Nicest steel to sharpen?

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As others have said, heat treat and geometry aside, my current favorites are:

- Whatever flavor of SK steel is used in Masakane, Sakai Kikumori, etc. is awesome on Arkansas stones. A lot of simpler steels respond well to Arks.

- The Aogami family, particularly Super, on synthetics (don't have JNATs) are fantastic.

- K390 on diamond is surprisingly excellent. As is S90V and XHP.

I don't have a lot of steels that I dislike. It's mostly a challenge of figuring them out and the best approach and proper tools. For sure I've run up on crap or terrible geometry and I've has some specific blades in good steels that have had issues, but by and large, I just try things out until I find something that works.

Also, our definitions of good edges can vary.
 
TF White #1 always treats me nice- makes me feel like a pro and practically sharpens itself. Never tried Aebl though, but will soon.
 
I run pretty much all diamond stones these days and I find that hardness is the biggest factor in how easy it is to sharpen steel. All else being equal harder steels are easier to sharpen (assume the HT is good and you don't have excessive RA). On conventional stones, I'd find steels like1080 at a fairly high hardness probably because they have nearly zero carbide volume.
 
Anyone know what steel it is that Herder is using in their carbon knifes?
 
My favorite steels to sharpen are the ones with the highest HRC. Thin geometry helps too. One of the best I've had to sharpen was this gyuto a customer sent to me in r2. I could tell by the feeling on the stone it was quite hard.

That thing took a crazy edge. With hardly any effort.

Of the knives I own, my maxamet, and k390 are my favourites, but I'm probably an odd ball when it comes to that. They don't give me any trouble when I use my diamond stones and plates. Being extremely hard, and thin behind the edge they will take amazing edges though.
 
Wow. I somehow never really noticed 26c3. Basically white steel with a bit of chromium, which I'm guessing makes it's just a bit easier to heat treat, but I'm no metallurgist. I honestly wouldn't have expected the rockwell numbers I just saw on alpha knife supply though. They were saying they got it to around 68 HRC, which I don't run into often, outside of stuff like maxamet, and similar alloys.

Definitely more interesting than I would have thought at first glance, but then again a lot of steels can be.
 
Wow. I somehow never really noticed 26c3. Basically white steel with a bit of chromium, which I'm guessing makes it's just a bit easier to heat treat, but I'm no metallurgist. I honestly wouldn't have expected the rockwell numbers I just saw on alpha knife supply though. They were saying they got it to around 68 HRC, which I don't run into often, outside of stuff like maxamet, and similar alloys.

Definitely more interesting than I would have thought at first glance, but then again a lot of steels can be.
That's for the as quenched hardness using there method.

From AKS "slightly under 68 HRC"

The AQ can be higher if using a custom process and subsequently left at a higher tempered hardness.
 
That's for the as quenched hardness using there method.

From AKS "slightly under 68 HRC"

The AQ can be higher if using a custom process and subsequently left at a higher tempered hardness.
Ok that makes sense, still not too bad. I suppose the final Rockwell will end up maybe just above numbers you would see with 52100 (on the upper end) or in the same range.
 
Here is a tangentially related observation that I was talking about with someone a few weeks back. I'd made myself a small kangaroo leather bench strop, and was having a proper look at it against paper stropping for the first time. These were my initial impressions:


'It’s been quite a while since I’ve stropped a knife on leather, and I don’t think I’d ever really done a direct side-by-side on two knives off the same stone. But I wasn’t expecting the difference to be so marked.

Roo leather massively increases refinement and overall ‘sharpness’ in comparison to (in this case) newspaper. It completely takes out the bite and aggression of the stone’s finish, and is far better, or more efficacious, for what people might traditionally consider as stropping.

Paper by comparison feels like it’s not really doing a huge amount at all. Perhaps little more than simply cleaning the edge of any burr or metal, in the same way linen might for a razor. It maintains a fidelity from the stone which I rather like, though would probably hide fewer flaws in technique because of that. You certainly have to deburr very well when stropping on paper.

Perhaps that verdict isn’t surprising when you think about why people might strop razors on leather, still - I hadn’t expected it to be so stark.

For kitchen knives I would probably be inclined to leather strop if finishing on a lower grit (sub 1k say) stone, and paper strop above that or on naturals. Though tbh it’s really just a matter of what kind of edges one likes.'


I don't know if anybody else has seen this effect? Kangaroo leather is meant to be quite good for this kind of highly refined stropping I understand, maybe with other types it's less noticeable...
 
I have never liked a leather stropped knife edge. Ever. For exactly that reason.

Maybe it makes sense if you’re sharpening up to 10/12k.

Denim and chromox can sometimes help after a mid grit stone. I mostly use it with razors for complete deburring, but always finish on the stone after.
 
I have never liked a leather stropped knife edge. Ever. For exactly that reason.

Maybe it makes sense if you’re sharpening up to 10/12k.

Denim and chromox can sometimes help after a mid grit stone. I mostly use it with razors for complete deburring, but always finish on the stone after.


Ah, always good to know that my impressions of things aren't completely off / do actually chime with others' experiences. And yeah - I can't say I'm a particular convert to leather on knives. I'm still a cardboard n shirtsleeve kinda guy!
 
I agree that over-stropped edges are good for popping hairs and not much else when it comes to kitchen cutlery. I've experienced shorter edge life and less bite than needed when I get too vigorous with the strop. I will still occasionally use my kangaroo strop on single bevels where I am looking for maximum refinement, but even then only for a few passes. I do have a plain leather strop that is loaded with diamond (1 micron maybe?) spray and I have had good luck using that after a coarser stone, usually my Aoto (1.5-2k ish). Again just a few passes. Its not my preferred method, but I can get most of my knives back to popping hairs and dicing tomatoes in about 2 or 3 minutes with that method, so good for when I just can't be bothered to pull out multiple stones, set up a sink bridge, and focus enough to deburr fully on stones.

Back to the subject of best steels to sharpen, Mikami Masayuki blue 1 is definitely up there. Lucky for everyone @refcast is basically giving one away in BST right now. The other one for me that jumps out is Nagahiro, a chisel smith who made a few knives - that steel is insanely fun to sharpen and use.
 
I have never liked a leather stropped knife edge. Ever. For exactly that reason.

Maybe it makes sense if you’re sharpening up to 10/12k.

Denim and chromox can sometimes help after a mid grit stone. I mostly use it with razors for complete deburring, but always finish on the stone after.
Yes, newspaper with knifes or I don't even bother at times. Leather or loaded leather for woodworking tools.

The smoother edges work nice with wood but I am also forced by their very nature to be more of a burr sharpener where as with knifes I can reduce the burr as I go along.
 
I have simplified my sharpening over time. If I'm not making repairs, or sharpening something completely rounded. I usually only use my 240/400 venev basically everything, then I finish with 1 micron diamond spray on leather.

The 400 side is supposed to be about equal to 600 jis. So doing that with the diamond afterwards really tends to give me what I'm looking for in just about any situation, if I want really toothy I just do 240 and then strop.


I don't really notice the edge getting over polished using this setup.
 
Thats only logical.

What you do is, a few strokes on 15.000 gritt after finishing on a 600 stone.
You can't overpolish this way. You have huge teeth this way and you are barely able to scratch the top of those huge teeth.
 
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