Steel indentification

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Nunya

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I am doing my best to learn from experience and research the sharpening characteristics of blade steel. What hints might help determine what to expect from a knife of unknown pedigree? I would like to approach a project with a better idea of what stone to start with beyond just trial and error. Any “scratch & sniff” tests I can use to guesstimate hardness, carbon content, etc?
 
I don’t think it can be done from sharpening alone, experienced sharpeners might be able to guess a family of steels or a range of hardness. Even then in a truly blind test it would most likely be just an educated guess at best. Same steel heat treated differently can act very different on the stones add to that a very large number of steels used for knives and you have a very difficult problem to solve. The good news is it doesn’t matter, they all pretty much sharpen the same, some just take more effort:D

There are calibrated files that could tell you if your blade is harder than some hardness but beyond that you are guessing.
 
.... The good news is it doesn’t matter, they all pretty much sharpen the same, some just take more effort.....

Fair enough, I guess I just keep doing what I’m doing. Follow up question if I may: When you run into one of those problem children that just don’t want to take an edge, do you drop down to a more aggressive stone, increase pressure or just spend more time?
 
I drop down and try again so to speak, I don't like to increase pressure too much because it is hard for me to keep consistent if I change pressure. I let the stone work harder. I hope one of the residents sharpening experts drops by.
 
There are hand-held metal composition analyzers out there. But they are out of price range for the enthusiast. >$10k type of price range. Hardness can be done with a benchtop hardness tester ~$1k. Or there is the less expensive file type that are less accurate which are <$100
 
I really want one of these small hand-held Rockwell testers. But hawt damn are they expensive...
EquipmentImage_145.jpg

$2,200.00
 
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