76.6 HCR knife
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Has it lost it's tip?
Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
No. It comes with a rounded tip. Rahven now also have a version with a normal pointy tip.
Very curious to learn how this knife has performed over the past couple years of use – has it needed sharpening yet?Now I'll have to wait until the knife finally will need sharpening. It's getting daily use but, despite that, I expect it'll stay sharp for many months. When it finally goes blunt, I guess I'll get to find out how much of a pain it is to sharpen
I was impressed at first but not so much lately. It is definitely better than the rest of the ceramic knives but it being very thin bendy and light is not to my liking. It also still chips a little and I haven't been able to sharpen it reliably. So for me in it's current form it is not as good as I hoped. Spyderco has been talking about making a mule with this, and if that is thicker as other mules, maybe then it will be more interesting cool material for sure, but knives in their current form are not that interesting.
Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
I hardly ever use that knife, but my wife uses it daily. I just checked, and it is still sharp. No chipping at this point.
I strongly suspect that trying to sharpen this myself would be futile. Maybe with cubic boron or diamond, but I don't have those kinds of stones. When it gets blunt, I think I'll just send it back to Switzerland for sharpening. At the current rate, that might well be another three years away…
riba
Senior Member
Would you mind elaborating a little bit why you hardly ever use it?
Does it make sense for a non knife oriented person as main chef knife?
This does seem to be a pretty strong candidate for the “one and done” requests that come along every so often from people who don’t want to sharpen…
Only cause for pause is—
riba
Senior Member
Yeah, I've been watching this thread from the beginning as it sounded perfect for this purpose!
Yeah, I’m wondering why this didn’t come up in Which Knife Should I Buy?
I got 3 of these all in different sizes and convinced my friend to get 3 as well. My knives came pretty sharp especially the 180 mm one. His came kind of dull, enough not to easily cut tomatoes. This given that these are not easy to sharpen is a problem in my opinion. These were from the time these just became available, so maybe not an issue anymore.
My small paring knife wasn't as sharp as I wanted, so I've decided to sharpen it since I wanted to know how difficult this would be. I haven't been able to do it. I tried various diamond stones. I also tried diamond stones from edge pro with wd40, but I was unable to make the knife sharper, if anything I might have dulled it a bit. I know that others have been successful sharpening these, using my methods and also using diamond film. It is possible to do, but I didn't succeed. Besides the material being very hard and wear resistant it is also black and doesn't create a noticeable burr, this makes it very difficult for me to tell if I am hitting the apex.
My 180.mm has been used by everyone without any supervision and the other day I've noticed some microchipping on the edge. The knife is still sharp and microchips don't seem to cause any noticeable issues, but they are there. I am not sure what happened and it ultimately isn't a big deal since the chips are few and tiny except that the knife is so hard to sharpen.
The knife is too light and flexible, I think if it was a bit sturdier and thicker it might feel better in use.
So I still think it is probably a pretty good option for non knife people with the idea that you basically throw it away after it gets too dull in a few years.
Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
I don’t use it much because it is too light for my taste. I do think it would work fine as a main chef’s knife.
