Are We Witnessing The Death Knell of K390 In Production Folders?

[Doc Dan]

K390 is one of the best steels every dreamed up by mortal man, as far as my experience goes. Spyderco made me love this steel when they brought it out in the Urban. That left me and others begging for more. I'd rather have K390 than Maxamet or S110V. It holds an edge for a long time and isn't stubborn when it comes time to resharpen. Lovely stuff.

[elena86]

K390 is one of the best steels every dreamed up by mortal man, as far as my experience goes. Spyderco made me love this steel when they brought it out in the Urban. That left me and others begging for more. I'd rather have K390 than Maxamet or S110V. It holds an edge for a long time and isn't stubborn when it comes time to resharpen. Lovely stuff.

Exactly my thoughts. The K390 Urban is a true gem. I was smart enough to purchase 3 of them. Unfortunatly the guys from Maniago blew it when they next produced the Urban in different steels. I dunno what happened but at least they gave us the best little non-locking pocket folder in the Spyderco line supercharged with an awesome steel.

[RustyIron]

In my current ish testing downward force alters controlled testing results. So when i tried my police 4 serrated k390 I got about 70% ish of what standard plain edge seki k390 did. I just think theres better steel choices for serrations.

You're right. I haven't even tried testing a serrated edge on my pseudo-BESS tester. When I look at my serrated edges under the scope, they look downright hideous. Even the brand-new serrated Spyderco that arrived in the mail yesterday looks ugly under the scope when compared to a plain edge. Even so, if I took any of the ugly serrated edges into the yard to hack through sticks and vines, or open smooth plastic packaging, they would outperform any plain edge.

Nobody ever talks about a particular steel being less suitable for serrations, but it stands to reason that some are not as good. I think it's safe to assume that Spyderco has a lot of knowledge and does a lot of testing before they decide to crank out thousands of knives in a particular steel. So if they use a particular steel, they know it will perform well.

[Doc Dan]

K390 is one of the best steels every dreamed up by mortal man, as far as my experience goes. Spyderco made me love this steel when they brought it out in the Urban. That left me and others begging for more. I'd rather have K390 than Maxamet or S110V. It holds an edge for a long time and isn't stubborn when it comes time to resharpen. Lovely stuff.

Exactly my thoughts. The K390 Urban is a true gem. I was smart enough to purchase 3 of them. Unfortunatly the guys from Maniago blew it when they next produced the Urban in different steels. I dunno what happened but at least they gave us the best little non-locking pocket folder in the Spyderco line supercharged with an awesome steel.

Yes, that knife is a gem. I wish I had bought more of them. Now, I am afraid to carry mine very much in case something happened to it. It is just the right size and right materials. The action is better than on any of my other Urbans, too.

[VandymanG]

Still hoping for a PM3 in K390. Would love a PM3 LW blue grey Zome K390

[Steeltoez83]

Most folks use the sharpmaker to sharpen their serrations. K390 has carbides harder than the sharpmaker ceramics. In testing I get about s30v level performance when I use ceramics on plain edge testing with k390. Carbide type, carbide volume, and the limitations of useful abrasives to properly shape/sharpen is why I believe it's disappearing from the lineup. Spyderco listened to the demand of us and I always will appreciate their communication ethics. Not many manufacturers encourage dialogue the way spyderco does. Perhaps they wanted to redirect their resources towards more fruitful projects. I personally use silicon carbide on my k390 serrations and have been content with its performance.

[JSumm]

[Ramonade]

Still hoping for a PM3 in K390. Would love a PM3 LW blue grey Zome K390

There was a PM2 and para 3 Bento Box exclusive in ranger green G10, still available on their website if I'm not mistaken. You'd have to put in the price but here's that

[Skywalker]

Yes, thank you for this important reminder.

K390 is very much not dead and not disappearing from the lineup, just dropping a couple less popular edge/blade profile configurations. Same thing happened with ZDP-189... according to Spydiewiki for the ZDP Endura the CE and SE only ran through 2009 but the PE upgraded to FFG in 2010 and ran all the way to 2022.

Even if/when all the dealers are cleaned out of discontinued products, pretty much the entire Seki lineup will still be available with (plain edge) K390. So there's nothing to worry about; if you're interested just pick one up and use it for a bit.

[Brock O Lee]

Most folks use the sharpmaker to sharpen their serrations. K390 has carbides harder than the sharpmaker ceramics. In testing I get about s30v level performance when I use ceramics on plain edge testing with k390. Carbide type, carbide volume, and the limitations of useful abrasives to properly shape/sharpen is why I believe it's disappearing from the lineup. Spyderco listened to the demand of us and I always will appreciate their communication ethics. Not many manufacturers encourage dialogue the way spyderco does. Perhaps they wanted to redirect their resources towards more fruitful projects. I personally use silicon carbide on my k390 serrations and have been content with its performance.

That is useful feedback on stones, thanks...

The Sharpmaker with diamond or CBN triangle stones should do the trick?

Alternatively, strap a DMT Diafold conical file to it (this was my plan after I had stripped all the diamonds off the corners of my stones). It worked well to speed up a previous reprofile job. I prefer my serrations with rounded teeth, so I ran them over the conical file just like I would have with a SM triangle stone.

[Steeltoez83]

It would work but I see a few issues. First of all the corners amplify pressure so I would assume the cbn/ diamonds would strip out faster even under light pressure. If your exclusively sharpening serrations on the cbn/diamond triangle rods I just believe long term durability is not good. Plus I prefer a higher grit finish over 400 anyway for serrated spydies. I freehand all my serrated spydies so I have more options to pick from like the resin bond venev stones. Those have a harder binder, millimeters of diamond instead of a coating, various grit ranges etc. But they clog up fast which is the lesser evil of the two options.

[Haunted House]

With K390, I was worried that it would be difficult to sharpen, and I was pleasantly surprised it’s not. It takes longer than all my other steels, but not too much longer.
The front end sharpness and edge holding ability has been absolutely tremendous.

Where I was let down by k390 is the corrosion resistance.
I’ve read numerous reports of it having better than expected corrosion resistance, but for me that wasn’t the case.
I keep a coat of oil on all my knife blades
(usually Daiwa fishing reel oil, EDCI, gun oil or mineral oil) and recently pulled my k390 Stretch out of my knife roll after having been in there for about 3 weeks, I was shocked to see rust all over the blade including some pretty deep pitting.

I live in the hot humid southeast where rust is common, but the only other knife steel I’ve owned that rusted like this was 52100.

I should be able to remove most of it but it has sort of left a sour taste in my mouth regarding k390.

[Haunted House]

As for wharncliffe blades not being popular & discontinued, I can’t help but wonder if they had this spine shape- would it be more appealing to more customers/potential customers?

Personally speaking, I don’t mind the round/curved spine of the current wharncliffe blade, but I think this looks MUCH cooler.
It also takes up less space in the pocket when closed, weighs less and.. just looks more badass and aggressive in general

[cabfrank]

I love their cutting performance, but I agree that less tall and rounded would have been better.

[cabfrank]

Double

[ladybug93]

i love the wharncliffe profile. other knife people in my life seem to really dislike my delica wc compared to their standard shaped delicas though. i guess i'm the weird one, but i honestly think they're all ugly in the most perfect way. i don't understand how someone can think a delica looks good and a delica wc looks bad. they're all ugly until you use them.

[RustyIron]

The Sharpmaker with diamond or CBN triangle stones should do the trick?

I don't think so. I use the regular Sharpmaker stones on my serrated knives and they work great. I got the Sharpmaker when I got my first serrated K390 because I had no other way of sharpening serrations nicely. The two products pair well.

I was curious about the diamond rods for the Sharpmaker because everyone on the interwebs said I needed them. So I got them. I was disappointed. The diamond rods cut well, but they are so coarse that they really beat up the edge of the blade. Luckily, the smoothness was restored after resharpening with the standard rods.

My point is that you don't NEED the diamond rods. Really smart guys will tell you that you do. They might be right. Or you might find that you're happy with the standard rods.

[weeping minora]

With K390, I was worried that it would be difficult to sharpen, and I was pleasantly surprised it’s not. It takes longer than all my other steels, but not too much longer.
The front end sharpness and edge holding ability has been absolutely tremendous.

Where I was let down by k390 is the corrosion resistance.
I’ve read numerous reports of it having better than expected corrosion resistance, but for me that wasn’t the case.
I keep a coat of oil on all my knife blades
(usually Daiwa fishing reel oil, EDCI, gun oil or mineral oil) and recently pulled my k390 Stretch out of my knife roll after having been in there for about 3 weeks, I was shocked to see rust all over the blade including some pretty deep pitting.

I live in the hot humid southeast where rust is common, but the only other knife steel I’ve owned that rusted like this was 52100.

I should be able to remove most of it but it has sort of left a sour taste in my mouth regarding k390.

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I live in the rather "dry" South West and I've come to this exact same conclusion (though not quite to such a degree when merely "resting").

For this reason, it has pained me to come to terms, that K390 will strictly be a purchase within a fixed blade format from now on. I'm back to the more upper end stains-less stainless for pocket carry. It must just be my work and body chemistry that disagrees, even with some stainless steels. FWIW, the "best" tool steel in terms of corrosion resistance has been 3V, so far IME.

[Araignee]

As for wharncliffe blades not being popular & discontinued, I can’t help but wonder if they had this spine shape- would it be more appealing to more customers/potential customers?



(...) I think this looks MUCH cooler.
It also takes up less space in the pocket when closed, weighs less and.. just looks more badass and aggressive in general

Fully agreed. Even better if they had a swedge (e.g. on the Dragonfly, the standard version comes with a swedge ; but on the Wharncliffe version this swedge has been deleted - it's a minor detail but still disappointing).

[Bemo]

Regarding the wharnie blade shape. I very much like the shape on the Delica. But in looking at the other Seki Wharnie blades in the Endela and Endura sizes.... yuck. Those definitely are aesthetically a miss for me.