (Apr 23, 2012)

I've tried this type of "stone" and I own a 500 grit. They definitely cut most any steel and the experience is more stone-like but they are also prohibitively expensive to be a mainstream thing.


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## memorael (Apr 23, 2012)

tk59 said:


> I've tried this type of "stone" and I own a 500 grit. They definitely cut most any steel and the experience is more stone-like but they are also prohibitively expensive to be a mainstream thing.



So the verdict is they will cut anything but the price is to killer to make them something for everyone? I guess if your using those steels maybe it would pay off. Maybe someone (ahem... Jon) knows something about a similar product that isn't 300 or 400 bucks.


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## TB_London (Apr 24, 2012)

Ah i was intrested in these stones when i saw them. Longevity wise is it likely to be more or less than the diamond plates?


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