Its about time the true story on knife edge geometry, steel and the resulting sharpness steels where actually told , so here it is
1. If a blade is made from pretty much any recognised knife / tool steel/ straight high carbon. The single over riding factor is not the which steel you use ! The heat treatment its given takes that slot and 58-63 rc without growing grain by over heating or not running it hot enough to actually convert said material into a fully hard state . Tempering is then required after hardening to remove the stresses from the conversion , this gives back some shock resistance and will generally remove a small amount of the finished harness, without it though the blade will chip on its edge and will likely break in hard use .
2. edge geometry , the sharpest edge we will ever make is always going to be the thinnest as it has the least drag ! Think and edge that meets at infinity ( a nice theory but in practice we will grind to about a 20-30 thousand inch ) before the actuall primary edge is done with stones etc . That said there is good reason why bushcraft scandi grinds and joiners chisels etc have the exact opposite and that is a thinner knife finer edge cannot be employed for long when battened along or even across the grain . Remember the scandi etc has a fat grind creating high friction but great strength - putting another smaller " primary edge " is often discussed on here - I have to say the theory of it being sharper on the edge is bluntly " plain wrong " the angle is then of course of and even steeper edge than what it behind it ! ( remember the least friction is required ) . The ultimate geometry is of course very different when it comes to the gralloch of a deer .
3. steel choice ? Is less important than the heat treat and the geometry but most prefer stainless as it doesn't stain and high carbon will .. Stainless is not fully rust proof simply because its a lot of iron in the mix but it is very stain poof from blood and such . If you use most stainless knives in saltwater you should still expect some rust ( high levels of chrome in sea angling knives tend to be tough to sharpen unless they are at lower hardness than we require for bleeding and gralloching stags )
1. If a blade is made from pretty much any recognised knife / tool steel/ straight high carbon. The single over riding factor is not the which steel you use ! The heat treatment its given takes that slot and 58-63 rc without growing grain by over heating or not running it hot enough to actually convert said material into a fully hard state . Tempering is then required after hardening to remove the stresses from the conversion , this gives back some shock resistance and will generally remove a small amount of the finished harness, without it though the blade will chip on its edge and will likely break in hard use .
2. edge geometry , the sharpest edge we will ever make is always going to be the thinnest as it has the least drag ! Think and edge that meets at infinity ( a nice theory but in practice we will grind to about a 20-30 thousand inch ) before the actuall primary edge is done with stones etc . That said there is good reason why bushcraft scandi grinds and joiners chisels etc have the exact opposite and that is a thinner knife finer edge cannot be employed for long when battened along or even across the grain . Remember the scandi etc has a fat grind creating high friction but great strength - putting another smaller " primary edge " is often discussed on here - I have to say the theory of it being sharper on the edge is bluntly " plain wrong " the angle is then of course of and even steeper edge than what it behind it ! ( remember the least friction is required ) . The ultimate geometry is of course very different when it comes to the gralloch of a deer .
3. steel choice ? Is less important than the heat treat and the geometry but most prefer stainless as it doesn't stain and high carbon will .. Stainless is not fully rust proof simply because its a lot of iron in the mix but it is very stain poof from blood and such . If you use most stainless knives in saltwater you should still expect some rust ( high levels of chrome in sea angling knives tend to be tough to sharpen unless they are at lower hardness than we require for bleeding and gralloching stags )
