My stance on BD1 has been solid as a wet dish rag. :D I've ridiculed it. I've praised it. I've been lukewarm to it. But Dan's thread got me to make a commitment. I decided to make a conscious effort to sharpen my Manix 2 LW to a high level, record it so I would remember, and then use it with an open mind.
I sharpened it the same way I did my Cutlery Shoppe M2LW S90V version, except I skipped the translucent Arkansas stone on that one. But essentially the process was the same and that means stropped down to 1um. Neither knife was hair whittling sharp as I just reckon I'm not meant to produce such edges, but they were both very sharp and fully capable of shaving facial hair.
People use so many adjectives to describe sharpness any more that I don't even know how to differentiate all the categorizations. But, I can say this: The night I sharpened up my S90V one, I was kicked back in my recliner with my legs up and out and wearing shorts. I was opening and closing and generally fondling my knife as I am oft inclined to do when my wife of many years advised that I had imbibed a few cans of hop water and that I should put my sharp things away. Being male, I guffawed and continued my ritual until, yes, I cut the top of my right thigh. Just closing the knife and barely brushing the tip across my skin was enough to bring about a red-spewing cut a little shy of a half inch long. And yes she noticed and yes shw said she told me so.
:) Anyways, I'm coming up on the 30 day mark with my standard BD1 M2LW. As I mention in Dan's thread, my EDC is mostly slicing up apples, hard salami, and cheese, splitting oranges, breaking down thinner cardboard boxes like food type packages, opening envelopes and slicing tape, and that sort of lighter type but daily use. Sprinkle in some harder use on tough packaging, some abrasive materials, etc. I use my knife everyday but these days my circumstances mean that is not in a rough or harsh way.
I have also had to resist the urge to do any stropping to my knife. BD1 is receptive to stropping that I can run it on the backside of an old belt and feel the difference. But that would be cheating as S90V won't respond to that kind of naked stropping.
My conclusions? BD1 is an excellent EDC steel. I didn't baby it and I have no corrosion issues and the edge is still absolutely fully functional. It is losing it's arm hair-shaving ability, it still will in most spots on the blade but it is fading but it will still cut receipt paper and the like. I can break down a 12-pack box like it is butter and still churn out 1/8" apple slices for my mid-morning snack.
Yes, I can just slightly feel the difference in the edges when I touch the apex of both knives. The S90V, after the same amount time and use, is still sharper to the touch and will readily shave better. But in practical terms? There's no difference in my uses for 30 days and I suspect it will take quite sometime for the S90V to pull ahead in perceptible differentiation.
"Good" is a relative term. No doubt S90V will out-leg the BD1 and will just keep right on performing but I honestly think that will take quite some time in my applications. And, like I said, I can easily maintain the BD1 to stretch that time out even further.
I'm obviously not saying anything new here. I'm just sharing my experience when I put a concerted effort into having an open mind and just letting the knife talk to me. Like most of us, I love new steels and I get giddy about trying out new stuff and often that can cloud practical judgement. I get flustered when I see people essential condemn some of these steels and scare folks off of them, (highly prevalent among YouTube reviewers) when for all reasonable daily applications for the average user, they are just fine.
So that's my long winded spiel. Are you willing to give "inferior" steels an honest 30 day chance?
