Real World User Experience Sharpening CPM 15V

[zuludelta]

Also, this reminded me the importance of sharpening and geometry for affecting performance. I haven't used spyderco's S30V in a long time because I didn't enjoy it that much when I was new to knives (and to sharpening). I think that as I got newer "fancier" steels along the way I was also improving at sharpening and some of the performance I ascribed to those steels was simply due to my improvement as a sharpener. Now I see that all of my steels perform better now than they did 10 years ago and that's because of the edges they get are better. It is worth noting too, that this S30V lil native does seem to be the best performing S30V I've had, and is likely a bit harder than normal. It sharpens like a dream and holds the fine edge up front longer than some other similar steels in my collection.

This very much mirrors my experience with sharpening and revisiting steels I used to have difficulty sharpening. A lot of what I thought was "difficult to sharpen" steel back in the day was actually just a lack of technique/proper equipment/patience on my part. As I got better at sharpening, I came to realize just how good "basic" S30V can really be.

[LorenzoL]

To add onto @RyanY 's data point, I figured I would mention my own comparisons between 15V and MagnaMax, both on the Mule platform. This was just some work done on live silver maple wood, both had the factory edges, and both were roughly 16°~ per side(verified by my goniometer).

I only lightly refined the factory edge on each knife prior to this rudimentary testing. They both received about 3-4 passes per side on a balsa strop with 6 micron, then 1 micron StroppyStuff. Some very light batoning was done with a small deadblow mallet on each knife. The MagnaMax Mule measured just a bit over 65Rc on a Mitutoyo HR-320MS at work, verified by a Starrett Digital Twin in another shop I used to work, both machines are calibrated, tuned, and inspected every 3-4 months professionally. The 15V Mule measured right just over 66Rc on the same two machines.

Here's a cut for instance from one of the blades, they both ripped through silver maple with relative ease, especially on the smaller braches.


Here's the overall amount of wood cut, which came from a roughly 14-15 inch thick large section of my tree that came down in a recent storm. I'll include a link to the full album afterwards.


So it was a decent pile cut. The knives were both far from being completely dull afterwards, a few passes on the same balsa wood strop brought the edges back to the same relative sharpness they had originally, though the 15V Mule held its edge a bit better, after cleaning the wood sap off the blades, the 15V Mule would still cut paper cleanly. The MagnaMax Mule would cut it, but would catch slightly as you hit certain spots of the edge. Regardless, both were back to shaving sharp with the same edge refinement on the balsa wood strop that it started with. No major edge damage to either blade, despite the relatively hard use. I'm beginning to love the Mule platform in general.

Both blades prior to testing


Here's the complete album:
https://imgur.com/a/magnamax-mule-15v-m ... ns-Jlie1i6

I'll also add I was able to make a thousand cuts in 1/2" manila rope with my 15V Manix at 28° inclusive, the edge suffered no noticeable wear after all of that, I took it all the way to 1.5 micron on my Edge Pro Beveltech with Venev's highest polish bonded diamond stone. It basically sank through the rope, which was free-hanging off a work surface. I'm likely going to need to move to more abrasive synthetic ropes like I used to do, polyester ropes or even high density polyethylene rope if these steels can compare to the 10V and 15V customs I used to have at 67Rc-68Rc between 2015 and 2019 before my house was burglarized and I lost the entire knife collection me and my wife had built together, and enjoyed testing together.

15V brought me to this amazing brand, and I'm very happy to see it being done justice through the hard work of Sal, Shawn, and the other good people at Spyderco.

Thanks @sal and @Deadboxhero for bringing this amazing and sentimental steel(to me) to these knives. I only wish my wife was still around to experience this amazing company with me.

I'll include a picture of my F1500/8000 grit 1.5 micron edge on the 15V G10 Manix (nearly 66Rc verified with the same two testers) with the goniometer, these things are handy if you don't already have one(it was difficult to hold the knife, goniometer, and camera, but you'll get the idea, as the blade slightly shifted holding all 3, you can tell because the primary bevel doesn't read equally 2° on each side for the 4° primary bevel). It shows you everything with your sharpening, I also intend to get a BESS tester again soon.

Hope someone found all this useful

Thanks, so much valuable information in your post. Now I need to get one of the goniometers

[Skylark427]

To add onto @RyanY 's data point, I figured I would mention my own comparisons between 15V and MagnaMax, both on the Mule platform. This was just some work done on live silver maple wood, both had the factory edges, and both were roughly 16°~ per side(verified by my goniometer).

I only lightly refined the factory edge on each knife prior to this rudimentary testing. They both received about 3-4 passes per side on a balsa strop with 6 micron, then 1 micron StroppyStuff. Some very light batoning was done with a small deadblow mallet on each knife. The MagnaMax Mule measured just a bit over 65Rc on a Mitutoyo HR-320MS at work, verified by a Starrett Digital Twin in another shop I used to work, both machines are calibrated, tuned, and inspected every 3-4 months professionally. The 15V Mule measured right just over 66Rc on the same two machines.

Here's a cut for instance from one of the blades, they both ripped through silver maple with relative ease, especially on the smaller braches.


Here's the overall amount of wood cut, which came from a roughly 14-15 inch thick large section of my tree that came down in a recent storm. I'll include a link to the full album afterwards.


So it was a decent pile cut. The knives were both far from being completely dull afterwards, a few passes on the same balsa wood strop brought the edges back to the same relative sharpness they had originally, though the 15V Mule held its edge a bit better, after cleaning the wood sap off the blades, the 15V Mule would still cut paper cleanly. The MagnaMax Mule would cut it, but would catch slightly as you hit certain spots of the edge. Regardless, both were back to shaving sharp with the same edge refinement on the balsa wood strop that it started with. No major edge damage to either blade, despite the relatively hard use. I'm beginning to love the Mule platform in general.

Both blades prior to testing


Here's the complete album:
https://imgur.com/a/magnamax-mule-15v-m ... ns-Jlie1i6

I'll also add I was able to make a thousand cuts in 1/2" manila rope with my 15V Manix at 28° inclusive, the edge suffered no noticeable wear after all of that, I took it all the way to 1.5 micron on my Edge Pro Beveltech with Venev's highest polish bonded diamond stone. It basically sank through the rope, which was free-hanging off a work surface. I'm likely going to need to move to more abrasive synthetic ropes like I used to do, polyester ropes or even high density polyethylene rope if these steels can compare to the 10V and 15V customs I used to have at 67Rc-68Rc between 2015 and 2019 before my house was burglarized and I lost the entire knife collection me and my wife had built together, and enjoyed testing together.

15V brought me to this amazing brand, and I'm very happy to see it being done justice through the hard work of Sal, Shawn, and the other good people at Spyderco.

Thanks @sal and @Deadboxhero for bringing this amazing and sentimental steel(to me) to these knives. I only wish my wife was still around to experience this amazing company with me.

I'll include a picture of my F1500/8000 grit 1.5 micron edge on the 15V G10 Manix (nearly 66Rc verified with the same two testers) with the goniometer, these things are handy if you don't already have one(it was difficult to hold the knife, goniometer, and camera, but you'll get the idea, as the blade slightly shifted holding all 3, you can tell because the primary bevel doesn't read equally 2° on each side for the 4° primary bevel). It shows you everything with your sharpening, I also intend to get a BESS tester again soon.

Hope someone found all this useful

Thanks, so much valuable information in your post. Now I need to get one of the goniometers

Not a problem at all! I'm happy someone found all of it useful . Me and my wife used to test different steels on different customs for years that we would have made to roughly the same geometry, sometimes having to send it out to be reground by someone as we would experiment with different angles, we tried keeping everything at 0.007"-0.010" on the knives, and I had a homemade sharpening system at the time(made it with the mill and lathe at work) that allowed us to get very consistent angles, and allowed very low angles as well, it would go as low as about 3°~ per side. We really enjoyed testing everything, seeing just how sharp we could get the next blade, eventually getting very low scores on our BESS.

After the burglary, it really devastated us. It was basically starting off completely all over again with everything. We never really had the chance to finish everything we were testing. Our test results were that steels like 10V, 15V and Vanadis 8 when heat treated with low tempering temperatures and cryo to max hardness (67Rc+ for 10V and Vanadis 8 roughly, 68Rc+ for 15V) these steels all had incredibly high yield strength for their compressive strength (Rockwell hardness) in comparison to high speed steels like Maxamet and Rex 86/Z-max (I didn't get Rex 121 until recently, and it's a laminated blade custom, I'm excited to test it against Spydercos high tempering range Rex 121) so they could hold much lower geometry than most "super high speed steels" while having a stable edge, as they had higher yield strength for that Rockwell hardness number. K390 was another that performed exceptionally well at 67Rc+, as was S125V at 67Rc+. 15V was somewhat in a class of its own, it had all 22-23% of its carbide volume as vanadium monocarbides at roughly 87Rc, at the hardness it was at, the carbides remained relatively small (shown somewhat in Todd's work on Science of Sharp with a 2022 15V Manix at over 65Rc: https://scienceofsharp.com/2024/01/18/carbides-in-15v/).

We got to testing 15V at around the 12° inclusive mark when the burglary happened. 10V we had previously tested at near zero grind (6°~ inclusive 67Rc) against AEB-L at roughly 64.5Rc~, same geometry. On high density polyethylene rope, very few steels make it to the 100 cut mark, it really tests the edges. The results were roughly that AEB-L did around 40-50 cuts over 3 tests, 10V did between 120-130 over 3 tests. The blunting mechanism at those low angles really showed in that test medium. But it somewhat proved these high vanadium steels could hold incredibly low geometry, while remaining stable. An argument that was previously thought not possible due to their carbide volume. I remember sharing the results with Cliff Stamp back in the day on his old website, he looked over our work, he called it interesting, as most of his work showed different results. I don't believe he got a chance to test under the same conditions before his untimely passing. But we were always fascinated by 15V, as it possessed the same basic properties at a higher wear resistance class, for reference Maxamet has around the same carbide volume, but only about 14.5% of its carbide volume is monocarbides of mixed vanadium and tungsten.

I'm going to continue testing these steels, MagnaMax fascinates me just as all these high monocarbide volume only steels do, the materials to test aren't overly cheap. I'll need a BESS tester again, I may even need to make another sharpening system that goes below 8° per side (my Edge Pro Beveltech's current limitation).

I'm happy my results interested you! I will continue testing these steels at some point under more controlled settings, it brings me memories of mine and my wife's time together before her recent passing, it's also something I really enjoy doing. I've been in the metals field for 14 years now, and studied material sciences and properties of metals as my original job put me through schooling to understand the vast alloys we used. I also have a specialized degree in bonding, forming and working several different alloys. I'm no Larrin Thomas, but I've always been fascinated by steels and metals since day 1 at age 16 starting part time on that job in high school, and am grateful I got the opportunity to learn about them in depth.

I'll be sure to share more test results as they come in, I'm going to need a K294 Mule to compare with the 15V and MagnaMax Mule. I also plan on getting a Maxamet Manix or Mule as well to compare that to these new alloys on these types of tests. I hope my wife would be happy to see me continuing to do what we loved together.

Thank you for your interest! I'm happy it helped someone.

By the way, I'm looking into both the CATRA goniometer, the Gritomatic one, and a few similar options, but this one is relatively affordable. Look up "Leonard's Way Laser Knife Edge Reader." It's not the fanciest one, but once you set it, it works fairly well.

Hope to continue more testing soon! Thank you Spyderco for the amazing steels and heat treatments that allow me to continue testing where me and my wife left off!

[LorenzoL]

To add onto @RyanY 's data point, I figured I would mention my own comparisons between 15V and MagnaMax, both on the Mule platform. This was just some work done on live silver maple wood, both had the factory edges, and both were roughly 16°~ per side(verified by my goniometer).

I only lightly refined the factory edge on each knife prior to this rudimentary testing. They both received about 3-4 passes per side on a balsa strop with 6 micron, then 1 micron StroppyStuff. Some very light batoning was done with a small deadblow mallet on each knife. The MagnaMax Mule measured just a bit over 65Rc on a Mitutoyo HR-320MS at work, verified by a Starrett Digital Twin in another shop I used to work, both machines are calibrated, tuned, and inspected every 3-4 months professionally. The 15V Mule measured right just over 66Rc on the same two machines.

Here's a cut for instance from one of the blades, they both ripped through silver maple with relative ease, especially on the smaller braches.


Here's the overall amount of wood cut, which came from a roughly 14-15 inch thick large section of my tree that came down in a recent storm. I'll include a link to the full album afterwards.


So it was a decent pile cut. The knives were both far from being completely dull afterwards, a few passes on the same balsa wood strop brought the edges back to the same relative sharpness they had originally, though the 15V Mule held its edge a bit better, after cleaning the wood sap off the blades, the 15V Mule would still cut paper cleanly. The MagnaMax Mule would cut it, but would catch slightly as you hit certain spots of the edge. Regardless, both were back to shaving sharp with the same edge refinement on the balsa wood strop that it started with. No major edge damage to either blade, despite the relatively hard use. I'm beginning to love the Mule platform in general.

Both blades prior to testing


Here's the complete album:
https://imgur.com/a/magnamax-mule-15v-m ... ns-Jlie1i6

I'll also add I was able to make a thousand cuts in 1/2" manila rope with my 15V Manix at 28° inclusive, the edge suffered no noticeable wear after all of that, I took it all the way to 1.5 micron on my Edge Pro Beveltech with Venev's highest polish bonded diamond stone. It basically sank through the rope, which was free-hanging off a work surface. I'm likely going to need to move to more abrasive synthetic ropes like I used to do, polyester ropes or even high density polyethylene rope if these steels can compare to the 10V and 15V customs I used to have at 67Rc-68Rc between 2015 and 2019 before my house was burglarized and I lost the entire knife collection me and my wife had built together, and enjoyed testing together.

15V brought me to this amazing brand, and I'm very happy to see it being done justice through the hard work of Sal, Shawn, and the other good people at Spyderco.

Thanks @sal and @Deadboxhero for bringing this amazing and sentimental steel(to me) to these knives. I only wish my wife was still around to experience this amazing company with me.

I'll include a picture of my F1500/8000 grit 1.5 micron edge on the 15V G10 Manix (nearly 66Rc verified with the same two testers) with the goniometer, these things are handy if you don't already have one(it was difficult to hold the knife, goniometer, and camera, but you'll get the idea, as the blade slightly shifted holding all 3, you can tell because the primary bevel doesn't read equally 2° on each side for the 4° primary bevel). It shows you everything with your sharpening, I also intend to get a BESS tester again soon.

Hope someone found all this useful

Thanks, so much valuable information in your post. Now I need to get one of the goniometers

Not a problem at all! I'm happy someone found all of it useful . Me and my wife used to test different steels on different customs for years that we would have made to roughly the same geometry, sometimes having to send it out to be reground by someone as we would experiment with different angles, we tried keeping everything at 0.007"-0.010" on the knives, and I had a homemade sharpening system at the time(made it with the mill and lathe at work) that allowed us to get very consistent angles, and allowed very low angles as well, it would go as low as about 3°~ per side. We really enjoyed testing everything, seeing just how sharp we could get the next blade, eventually getting very low scores on our BESS.

After the burglary, it really devastated us. It was basically starting off completely all over again with everything. We never really had the chance to finish everything we were testing. Our test results were that steels like 10V, 15V and Vanadis 8 when heat treated with low tempering temperatures and cryo to max hardness (67Rc+ for 10V and Vanadis 8 roughly, 68Rc+ for 15V) these steels all had incredibly high yield strength for their compressive strength (Rockwell hardness) in comparison to high speed steels like Maxamet and Rex 86/Z-max (I didn't get Rex 121 until recently, and it's a laminated blade custom, I'm excited to test it against Spydercos high tempering range Rex 121) so they could hold much lower geometry than most "super high speed steels" while having a stable edge, as they had higher yield strength for that Rockwell hardness number. K390 was another that performed exceptionally well at 67Rc+, as was S125V at 67Rc+. 15V was somewhat in a class of its own, it had all 22-23% of its carbide volume as vanadium monocarbides at roughly 87Rc, at the hardness it was at, the carbides remained relatively small (shown somewhat in Todd's work on Science of Sharp with a 2022 15V Manix at over 65Rc: https://scienceofsharp.com/2024/01/18/carbides-in-15v/).

We got to testing 15V at around the 12° inclusive mark when the burglary happened. 10V we had previously tested at near zero grind (6°~ inclusive 67Rc) against AEB-L at roughly 64.5Rc~, same geometry. On high density polyethylene rope, very few steels make it to the 100 cut mark, it really tests the edges. The results were roughly that AEB-L did around 40-50 cuts over 3 tests, 10V did between 120-130 over 3 tests. The blunting mechanism at those low angles really showed in that test medium. But it somewhat proved these high vanadium steels could hold incredibly low geometry, while remaining stable. An argument that was previously thought not possible due to their carbide volume. I remember sharing the results with Cliff Stamp back in the day on his old website, he looked over our work, he called it interesting, as most of his work showed different results. I don't believe he got a chance to test under the same conditions before his untimely passing. But we were always fascinated by 15V, as it possessed the same basic properties at a higher wear resistance class, for reference Maxamet has around the same carbide volume, but only about 14.5% of its carbide volume is monocarbides of mixed vanadium and tungsten.

I'm going to continue testing these steels, MagnaMax fascinates me just as all these high monocarbide volume only steels do, the materials to test aren't overly cheap. I'll need a BESS tester again, I may even need to make another sharpening system that goes below 8° per side (my Edge Pro Beveltech's current limitation).

I'm happy my results interested you! I will continue testing these steels at some point under more controlled settings, it brings me memories of mine and my wife's time together before her recent passing, it's also something I really enjoy doing. I've been in the metals field for 14 years now, and studied material sciences and properties of metals as my original job put me through schooling to understand the vast alloys we used. I also have a specialized degree in bonding, forming and working several different alloys. I'm no Larrin Thomas, but I've always been fascinated by steels and metals since day 1 at age 16 starting part time on that job in high school, and am grateful I got the opportunity to learn about them in depth.

I'll be sure to share more test results as they come in, I'm going to need a K294 Mule to compare with the 15V and MagnaMax Mule. I also plan on getting a Maxamet Manix or Mule as well to compare that to these new alloys on these types of tests. I hope my wife would be happy to see me continuing to do what we loved together.

Thank you for your interest! I'm happy it helped someone.

By the way, I'm looking into both the CATRA goniometer, the Gritomatic one, and a few similar options, but this one is relatively affordable. Look up "Leonard's Way Laser Knife Edge Reader." It's not the fanciest one, but once you set it, it works fairly well.

Hope to continue more testing soon! Thank you Spyderco for the amazing steels and heat treatments that allow me to continue testing where me and my wife left off!

Thank you for the tip on the goniometer. I am very sorry about your loss.
A steel I hear performs exceptionally well at those low angles is S390. I am planning one day to order a knife from Roman Kazé who is a big fan of that steel…

[Skylark427]

To add onto @RyanY 's data point, I figured I would mention my own comparisons between 15V and MagnaMax, both on the Mule platform. This was just some work done on live silver maple wood, both had the factory edges, and both were roughly 16°~ per side(verified by my goniometer).

I only lightly refined the factory edge on each knife prior to this rudimentary testing. They both received about 3-4 passes per side on a balsa strop with 6 micron, then 1 micron StroppyStuff. Some very light batoning was done with a small deadblow mallet on each knife. The MagnaMax Mule measured just a bit over 65Rc on a Mitutoyo HR-320MS at work, verified by a Starrett Digital Twin in another shop I used to work, both machines are calibrated, tuned, and inspected every 3-4 months professionally. The 15V Mule measured right just over 66Rc on the same two machines.

Here's a cut for instance from one of the blades, they both ripped through silver maple with relative ease, especially on the smaller braches.


Here's the overall amount of wood cut, which came from a roughly 14-15 inch thick large section of my tree that came down in a recent storm. I'll include a link to the full album afterwards.


So it was a decent pile cut. The knives were both far from being completely dull afterwards, a few passes on the same balsa wood strop brought the edges back to the same relative sharpness they had originally, though the 15V Mule held its edge a bit better, after cleaning the wood sap off the blades, the 15V Mule would still cut paper cleanly. The MagnaMax Mule would cut it, but would catch slightly as you hit certain spots of the edge. Regardless, both were back to shaving sharp with the same edge refinement on the balsa wood strop that it started with. No major edge damage to either blade, despite the relatively hard use. I'm beginning to love the Mule platform in general.

Both blades prior to testing


Here's the complete album:
https://imgur.com/a/magnamax-mule-15v-m ... ns-Jlie1i6

I'll also add I was able to make a thousand cuts in 1/2" manila rope with my 15V Manix at 28° inclusive, the edge suffered no noticeable wear after all of that, I took it all the way to 1.5 micron on my Edge Pro Beveltech with Venev's highest polish bonded diamond stone. It basically sank through the rope, which was free-hanging off a work surface. I'm likely going to need to move to more abrasive synthetic ropes like I used to do, polyester ropes or even high density polyethylene rope if these steels can compare to the 10V and 15V customs I used to have at 67Rc-68Rc between 2015 and 2019 before my house was burglarized and I lost the entire knife collection me and my wife had built together, and enjoyed testing together.

15V brought me to this amazing brand, and I'm very happy to see it being done justice through the hard work of Sal, Shawn, and the other good people at Spyderco.

Thanks @sal and @Deadboxhero for bringing this amazing and sentimental steel(to me) to these knives. I only wish my wife was still around to experience this amazing company with me.

I'll include a picture of my F1500/8000 grit 1.5 micron edge on the 15V G10 Manix (nearly 66Rc verified with the same two testers) with the goniometer, these things are handy if you don't already have one(it was difficult to hold the knife, goniometer, and camera, but you'll get the idea, as the blade slightly shifted holding all 3, you can tell because the primary bevel doesn't read equally 2° on each side for the 4° primary bevel). It shows you everything with your sharpening, I also intend to get a BESS tester again soon.

Hope someone found all this useful

Thanks, so much valuable information in your post. Now I need to get one of the goniometers

Not a problem at all! I'm happy someone found all of it useful . Me and my wife used to test different steels on different customs for years that we would have made to roughly the same geometry, sometimes having to send it out to be reground by someone as we would experiment with different angles, we tried keeping everything at 0.007"-0.010" on the knives, and I had a homemade sharpening system at the time(made it with the mill and lathe at work) that allowed us to get very consistent angles, and allowed very low angles as well, it would go as low as about 3°~ per side. We really enjoyed testing everything, seeing just how sharp we could get the next blade, eventually getting very low scores on our BESS.

After the burglary, it really devastated us. It was basically starting off completely all over again with everything. We never really had the chance to finish everything we were testing. Our test results were that steels like 10V, 15V and Vanadis 8 when heat treated with low tempering temperatures and cryo to max hardness (67Rc+ for 10V and Vanadis 8 roughly, 68Rc+ for 15V) these steels all had incredibly high yield strength for their compressive strength (Rockwell hardness) in comparison to high speed steels like Maxamet and Rex 86/Z-max (I didn't get Rex 121 until recently, and it's a laminated blade custom, I'm excited to test it against Spydercos high tempering range Rex 121) so they could hold much lower geometry than most "super high speed steels" while having a stable edge, as they had higher yield strength for that Rockwell hardness number. K390 was another that performed exceptionally well at 67Rc+, as was S125V at 67Rc+. 15V was somewhat in a class of its own, it had all 22-23% of its carbide volume as vanadium monocarbides at roughly 87Rc, at the hardness it was at, the carbides remained relatively small (shown somewhat in Todd's work on Science of Sharp with a 2022 15V Manix at over 65Rc: https://scienceofsharp.com/2024/01/18/carbides-in-15v/).

We got to testing 15V at around the 12° inclusive mark when the burglary happened. 10V we had previously tested at near zero grind (6°~ inclusive 67Rc) against AEB-L at roughly 64.5Rc~, same geometry. On high density polyethylene rope, very few steels make it to the 100 cut mark, it really tests the edges. The results were roughly that AEB-L did around 40-50 cuts over 3 tests, 10V did between 120-130 over 3 tests. The blunting mechanism at those low angles really showed in that test medium. But it somewhat proved these high vanadium steels could hold incredibly low geometry, while remaining stable. An argument that was previously thought not possible due to their carbide volume. I remember sharing the results with Cliff Stamp back in the day on his old website, he looked over our work, he called it interesting, as most of his work showed different results. I don't believe he got a chance to test under the same conditions before his untimely passing. But we were always fascinated by 15V, as it possessed the same basic properties at a higher wear resistance class, for reference Maxamet has around the same carbide volume, but only about 14.5% of its carbide volume is monocarbides of mixed vanadium and tungsten.

I'm going to continue testing these steels, MagnaMax fascinates me just as all these high monocarbide volume only steels do, the materials to test aren't overly cheap. I'll need a BESS tester again, I may even need to make another sharpening system that goes below 8° per side (my Edge Pro Beveltech's current limitation).

I'm happy my results interested you! I will continue testing these steels at some point under more controlled settings, it brings me memories of mine and my wife's time together before her recent passing, it's also something I really enjoy doing. I've been in the metals field for 14 years now, and studied material sciences and properties of metals as my original job put me through schooling to understand the vast alloys we used. I also have a specialized degree in bonding, forming and working several different alloys. I'm no Larrin Thomas, but I've always been fascinated by steels and metals since day 1 at age 16 starting part time on that job in high school, and am grateful I got the opportunity to learn about them in depth.

I'll be sure to share more test results as they come in, I'm going to need a K294 Mule to compare with the 15V and MagnaMax Mule. I also plan on getting a Maxamet Manix or Mule as well to compare that to these new alloys on these types of tests. I hope my wife would be happy to see me continuing to do what we loved together.

Thank you for your interest! I'm happy it helped someone.

By the way, I'm looking into both the CATRA goniometer, the Gritomatic one, and a few similar options, but this one is relatively affordable. Look up "Leonard's Way Laser Knife Edge Reader." It's not the fanciest one, but once you set it, it works fairly well.

Hope to continue more testing soon! Thank you Spyderco for the amazing steels and heat treatments that allow me to continue testing where me and my wife left off!

Thank you for the tip on the goniometer.
A steel I hear performs exceptionally well at those low angles is S390. I am planning one day to order a knife from Roman Kaze who is a big fan of that steel…

S390 does in fact do exceptional at low angles, as does M4 (powder metal). My current custom maker is a big fan of S390 at the core of his laminated blades. I tested it back in the day as well. I'll say it performs really well at thin geometries (0.007"-0.010" behind the edge, 10-12° per side) I choose to get the Rex 121 laminated blade, clad in a layer of pure nickel, and 12 alternating layers of S90V and 20CV on on outside intead of his S390. The outer layers are roughly 67Rc~ the inner Rex 121 core is at over 70Rc, I took a tungsten carbide file to the edge to see if I could scratch it(rated at 70Rc~), and the file couldn't scratch the edge. He is unique in that he heat treats his high speed steel laminated blades with low tempering and cryo, so the microstructure is going to be different on his blades than most, but it keeps the outer layers more corrosion resistant, and if done right can grant higher yield strength to the high speed steel core, as was found by Larrin in almost every test he's done. Rex 121 is just very tricky on the austenitizing temperature you chose, but this guy has been doing this since 2004, using cryo treatment since around 2007 for high speed steels, 10V and 15V to get results of 67Rc-68Rc for 10V/15V and 67-71Rc~ for high speed steels.

I've heard Roman does great work as well. At some point, I'll also need to try one of his blades. But yes, S390 does do great at thin geometry. That's about all my current maker uses for his blades, he demonstrated the Rex 121 laminated blade I got (12°per side, 0.08" behind the edge) and used a small deadblow mallet to chop 1/4 brass rods. He did the same with the 67Rc S125V blade I currently have, similar geometry. But S390 is a big go to for him as well, so it's definitely a great steel. In my testing, it was relatively stable at low geometry as well, if that's any reassurance .

Happy to help with anything I can!

Edit: Thank you for the condolences, it means a lot to me right now, as we just passed her birthday a few days ago, and our wedding anniversary a few days after that. It's greatly appreciated

[RustyIron]

Raining.
Bored.
Rubbing rocks on knives.

This is the second sharpening for the Military 2 15V. I was tempted to call it finished after the 1.1k stone, but decided to keep going. I brought it to 4k, then gave it a little stropping with 1 micron slurry. I think it's about 24 degrees.

[cabfrank]

****!

[cabfrank]

Okay let's try DAM!
That's all it was, with N at the end.
Anyway, that looks really nice and sharp!

[Brock O Lee]

...brought it to 4k, then gave it a little stropping with 1 micron slurry. I think it's about 24 degrees.

Nice low edge! They cut so much better than the factory edges.

[RustyIron]

Nice low edge! They cut so much better than the factory edges.

The boys and girls at the factory put on an edge that is functional and long lasting for the majority of the users, but many of us like an edge with a little pizzaz. It's like Cup O' Noodles. It's fine the way it is, but if you add a dollop of Fly By Jing Zhong Sauce, it makes all the difference. Diamond slurry is the Zhong Sauce for my knives.

[Bolster]

This is the second sharpening for the Military 2 15V. I was tempted to call it finished after the 1.1k stone, but decided to keep going. I brought it to 4k, then gave it a little stropping with 1 micron slurry. I think it's about 24 degrees.

Sweet. But was Ben OK?

[RustyIron]

Sweet. But was Ben OK?

Ben will never be the same.
I thought the shot would be kinda gangsta...

[Igi964]

Very nice work RustyIron.
I put 15DPS on my Microjimbo 15V, but only to 800 grit diamond. Like it with some bite

[Skylark427]

Nice low edge! They cut so much better than the factory edges.

The boys and girls at the factory put on an edge that is functional and long lasting for the majority of the users, but many of us like an edge with a little pizzaz. It's like Cup O' Noodles. It's fine the way it is, but if you add a dollop of Fly By Jing Zhong Sauce, it makes all the difference. Diamond slurry is the Zhong Sauce for my knives.

I've been using Lacey's diamond emulsions on my knives for a bit now, really love the high concentration on them with superb consistency. What one you use?

This is mine at a 2.5 micron edge, 28° inclusive, going to go for 20° or 26° inclusive next, not sure what one yet.

Bottom one

Melts straight through manila rope.

[RustyIron]

I've been using Lacey's diamond emulsions on my knives for a bit now, really love the high concentration on them with superb consistency. What one you use?

I use diamond emulsions from Ken Schwartz.
He passed away a few years ago and his product is no longer available.

[Skylark427]

I've been using Lacey's diamond emulsions on my knives for a bit now, really love the high concentration on them with superb consistency. What one you use?

I use diamond emulsions from Ken Schwartz.
He passed away a few years ago and his product is no longer available.

Ah, I used his emulsions 8 years or so ago, they were definitely some top of the line stuff. I wasn't aware of his passing, that does explain a lot. That's very unfortunate to hear, honestly.

At least you've got some left. Your knife looks great

I'll be dropping my angle shortly from the 28° inclusive it's at

Hard to hold the knife, goniometer, and phone at the same time without 3 hands, but you get the idea with it.

[horzuff]

Reprofiled my Military 2 15V yesterday on my KMFS Rival. I used 240, 600 and 1000 diamond plates and 2500 and 8000 diamond lapping films. The process itself was really pleasant, barely needed any deburring and no stropping required whatsoever, quite easy work as well. I reprofiled two knives in that session - a DLC bodacious and the M2 - and there wasn't really any additional effort on the 15V, might have even been quicker and the factory edges and BTE thickness were pretty similar. Oh, and the edge is screaming sharp, one of the better results out of the 10 or so knives I've sharpened on the KMFS (it's new to me)

[Skylark427]

Since this post was a mistake, figured I'd just post my entire 15V collection so far. I'm still getting more, it's just that good of a steel.

More to come soon, more testing at some point. Just need a few more things for testing(controlled).

[Cletus]

I just put a third edge on my Military/Bear Carta, and it is some of the easiest steel I have ever sharpened. After nearly a year of cardboard cutting and stropping I decided it was 'time'. It really didn't need sharpening, but what the heck. I like to sharpen but I don't get much chance to sharpen your 15v because it just cuts seemingly forever. I will give another report in a year or two. Awesome job Shawn and Spyderco!

[Skylark427]

I just put a third edge on my Military/Bear Carta, and it is some of the easiest steel I have ever sharpened. After nearly a year of cardboard cutting and stropping I decided it was 'time'. It really didn't need sharpening, but what the heck. I like to sharpen but I don't get much chance to sharpen your 15v because it just cuts seemingly forever. I will give another report in a year or two. Awesome job Shawn and Spyderco!
IMG_4002.jpg

My experience exactly. Been going on the same 6000 grit 28° inclusive edge on my 15V Manix G10 for almost a year now, only touching up about every week and a half on balsa with diamond emulsions. Still cutting like a laser. When it was new, I did 1000 cuts in manila rope hanging off the edge of a workbench, zero edge wear. It melted through the rope like butter. Still going 9 months later.

Absolutely phenomenal