UKPK GIN1 sharpening

[Basetta70]

Hello,
I got years ago an UKPK with GIN1 steel, I liked very much the knife and the blade shape (it's the old hollow grind leaf).
Unfortunately it arrives with a completely blunt edge, it was the first brand new knife that comes to me unsharpened.
I've used it anyway for many tasks where a razor sharp was not needed.
Now it's time to sharpening it, I've read this steel is nowadays belong to the lower end steel but for some reasons it's giving me hard time sharpening it.
At the end I'm using a Crystolon stone by Norton (SiC, so it should have reason of any steel on the market, ceremics included) but I cannot put a decent edge on it.
I'll try the sharpie trick this night and we will see.
Have you has the same impression on this steel? It seems to be extremely wear proof.
Any suggestion about the material to use in order to have this edge shining?
Thanks you

[Sharp Guy]

Gin 1 shouldn't be hard to put a good edge on. Definitely try coloring the edge with a sharpie to make sure you're hitting the apex.

[Doc Dan]

It is not hard to sharpen. I use the back of my leather belt to occasionally strop the edge to keep it sharp. I would say your plan to color the edge with a magic marker/sharpie is a good one. That way you can tell if you are hitting the actual edge when sharpening.

[JD Spydo]

I always did like GIN-1 for Spyderedges but it didn't take me long to replace an EDC folder ( Renegade) I had when seeing how much better a couple of blade steels were on plain edges especially.

It is most interesting though how long Spyderco used GIN-1 on many of their older models>> I still wouldn't turn it down on a Spyderedged blade I might happen to like. But even ATS-55 and VG-10 were vastly better than GIN-1 on plain edges IMO.

For sharpening GIN-1 you should be able to get a good working edge with a 204 Sharpmaker.