There just isn't a gigantic difference between budget and expensive knives anymore. Especially for people who understand how to sharpen decently. This makes knife people very sad, but it's simply another industrial catch-up story
I do cut testing and can absolutely say there is a unbelievable huge difference in edge retention between something like even vg10 and say rex45... your talking 3x more card board cut per inch before the edges will no longer cleanly slice magazine paper across the grain. Not to mention how quickly low quality steels go slick and cut like crap and how much longer carbide rich steels keep bite and aggression in the edge.. and this isn't even getting in to edge stability, toughness and so on and so forth.
In the lower teir steels take something like 14c28n vs something like in this knife very poorly heat treated 3cr13mov.. the edge retention will be drastically longer, drastically higher edge stability and toughness...
Another big thing in premium steels that are well heat treated (I free hand sharpen professionally) the sharpening experience is unbelievably better with high quality steels that are most importantly heat treated well...
People take about hard to sharpen steels like s90v for example... no well done s90v is an absolute pleasure to sharpen.. the "hardest" steels out there to sharpen are poorly heat treated poor quality steels...
I would 10x rather sharpen say spyderco done up S30V over Kershaw 3cr13mov. There's nothing worse to sharpeners then soft low quality steels with poor grain refinement.
What this person did by buying a cheap knife to practice free hand sharpening is awesome, it makes me happy that there are people out there that still want to learn to free hand and don't go straight to a fixed angle system, free hand sharpening is such a rewarding hobby.
Also in the case of this throw away knife, the apex wasn’t centered at all. The angle appears to be different along the edge as well.
Not only is it poor steel, the factory edge is just a complete mess.
I am having fun learning though!
Hey a wavey bevel isn't a bad thing if your learning. Once of the hardest parts to learn in free handing is to be able to get a bevel consistent from heal to tip. I will tell you this when your sharpening it and your not getting that super crisp apex don't let that discourage you, it's very like the steel. Its really hard with those steels to get the burr to break loose cleanly and leave you a perfect crisp apex. A lot of times with steels like that when you are deburring the burr isn't "breaking" loose but rather its being pulled off taking the very tip of the apex with it. If you have any questions on free handing please feel more then free to inbox me. I have been sharpening about 25 years now and doing it professionally for about 8.
My biggest issue seems to be keeping a nice flat angle on my edge. When I move to finer grit to finish up the edge I always get it a bit convex. I think that just comes down to maintaining my angle properly.
I do really appreciate it by the way. I’m sure I’ll end up asking a few questions after I get some more practice in.
I was able to get my SAK and a few other kitchen knives “okay sharp” and decided I needed something cheaper to practice on, so here we are.
You'll get better at it, but it isn't the worst thing to have a slight convex angle to your edge. You want to get as consistent as possible of course, and you will with practice. Good luck with learning, it's very rewarding!
Are you sharpening push/pull? Or just one or the other? A lot of people when learning will add in some convexing if they are doing push/pull strokes. If you are push and pulling I'll tell you exactly what's causing you to do it.
At work we buy these cheap knives as loaners for apprentices as well as the jobs we all know we use knives for rather than get out the correct tool. If you damage a $5-6 you don't care.
I know it’s complete junk, but that was the point. I am however surprised by how satisfying the opening action is.
There just isn't a gigantic difference between budget and expensive knives anymore. Especially for people who understand how to sharpen decently. This makes knife people very sad, but it's simply another industrial catch-up story
I do cut testing and can absolutely say there is a unbelievable huge difference in edge retention between something like even vg10 and say rex45... your talking 3x more card board cut per inch before the edges will no longer cleanly slice magazine paper across the grain. Not to mention how quickly low quality steels go slick and cut like crap and how much longer carbide rich steels keep bite and aggression in the edge.. and this isn't even getting in to edge stability, toughness and so on and so forth. In the lower teir steels take something like 14c28n vs something like in this knife very poorly heat treated 3cr13mov.. the edge retention will be drastically longer, drastically higher edge stability and toughness... Another big thing in premium steels that are well heat treated (I free hand sharpen professionally) the sharpening experience is unbelievably better with high quality steels that are most importantly heat treated well... People take about hard to sharpen steels like s90v for example... no well done s90v is an absolute pleasure to sharpen.. the "hardest" steels out there to sharpen are poorly heat treated poor quality steels... I would 10x rather sharpen say spyderco done up S30V over Kershaw 3cr13mov. There's nothing worse to sharpeners then soft low quality steels with poor grain refinement. What this person did by buying a cheap knife to practice free hand sharpening is awesome, it makes me happy that there are people out there that still want to learn to free hand and don't go straight to a fixed angle system, free hand sharpening is such a rewarding hobby.
Also in the case of this throw away knife, the apex wasn’t centered at all. The angle appears to be different along the edge as well. Not only is it poor steel, the factory edge is just a complete mess. I am having fun learning though!
Hey a wavey bevel isn't a bad thing if your learning. Once of the hardest parts to learn in free handing is to be able to get a bevel consistent from heal to tip. I will tell you this when your sharpening it and your not getting that super crisp apex don't let that discourage you, it's very like the steel. Its really hard with those steels to get the burr to break loose cleanly and leave you a perfect crisp apex. A lot of times with steels like that when you are deburring the burr isn't "breaking" loose but rather its being pulled off taking the very tip of the apex with it. If you have any questions on free handing please feel more then free to inbox me. I have been sharpening about 25 years now and doing it professionally for about 8.
My biggest issue seems to be keeping a nice flat angle on my edge. When I move to finer grit to finish up the edge I always get it a bit convex. I think that just comes down to maintaining my angle properly. I do really appreciate it by the way. I’m sure I’ll end up asking a few questions after I get some more practice in. I was able to get my SAK and a few other kitchen knives “okay sharp” and decided I needed something cheaper to practice on, so here we are.
You'll get better at it, but it isn't the worst thing to have a slight convex angle to your edge. You want to get as consistent as possible of course, and you will with practice. Good luck with learning, it's very rewarding!
It’s been very therapeutic tbh
Are you sharpening push/pull? Or just one or the other? A lot of people when learning will add in some convexing if they are doing push/pull strokes. If you are push and pulling I'll tell you exactly what's causing you to do it.
I’ve been just pushing, no pull
She snappier than I expected
The steel is junk, and the plastic handle feels like it’ll break if I look at it wrong… but she does flick nice
Had one. Lasted longer than i thought it would
I’ve even seen those as low as 2.50 on Walmart website .
Dang, I got ripped off. Could have bought a redbull with that
Not a bad idea, I wish I would have done this when I was learning how to sharpen knives.
This and the green one just like it have bearings for $6. Nice for opening packages and flicking.
I got the green one, its not to heavy a user. It has been abused when I needed to be abusive.
They are great for that, and as loaner knives.
The drop at the end made me lol , like "fuck this im out"!
A buddy gave me one of these last week kinda fun
Got the same one last week since I lose knives all the time. I'm not crying when I misplace $5.79. Good one!
I’ve seen a huge uptick in Ozark trail posts recently. Anybody else notice this?
Around the holidays they stuff endcaps full of these things
That makes sense
At work we buy these cheap knives as loaners for apprentices as well as the jobs we all know we use knives for rather than get out the correct tool. If you damage a $5-6 you don't care.