M390 - sharpening recommendations and/or progressions?

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thebradleycrew

thebradleycrew

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Hey folks,

I've got a couple knives in M390 and am looking for guidance from those with experience on how they get a good edge and what stones/progressions they use. I've found it to be fickle thus far on most of my natural stones (aoto, aizu, Swedish los hone, Suita) and so am thinking I need to keep it on straight synthetic. Do others have similar feelings or experiences?

Thanks!
 
I've had best results with gesshin 1k, Gesshin 4k or 2k + 4k. If you want a bit more refinement diamond loaded leather strop gave it a bit finer edge with still byte left. Gesshin 1k + loaded leather strop worked well too. Swedish los hone did not work as realiably for me.
 
Generally speaking, Shapton Pro works fine even with higher alloyed steels, a 2k/5k or 2k/8k progression should work fine as a general sharpening progression. DMD Diamond stones work fine with everything you throw at it too.
 
Shapton Pro and Glass should work, Sigma Select II should be even better / faster and any kind of diamond plate should work as well.

Starting with synthetic stones for the "heavy lifting" and making the finish with a natural stone should work as well.

For example, Sigma Select II 1000, Sigma Select II 3000 and natural stone.
 
I have sharpened m390 outdoor knife and even k390(which due to large amount of vanadium is abrasion resistant) on suehiro 1000/6000 50$ stone. Removed microbevel and went for zerogrind on both. The m390 is quite ok to sharpen and on the 1000 grit you should have no problem cuting into the steel. The 6000 will give a nice polish and finish the blade to razor sharpness
 
https://www.alphaknifesupply.com/shop/m390-stainless-steel

looks like its
1,9%C :)
1% Mo
0,6% W
4% V :)

interesting choice of alloying elements. lets just say it wasn't designed to be easy to sharpen. this is probably on of the most abrasion resistant SS on the market.

if you intend to just sharpen you can use pretty much any of the often recommended brands. maybe a 1k and and a 3 or 4k. jns/naniwa pro/jki/shapton (both series)/king hyper and so on.
if you intend to do chip removal, thinning, reprofiling i would get a coarse diamond plate 2-400 as the starter stone and follow up with a 500 or 1k non diamond.

whatever you get i would get hard/slow wearing stones for this since i have a feeling this steel can wear off quite a bit of stone otherwise with all those carbides.
 
All great feedback, folks. I have a Shapton galsstone 500 and Gesshin 4k, so that is a great starting and finishing place. I agree with @inferno that the steel is really quite resistant to abrasion in my limited experience, but boy once sharp it is awesome. I'll find a slow wearing 1k or 2k and roll from there. Probably go Gesshin!
 
get whats cheapest of the known good brands imo.

i think i have owned about 10 or so 800-1k stones now. and i still have maybe 5-6 of them.
I think the absolutely slowest wearing one is the jns1k (soaker), closely followed by both shaptons (splash and go), naniwa hibiki (soaker). and also the missarka 500 (800jis) is extremely slow wearing since its basically a single block of slightly porous alox https://www.fine-tools.com/kuns.html this one is also a soaker, and it feels like crap compared to all other stones.
 
inferno said:
get whats cheapest of the known good brands imo.

i think i have owned about 10 or so 800-1k stones now. and i still have maybe 5-6 of them.
I think the absolutely slowest wearing one is the jns1k (soaker), closely followed by both shaptons (splash and go), naniwa hibiki (soaker). and also the missarka 500 (800jis) is extremely slow wearing since its basically a single block of slightly porous alox https://www.fine-tools.com/kuns.html this one is also a soaker, and it feels like crap compared to all other stones.
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Have you tried the Cerax 1k? Looks like a $45 stone just not sure how it performs.
 
also if you're looking for similar steels to this. r2/sg2 and srs15 is similar to this, but will be easier to sharpen most likely. and probably get sharper too. many japanese brands use these 2 as their premium stainless.
 
no not tried the any cerax actually. and only one king (the hyper 1k). for some reason i have no interest in ceraxes. but i will probably get a few sooner or later anyway.

the shapton pro is usually very cheap. around the 45€/$ mark and imo this is the best price/performance/longevity/dish resistant stone you can find in the 1k segment on this planet. and i have tried a few of them.
 
You might want to ping @suntravel on this. He did extensive testing on M390. He also built a knife for me out of M390. It's a ***** to sharpen if you want a super clean edge. If you just want to get good edge that stays a while it's actually not that bad.

See: https://www.instagram.com/p/BoB_wKSgfWb/
 
It might be interesting to talk to kknives_switzerland on IG. That guys use it too and gets it to split hairs.
 
I haven't found m390 that difficult to sharpen, but I haven't tried to make it shave hair just by being in its proximity either. For example ZDP-189 has been more difficult, same for s90v, s110v and then there is s125v if we are talking about stainless.

This stone might work very well too https://www.mtckitchen.com/king-neo-800-knife-sharpening-stone-st-3/ I have it but haven't tried it yet. If you want I can mail it to you and you can try it and report back.

Gesshin stones work very well for me, but if you want ultimate you could get Jon's diamond stones, I'm sure these would work great too.
 
inferno said:
this is probably on of the most abrasion resistant SS on the market.
Click to expand...
The Sigma Select II have been made to handle extremely abrasion resistant SS. The other suggestions will work too, but Diamonds or Sigma Select II will be much faster.

I can not say anything about the Geshinn stones, unfortunately I do not know them.
 
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I have the Sigma Select II 1200, which is pretty tough. The 1000 is a lot softer, but it's also 30mm high and it's very fast. He wears faster, but the speed with which he removes metal relativizes that.

And I use the stones only on very wear-resistant steels. For everything else, I prefer Shapton.
 
Cerax 1k and 6k have both been very effective for me on m390/20cv/204p steels. The 1k especially raises and removes a remarkably clean burr. Big fan of both stones.
 
lucabrasi said:
Cerax 1k and 6k have both been very effective for me on m390/20cv/204p steels. The 1k especially raises and removes a remarkably clean burr. Big fan of both stones.
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Have you ever tried the Cerax 5000 for comparison with the Cerax 6K?
 
No experience with the 5k. I have the 320, 1k, and 6k. 320 moves a lot of steel but wears very fast. It cuts much faster than my Chosera 400, but I mostly use the Chosera because it holds its shape. Do use it for major thinning jobs. It definitely cuts PM steel.

The 1k and 6k are my go to stones. That includes all my kitchen carbons and a bunch of zdp, xhp, s30/35, m390, 3v steels.

They’ll be useless against s110v, don’t know about s90v. S110 requires diamonds in my experience, which I hate sharpening on so I just dumped the s110v.
 
Shapton Pro works quite well on M390 blades. I usually start with 1k, change to 5 and/or 8k and finish on 12k or Nat.
 
i am not a pro like some of you. M390 + Shapton 500 + ME = nothing but frustration. it sucked so bad i was not using my knife in the hopes of preserving the edge. screw that.

i bought into the Diamond game. i am using the Lansky. i took my edge beyond factory sharp. i now rock the knife daily.
 

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Some pocket knives are difficult to sharpen free hand on stones no matter the steel because of the shape of the blade or edge going all the way to the handle or having flipper ridge, hand guard, etc. The one in the picture actually looks ok in that regard. For some pocket knives lansky, edge pro or Spyderco sharpmaker are just easier. Sharpenning a long and tall gyuto on one of these can be its own pain thought. Diamonds don't hurt either.
 
and for reverse curved blade you cant even use a stone...
the bigger the blade the better it is with stones.

there is definitely a learning curve when sharpening pocket knives on stones. i dont do it in any way similar to the way i sharpen big blades. because it wont usually be good or work at all.
the smaller the blade the more spine leading i do. sometimes from heel to tip sometime reverse, sometimes a kind of swirly motion, all depending on the shape of the blade.

find one method that works and use it! easy as that.

my work moras i sharpen on folded sandpaper. its cheap, it works, its fast.
 
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