St. Nick’s Exclusive red and black Goddard!

[Ramonade]

I would want to resharpen and repeat that several times to be confident that what you are seeing is not a result of damaged steel in the coarse of processing/production. Did that edge shave arm hair easily in both directions when you had determined it was burr free?

Dang, I had written a big reply detailing everything yesterday and sent it. Apparently it did not go through...
I haven't had my coffee so I won't be as long this time .

The short answer is yes, it actually split hair in 3 length-wise which is usually what I aim for. I rarely go very in grit, this was a F400 edge. I sharpened it twice since then and will keep using it for the same tasks, time will tell.

And yeah I encountered this kind of situation with Seki's K390 twice, and other steels too. I'm just really unfamiliar with 4V. I only had one knife in it a month ago (3 now), from kizer. And it can handle pretty much everything.
The feedback on the stones feels like the same between that kizer and the Goddard, so the HT aren't too far apart. I sharpen a lot since it is my favorite dimension of this hobby. High carbide steels with poor HT have a way of telling you their life is miserable once you hit the stone with the blade

I would expect that this has the potential to be related to how you are sharpening. Can you describe to me your sharpening tools and how you grind the edge with those?

I know how to sharpen, I know this is not a comment to denigrate my skills or anything, but I won't talk about damage if it is due to me not being able to reach an apex or reduce then get rid of the burr ^^. I use venev Cerberus Dog and venev Pegasus stones. I have a WS Precision Adjust that I modded for stability (no movement of the clamp anymore) and being able to use the Cerberus Dog stones on. I reprofile with this and sharpen freehand (until I someday might have to reprofile).

I don't really get what you mean by "how you grind the edge" ? If I'm sharpening I simply hit the whole bevel on every pass. I check every few passes, or sometimes even each pass, to see what I'm doing.
Low pressure since the start, reducing burr before getting to the next stone. I can usually cleanly cut toilet paper after my first stone. This 4V wasn't an exception (well, with an F80 edge it's not as clean of a cut, butit helps me attest that my apex is good).

Usual progression is F80 / F150 / F240. I went farther with this 4V to see how it would behave (F400). Then after the final stone I go to my strops which are hard leather with good backing, minimal pressure is used for a couple of passes on the 3 microns, then 1 micron then 0.25 micron Gunny Juice.

After the first reprofiling/sharpening I did cut cardboard, wood and other stuff to see after each cut if an imperceptible burr did not stay (it rarely does).
I have a jeweler's loupe and other gear to use if I ever have trouble on a particular blade.

[Traditional.Sharpening]

I would want to resharpen and repeat that several times to be confident that what you are seeing is not a result of damaged steel in the coarse of processing/production. Did that edge shave arm hair easily in both directions when you had determined it was burr free?

Dang, I had written a big reply detailing everything yesterday and sent it. Apparently it did not go through...
I haven't had my coffee so I won't be as long this time .

The short answer is yes, it actually split hair in 3 length-wise which is usually what I aim for. I rarely go very in grit, this was a F400 edge. I sharpened it twice since then and will keep using it for the same tasks, time will tell.

And yeah I encountered this kind of situation with Seki's K390 twice, and other steels too. I'm just really unfamiliar with 4V. I only had one knife in it a month ago (3 now), from kizer. And it can handle pretty much everything.
The feedback on the stones feels like the same between that kizer and the Goddard, so the HT aren't too far apart. I sharpen a lot since it is my favorite dimension of this hobby. High carbide steels with poor HT have a way of telling you their life is miserable once you hit the stone with the blade

I would expect that this has the potential to be related to how you are sharpening. Can you describe to me your sharpening tools and how you grind the edge with those?

I know how to sharpen, I know this is not a comment to denigrate my skills or anything, but I won't talk about damage if it is due to me not being able to reach an apex or reduce then get rid of the burr ^^. I use venev Cerberus Dog and venev Pegasus stones. I have a WS Precision Adjust that I modded for stability (no movement of the clamp anymore) and being able to use the Cerberus Dog stones on. I reprofile with this and sharpen freehand (until I someday might have to reprofile).

I don't really get what you mean by "how you grind the edge" ? If I'm sharpening I simply hit the whole bevel on every pass. I check every few passes, or sometimes even each pass, to see what I'm doing.
Low pressure since the start, reducing burr before getting to the next stone. I can usually cleanly cut toilet paper after my first stone. This 4V wasn't an exception (well, with an F80 edge it's not as clean of a cut, butit helps me attest that my apex is good).

Usual progression is F80 / F150 / F240. I went farther with this 4V to see how it would behave (F400). Then after the final stone I go to my strops which are hard leather with good backing, minimal pressure is used for a couple of passes on the 3 microns, then 1 micron then 0.25 micron Gunny Juice.

After the first reprofiling/sharpening I did cut cardboard, wood and other stuff to see after each cut if an imperceptible burr did not stay (it rarely does).
I have a jeweler's loupe and other gear to use if I ever have trouble on a particular blade.

I know the Venev stones are popular but if they are in fact truly coarse stones then it doesn't match up to the scratch pattern I see on your edge. I can clearly see the stropping along the edge and I do see some scratches but nowhere near the degree of what I'd expect to be something around 220 grit. You can see for yourself by just comparing a fresh DMT plate of similar grit to see the differences. I'd expect one to be far more coarse scratch pattern than the other because one isn't cutting well.

I have a feeling you are seeing a lot of burnishing from the stones as they do not appear to be cutting freely to my eyes. 220 grit stones should plough off big chips of steel when conditioned properly. This isn't an assessment of your skill but mainly an issue with these types of stones as there is nothing available to actually re-CUT the abrasive to where it cuts steel freely.

[Ramonade]

I know the Venev stones are popular but if they are in fact truly coarse stones then it doesn't match up to the scratch pattern I see on your edge. I can clearly see the stropping along the edge and I do see some scratches but nowhere near the degree of what I'd expect to be something around 220 grit. You can see for yourself by just comparing a fresh DMT plate of similar grit to see the differences. I'd expect one to be far more coarse scratch pattern than the other because one isn't cutting well.

I have a feeling you are seeing a lot of burnishing from the stones as they do not appear to be cutting freely to my eyes. 220 grit stones should plough off big chips of steel when conditioned properly. This isn't an assessment of your skill but mainly an issue with these types of stones as there is nothing available to actually re-CUT the abrasive to where it cuts steel freely.

F400 is equivalent to a 1000 grit, even 1200/Extra Fine if we're talking DMT.
They are excellent stones, they're coarse if you pick a coarse grit, and fine if you pick a fine grit . It's just a totally different norm called FEPA F. I've tested dozens of brands and as far as resin bonded stones go, they're more than alright if you lap them upon receival properly using the right lapping medium (they're not totally flat when you get them, there's some really minor low spots).

F400 isn't coarse at all, it's already really fine. Here's a relatively good grit chart from gritomatic : https://www.gritomatic.com/pages/grit-chart

I've sharpened the microchips out on the F150, took less than a minute Then I followed my progression to finally finish on my F400 and 2 passes on each side with 3, 1 and 0,25 mic Gunny Juice. There's no burnishing from the stones, what you see near the apex is the effect of the gunny juice. I try to go very low on the number of passes but it works so well that it will almost establish a polished micro-bevel after a couple of stroppings.

I have almost every grit DMT offers on their DiaSharp line and I'd say that my F80 cuts as fast as their "Extra Extra Coarse" stone.

[Guts]

I know the Venev stones are popular but if they are in fact truly coarse stones then it doesn't match up to the scratch pattern I see on your edge. I can clearly see the stropping along the edge and I do see some scratches but nowhere near the degree of what I'd expect to be something around 220 grit. You can see for yourself by just comparing a fresh DMT plate of similar grit to see the differences. I'd expect one to be far more coarse scratch pattern than the other because one isn't cutting well.

I have a feeling you are seeing a lot of burnishing from the stones as they do not appear to be cutting freely to my eyes. 220 grit stones should plough off big chips of steel when conditioned properly. This isn't an assessment of your skill but mainly an issue with these types of stones as there is nothing available to actually re-CUT the abrasive to where it cuts steel freely.

F400 is equivalent to a 1000 grit, even 1200/Extra Fine if we're talking DMT.
They are excellent stones, they're coarse if you pick a coarse grit, and fine if you pick a fine grit . It's just a totally different norm called FEPA F. I've tested dozens of brands and as far as resin bonded stones go, they're more than alright if you lap them upon receival properly using the right lapping medium (they're not totally flat when you get them, there's some really minor low spots).

F400 isn't coarse at all, it's already really fine. Here's a relatively good grit chart from gritomatic : https://www.gritomatic.com/pages/grit-chart

I've sharpened the microchips out on the F150, took less than a minute Then I followed my progression to finally finish on my F400 and 2 passes on each side with 3, 1 and 0,25 mic Gunny Juice. There's no burnishing from the stones, what you see near the apex is the effect of the gunny juice. I try to go very low on the number of passes but it works so well that it will almost establish a polished micro-bevel after a couple of stroppings.

I have almost every grit DMT offers on their DiaSharp line and I'd say that my F80 cuts as fast as their "Extra Extra Coarse" stone.

Just to add to the discussion, I think it should be mentioned that Venev's are also resin bonded stones vs plated like DMT's so the diamond particles in the former are embedded in a resin matrix vs being bonded on top of the plate like on the latter. I think of it like stones in cement vs stones in gravel. It seems the DMTs will always be more aggressive even in similar size micron ratings due to this fact.

The Venev are my favorite stones to sharpen on out of everything I've tried to date, but if I'm in a hurry I just use my diamond plates. I do have to clean the Venev's more often compared to the DMT's however. I use a nagura stone and a magic eraser. Works great and they cut like new afterward. Would like to try some vitrified stones eventually if BBB ever does another run of those. I've heard they're amazing and never load up.

At any rate, here's some comparison shots of a Venev FEPA F240 at 40/50micron vs a DMT Coarse rated at 325mesh 45micron. Only the shiny bits in the venev picture are the diamonds whereas all the "stones" in the DMT photo are diamonds.

Venev F240 40/50micron


DMT Coarse 325 mesh 45micron

[olywa]

You guys are 'next level'. Mongo (me) just pawn in game of sharpening, but I learn something most every time I hit this thread, so thanks. I will say that I'm no slouch at free-handing with diamond and ceramics, and all of my knives are pretty much sharp enough to shave with, though prolly a bit more convex than I had intended. Still learning though and appreciate this knowledge base and its' contributers. Carry on.

[Bemo]

Yeah isn't this great to learn from everyone's experience? I like to use plated diamond stones if I have really low grit hogging to do. I switch to resin bonded after that and it does make for a more "polished" experience. My BBB stones are really effectively sharpen/polish at least 200 grit higher than listed. It also tends to make me "over sharpen" and probably ruin the edge I spent so much time on. Not that I'm saying that's your case Ramonade, I'm sure you and other's are much better sharpeners than I am.

[Traditional.Sharpening]

I know the Venev stones are popular but if they are in fact truly coarse stones then it doesn't match up to the scratch pattern I see on your edge. I can clearly see the stropping along the edge and I do see some scratches but nowhere near the degree of what I'd expect to be something around 220 grit. You can see for yourself by just comparing a fresh DMT plate of similar grit to see the differences. I'd expect one to be far more coarse scratch pattern than the other because one isn't cutting well.

I have a feeling you are seeing a lot of burnishing from the stones as they do not appear to be cutting freely to my eyes. 220 grit stones should plough off big chips of steel when conditioned properly. This isn't an assessment of your skill but mainly an issue with these types of stones as there is nothing available to actually re-CUT the abrasive to where it cuts steel freely.

F400 is equivalent to a 1000 grit, even 1200/Extra Fine if we're talking DMT.
They are excellent stones, they're coarse if you pick a coarse grit, and fine if you pick a fine grit . It's just a totally different norm called FEPA F. I've tested dozens of brands and as far as resin bonded stones go, they're more than alright if you lap them upon receival properly using the right lapping medium (they're not totally flat when you get them, there's some really minor low spots).

F400 isn't coarse at all, it's already really fine. Here's a relatively good grit chart from gritomatic : https://www.gritomatic.com/pages/grit-chart

I've sharpened the microchips out on the F150, took less than a minute Then I followed my progression to finally finish on my F400 and 2 passes on each side with 3, 1 and 0,25 mic Gunny Juice. There's no burnishing from the stones, what you see near the apex is the effect of the gunny juice. I try to go very low on the number of passes but it works so well that it will almost establish a polished micro-bevel after a couple of stroppings.

I have almost every grit DMT offers on their DiaSharp line and I'd say that my F80 cuts as fast as their "Extra Extra Coarse" stone.

It's all making sense now, thank you for clearing that up. I believe there are your issues, high polish mixed with a medium/high carbide volume steel. Landes wrote about this phenomenon and Cliff Stamp has repeated this at time in the past so I've taken this from what he's written about it.

From Roman Landes :

Classifed steels into three groups, type I, type II, and type III mainly based on carbide volume, 0.5-5%, 5-15%, and greater than 15% respectively. These groups needed different angles to both take and hold a high polished sharpness, 8-12, 12-20, and 20-30 degrees per side respectively. The greater the size and volume of carbide, the greater the angle required to keep the edge stable.

4V is 8% carbide volume, so needs 12-20 DPS APEX bevel to stabilize carbides at high polish. When I say that even 10 DPS is a solid edge bevel, I'm not necessarily referring to the apex. I consider the apex angle separate from the edge bevel so you'd need the appropriately chosen higher angle depending on the steel and finish you select.

My thoughts : Lower the edge angle and increase the apex angle using a micro bevel. As you said the damage is on the micro level, so the apex bevel being more obtuse will eliminate this. Lowering the edge angle will reduce cutting force required and lower stress on the apex.

[Bolster]

From Roman Landes :

Classifed steels into three groups, type I, type II, and type III mainly based on carbide volume, 0.5-5%, 5-15%, and greater than 15% respectively. These groups needed different angles to both take and hold a high polished sharpness, 8-12, 12-20, and 20-30 degrees per side respectively. The greater the size and volume of carbide, the greater the angle required to keep the edge stable.

4V is 8% carbide volume, so needs 12-20 DPS APEX bevel to stabilize carbides at high polish. When I say that even 10 DPS is a solid edge bevel, I'm not necessarily referring to the apex. I consider the apex angle separate from the edge bevel so you'd need the appropriately chosen higher angle depending on the steel and finish you select.

Thanks for the quote ^^^.

Curious, does Shawn recommend 20-30 dps for 15V, which Larrin reports to be around 23-25% vanadium carbide?

[Traditional.Sharpening]

From Roman Landes :

Classifed steels into three groups, type I, type II, and type III mainly based on carbide volume, 0.5-5%, 5-15%, and greater than 15% respectively. These groups needed different angles to both take and hold a high polished sharpness, 8-12, 12-20, and 20-30 degrees per side respectively. The greater the size and volume of carbide, the greater the angle required to keep the edge stable.

4V is 8% carbide volume, so needs 12-20 DPS APEX bevel to stabilize carbides at high polish. When I say that even 10 DPS is a solid edge bevel, I'm not necessarily referring to the apex. I consider the apex angle separate from the edge bevel so you'd need the appropriately chosen higher angle depending on the steel and finish you select.

Thanks for the quote ^^^.

Curious, does Shawn recommend 20-30 dps for 15V, which Larrin reports to be around 23-25% vanadium carbide?

Again, this is only for high polish at the apex. I don't know that Shawn recommends anything that I've seen anyways. I did ask on BF what his Manix 15V was sharpened at in a photo he posted but I didn't ask about an apex bevel, he said 13 DPS if I remember correctly. I was just looking at the width of the edge and wanted to know if my guess was right (it was spot on).

That would be a good question for Shawn as if he is running true 13 DPS without an apex bevel at the high polish I've seen him run in the past then it suggests his steel/HT formula is in defiance of that rule or there is performance being left on the table. Another possibility is that he doesn't mind working to low sharpness and the edge is sort of micro-fracturing to resharpen.

I know those number seem rather high for angles in the over 15% category but as Cliff had wrote about these steels have very low edge stability because of the extreme carbide volume. These figures that are posted for toughness on many of these types of steels are not having similar toughness at the level of the very thin cross sections you find in polished apex width.

In other words, toughness that appears to score high on paper with the standard testing does not translate to the actual apex having the same overall effect. This is in large part one of the many reasons why Cliff tended to favor rather simple steels as they had what he felt were the best overall blend of attributes, he felt that you gave up too much in other categories for this.

Here's a quote I pulled of his response on a video from his Youtube when asked about what he preferred in a basic working knife steel. Again, it's worth noting that this was his view based on how he tended to use knives and that also includes how he tended to sharpen and reprofile knives to what many here would consider absurdly acute geometry compared to 17 DPS.



Cliff's words, copied/pasted word for word below.

"Based on the steel alone, N680, however it would depend on how they are hardening it, though Benchmade usually doesn't have any issues in that regard.

I have steels in pretty much any level you could imagine, right up to things like 121REX and Maxamet at 68-70 HRC. For a basic working knife I tend to prefer simple steels such as O1 because when properly hardened they have a very high combination of ease of maintenance, toughness, strength and wear resistance.

Typically when you jump to the higher carbide steels, while you do gain abrasive wear resistance, it comes at a loss of too many other things and edge blunting is rarely just do to slow wear so my main choice for a working blade would be simply 1095 or ideally W1 at 66/68 HRC. For stainless, AEB-l.

If you want to be fancy, Super Blue, or Nitrobe 77 or other high nitrogen versions of AEB-L, but the practical gains are small for the cost.'

[aicolainen]

While much of it flys over my head, I do enjoy this tangent we’re on

[Ramonade]

Well, I'll try that then ! Thanks Traditional.Sharpening.

Right before that I'll try finishing it like most of my other steels (K390, XHP, ZDP, Maxamet...) and stop at F240 without stropping (I've became really used to directly finish on the F240 stone, my K390 Stetch only gets that treatment and the edge is hella solid). I've kept the same use of this edge for the past days and it held up better this time.

I used to not really strop as I did not find it particularly useful. After seeing a lot of videos of people managing to get a truely boosted Bess score thanks to their stropping progression, I decided to try it a bit. And I've noticed that I do gain in apex refinement, the initial sharpness is crazy ! However steels like SuperBlue seem to hold that initial sharpness of the strop better than something like 4V.

The exact content of your message is the thing I feared with stropping (even if I use diamond emulsions) for most steels. I did not know 4V had such a low carbide volume ! I expected it to be more 20+%. That's the issue when you're used to crazy high carbide volume steels I guess .

But eh, I have a 15° Apex bevel and since I only do a couple of passes on each side, if we look at the size "microbevel" set by the stropping with gunny juice, It must be around 16/17°. If I were to have stropped this edge a lot and still have such a tiny microbevel, it would've meant I was more at 20° dps on the stropping. But I'm always tring to match to +1° when I strop.

This is nice, I know this side project around the Goddard is gonna keep me busy while I keep making custom scales for the next few days.

[Traditional.Sharpening]

Well, I'll try that then ! Thanks Traditional.Sharpening.

Right before that I'll try finishing it like most of my other steels (K390, XHP, ZDP, Maxamet...) and stop at F240 without stropping (I've became really used to directly finish on the F240 stone, my K390 Stetch only gets that treatment and the edge is hella solid). I've kept the same use of this edge for the past days and it held up better this time.

I used to not really strop as I did not find it particularly useful. After seeing a lot of videos of people managing to get a truely boosted Bess score thanks to their stropping progression, I decided to try it a bit. And I've noticed that I do gain in apex refinement, the initial sharpness is crazy ! However steels like SuperBlue seem to hold that initial sharpness of the strop better than something like 4V.

The exact content of your message is the thing I feared with stropping (even if I use diamond emulsions) for most steels. I did not know 4V had such a low carbide volume ! I expected it to be more 20+%. That's the issue when you're used to crazy high carbide volume steels I guess .

But eh, I have a 15° Apex bevel and since I only do a couple of passes on each side, if we look at the size "microbevel" set by the stropping with gunny juice, It must be around 16/17°. If I were to have stropped this edge a lot and still have such a tiny microbevel, it would've meant I was more at 20° dps on the stropping. But I'm always tring to match to +1° when I strop.

This is nice, I know this side project around the Goddard is gonna keep me busy while I keep making custom scales for the next few days.

Yes, it's all a matter of perspective. 4V is low carbide volume if you're looking at it from 15V but is somewhat high if looking at simple steels. It sounds like my suspicion may have been true about damaged steel at the edge, this is very common and you really need to put at least a few sharpening sessions in to get past this possibility with any knife. I would actually suspect 15 DPS should be just fine for high polish on 4V but I'd still try and take the edge bevel lower at that apex geometry. It should only increase edge retention overall assuming the apex is the proper thickness for what you are doing with the knife.

The thing about higher carbide steels is really that there are times where they benefit and other times they do not. If you're using only 15 DPS+ angles and coarse finish and regularly cut to very low sharpness for long periods... they are great. If you're after a high polish and the highest cutting ability and edge retention with the easiest time/effort required to sharpen.... not so much. You really only want more carbides if you can be sure that what you're cutting combined with the geometry and finish of the edge will allow you to only see the edge fail by slow wear rather than taking damage.

[Buddafucco]

In Stock... https://www.stnicksknives.com/collectio ... -c16fprdbk





Edit: Out of stock

[Mr_Whiskerz]

In Stock... https://www.stnicksknives.com/collectio ... -c16fprdbk

Oh **** yes! Now I can get a backup without trolling Ebay. I'm guess they were sitting on some?

[Wartstein]

In Stock...

If it still is:

You folks who think about getting and really plan on carrying and using one... don't hesitate!! It's a great knife, and great EDC user that carries extremely well (slim, flat and light)

And it's 4Vs edge retention is (even) better than I would have thought.

[jdw]

Thanks Buddafucco. I had been kicking myself for not getting a backup and I was able to score one last night before they went OOS. I now have 3 knives that I own a backup for. This joined the elite company of my beloved 52100 Military and GB1. Thanks again.

[vivi]

thought about buying one....but native chief salt is all I can focus on these days

[Wartstein]

thought about buying one....but native chief salt is all I can focus on these days

Would have loved to read your impressions on the Goddard..
I guess coated blade, linerless construction,pretty much no thumb ramp, long grip area should be things you like.
Don't know if also the very thin handle, less "piercy" (compared to the Chief) tip and the "choke up area" which I like a lot but is not an actual choil and puts the hand pretty far from the edge when gripped behind that area.

[vivi]

it looks like a winner to me. might pick one up on the secondary market some day.

[Wartstein]

it looks like a winner to me. might pick one up on the secondary market some day.

Good luck, and sorry to say: It will not be mine ... (definitely a knife I´ll never, sell).