No Love for VG-10?

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Mjdavid

Mjdavid

KKF Supporting Member
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What is about VG-10? I see a lot of upper tier knives out there just collecting dust...they don’t seem to garner the same prestige as their carbon counterparts. I’m talking about gorgeous knives. Why is that?
 
It's a nice steel in my opinion, but it won't get as sharp as carbon steels like blue #2. AEB-L on the other hand is also stainless (slightly worse stain resistance) but can take a finer edge. So for me it sits in an awkward position, if I want a non-PM stainless I'm probably going to choose AEB-L.
 
I love VG10, it's one of my favourites. Shame it's got such a mediocre reputation.
 
Kippington said:
I love VG10, it's one of my favourites. Shame it's got such a mediocre reputation.
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Hey Kip, do you mean fave for making or using? or Both? What's the secret? What do you like about it?
 
Lazyboy said:
Hey Kip, do you mean fave for making or using? or Both? What's the secret? What do you like about it?
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I've never made a knife from VG10, so its purely using them that I'm refering to.
I love the ease of sharpening and the 'toothy' edge it seems to take.
This will be a bad description. but of all the steels I've used it seems to be the closest to 'knapping' an obsidian blade. Sharp, with a good balance of toothy and slicey with very little effort.
 
Shun, Miyabi, Kanetsune... probably some more I can't remember, it's common enough to find everywhere.
 
Shun definitely gets toothy, mine micro chipped so badly it looked like it was serrated..... I exaggerate obviously. They chipped pretty badly though, even though they were not abused, the knives continued cutting pretty well even chipped. I had similar experience with other VG10 knives, maybe I sharpened them too aggressively, I was much worse at sharpening then and I steel have very far to go nowo_O
 
I think (and this is my very uneducated guess) it's down to a few things. It's a finnicky steel, that needs to be done really well to actually be useable, some steels aren't that annoying to work with. After it got popular, everyone jumped on the hype train, so you see a lot of pretty crappy chinese cheapos made of the stuff, but then you also see stuff like Hattori who by all accounts seems to unlocked the proper way of using it. So between how "commercial" companies like shun throw it around on poorly designed knives (idk who thought of making a belly heavy knife made for rocking out of hard steel) and the use (or at least claim) in crappy plasticky knives, it lost a lot of respect and most of the community just dropped it and went to look for the next cool thing
 
I think Shun ruined the VG10 rep more than anything. I heard nothing but horror stories for a few years about VG10 and Shun. I was very leary of it until I tried a couple of knives from smiths that knew what they were doing with it and have started to rethink my views on it.
 
Nothing wrong with VG10....like any other steel it's how it's treated.
I think it's silly that the same people that preach it's "all about the heat treatment and not the steel" dismiss VG10 without considering who is working it...
 
Kurasaki also makes a nice version of vg10. I think it's bad rap comes alot from shun being marketed to people that aren't prepared to treat their knives properly, so alot of shuns get chipped. I had a tojiro vg10 nakiri. Never had any issues with it. I used it, sharpened it, and knife looked perfect. I sold it to a co-worker couple weeks later it looked like a serated blade. Also vg10 was made out to be super steel. The knife nuts no better, and see all kinds of options like ginsan, AEBL, r2 etc.,and also semi stainless. Some of those other steels have characteristics more preferable to some knife nuts like ease of sharpening or edge retention. It ends up being a small fish in a big pond. That being said,I would buy vg10 by a maker I trust in a knife that I wanted.
 
Mjdavid said:
What is about VG-10? I see a lot of upper tier knives out there just collecting dust...they don’t seem to garner the same prestige as their carbon counterparts. I’m talking about gorgeous knives. Why is that?
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Because there is no need for it. VG10 is just ok. Deburring it, thinning it sucks bad. Why go for VG10 when there's stuff like ginsanko out there.
 
StonedEdge said:
Because there is no need for it. VG10 is just ok. Deburring it, thinning it sucks bad. Why go for VG10 when there's stuff like ginsanko out there.
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I hear ya but I’m still trying to understand how they justify using it in the over $500 category of fine handmade cutlery. Who buys that?
 
In favour of it, once it has lost its remarkable sharpness fresh from the stones, which happens almost instantly, it keeps an acceptable level of sharpness for a very long time.
Against it: long, tedious deburring along the entire progression, some four stones being involved. You can't weaken the burr and expect it to fall off. You have to abrade it, little by little. And no fast touching up: again, the full progression. No fun.
 
I tried a bunch of VG10. Tanaka's one feels and acts like no other.
 
panda said:
people dont buy knives like that based on performance, thats why vg10 is used on trash like kono dammy.
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Those vg10 konos I believe we're made my shiraki. The grinds looked really nice and they were probably fantastic knifes that didnt get the love they probably should of due to the vg10. Quit being the kono Grinch man :D.
 
Ive used and sharpened a ryusen vg10 at Jons and it was pretty dam good, sharpened easily and got sharp af. Completely have a different view of vg10 after that experience.
 
Here's a thought: How can VG10 be considered both chippy and hard to deburr at the same time? Isn't that contradictory? I mean, the burr should fall right off a glass-like material, it's the higher toughness steels that should hold on to the burr for longer.
I do find VG10 to be a tad chippy, but I've never found it difficult to deburr.
 
Tsubaya (aparently) sells alot of it (VG10) into the JDM, so i don't think its all bad.
 
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I love VG10 (and AUS10). I use them daily at home and I sharpen about 10 on average a day. Never have bur or toothy problems on my better quality VG10 Knives.

Some of the mass cheapo knives yes, but nothing like a cheap Henkel.

A comment up above, mentions the choir forum heads on heat treatment, had it right. If done correctly it’s great. I would also caution to not listen to most personal reviews on heat treatment here as most have no knowledge or experience on the subject.

Also above, kips comments are very true. Take in what he says.
 
Kippington said:
Here's a thought: How can VG10 be considered both chippy and hard to deburr at the same time? Isn't that contradictory? I mean, the burr should fall right off a glass-like material, it's the higher toughness steels that should hold on to the burr for longer.
I do find VG10 to be a tad chippy, but I've never found it difficult to deburr.
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I never had issues to deburr vg10 knives, chippiness is the only issue I’ve experienced. I agree that it would be odd to see both behaviors on a single knife, different heat treats, sure.
 
Everyone’s a closet VG10 lover... don’t listen to the hearsay
 
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