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TB_London

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So still being a bit of a steel junkie and chatting with Farid at a UK forum meet before Christmas inevitably lead to me getting a knife off him.

Farid is a UK maker who specialises in Powder steels and mostly makes outdoor and competition knives, though he keeps talking about making some kitchen knives so there may be another purchase in the future.

The knife is a mule in the spyderco style, made from CPM REX-121 at 68-70 Rockwell.
It's not a big knife, blade length is just under 80mm with OAL just under 180mm, but it's chunky at 5mm on the spine.

On the stones the hardness and toughness of this steel showed, skating over the surface like an ice rink. The only stone that made any impact was a bester 700, (chosera, shapton glass, shapton pro, king stones all failed) so I had to go back to using my DMT slipstones that hadn't seen any use since I started with waterstones. Reprofiling went quicker than expected and I increased width of the bevel from 1mm to 3mm (1/2mm thick 1mm behind the edge). Deburring was a PITA, I tried to reduce it on a 6k waterstone ( before i gave up on them) but the burr gouged the surface of the stone....

So I went back to the tan DMT and very gentle stropping strokes followed by 1/2 micron diamond on card. Edge was now comfortably shaving arm hair and slicing paper.
Put the edge through some use, shredding cardboard, cutting through reams of paper, chopping wooden off cuts, and the edge was holding up well until I managed to catch a staple in some of the paper and chipped out the edge. So back to the stones for a micro bevel and I reckon this edge will last.

Had to try it in the kitchen of course, and was surprised by how well it performs, thought it would wedge like something unholy but was fine with onion, potato and swede. Haven't tried it yet, but am going to see how it copes with chicken carcasses at some point too.
It would be interesting to see a kitchen knife in this steel as it's edge would last a long time, so long as it didn't chip itself into oblivion. Not something I really need though as being a home cook edge retention isn't the number 1 priority, but would definitely want to try it if Farid makes one.

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