Buck vantage force pro
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I took the opportunity to upload a pic to this forum, rather than use an external picture hoster, for the first time in my life 🙂 . Now Chris has increased the size of pics we can upload, that’s quite a good solution.
And yes, it works! 🙂 Only, can somebody tell me why there is so much white space above the pic? It isn’t there when I edit this post.
Quite a few of my pocket knives are in S30V and I usually use the “normal” progression to sharpen it. That is, the diamond stones from 100 grit (assuming that’s necessary) to 1500 grit, sometimes ceramic stones and, depending on the sharpness and polish I want to obtain, diamond lapping film. I usually finish with a strop with some diamond paste in the order of 5 – 1 micron.
Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
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Thanks Mark, funny, I did your progression all most word for word. Thru 1500, ceramics, now I’m doing some films. Then I’m thinking 4 thru .5 emulsion on kangaroo. Might even take the stropping thru .25/.125, .05/.025 on kangaroo as well, haven’t decided yet. I set the bevel at 15 deg. and think I may micro at 17 but haven’t decided yet. I want to see how the retention is with this steel that I’ve heard so many rave about and buck state as the “best” steel for a knife blade. I’m not finding it difficult to sharpen as I’ve heard from some, in fact, I’m finding that this thing takes and incredibly sharp edge so we’ll see. It’s been much easier to sharpen than a lot of the inexpensive blades that I do most of the time. Not to many carry middle to upper end EDCs around here. I am spending more time on it than normal because this is a labor of love for me as it is mine and the first knife with S30VÂ I’ve done. I’ve had this knife for 6 months or so and have used it the way it came from buck without a lot of fall off except one small chip. Not real sharp the way it came, not horrible, and probably had the micro chip when I received it.
Thanks for the picture Mark! Not to computer savvy I’m afraid.
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I’m curious about your experiences with S30V, Sksharp, also regarding edge retention. I think that of all the stainless steels I have sharpened S30V (together with S35V) has the best edge retention. But then I never sharpened any of the “super super steels” like S110V and Maxamet. (I’m saving for a Spyderco with Maxamet. The Paramilitary 2 and Para 3 have been listed as “soon to be available” at some shops, but they’re still not there.)
And I am also curious about your sharpening experiences. My experience is that in general, I can get it very sharp (it still benefits from very low grit DLF and stropping compounds) and it is not difficult to sharpen. The stories I read about e.g. S110V is that it is pretty hard to sharpen, although I don’t know how that is when you use a WEPS: all stories I read were about hand sharpening.
I have several pocket knives in S30V, so I do have some experience with it, and as you can infer from the above, I really like this steel!
Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
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I’m curious about your experiences with S30V,
It will be a while before I can comment on retention since I just sharpen it and haven’t used it much. This was my first experience with S30V. It sharpened great. Sharpened at 15 deg. and it took the edge great. Very sharp! I did almost what you stated earlier for a progression, I went thru 1500, then both sets of ceramic stones, and then 9, 6, 3, films. I haven’t micro beveled it yet, I intend to micro at 17 and then strop. I too think I’m going to like this steel. I’ve been playing with it a little as is, but I haven’t had the time to test it and then determine how I want to proceed. I’m leaning toward a very fine edge stropping all the way from 4 emulsion to .025 poly diamonds, all on kangaroo. Thanks
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OK finished the Buck vantage force pro(S30V) and this is the progression used…profiled with the 200 diamond thru 1500, stepped back a bit and used both sets of ceramics, 9 thru 1 micron lapping film then 4/2, 1/.5 emulsions, .25/.125 cubic boron, .05/.025 mono-crystalline diamond spray all on kangaroo. Spent more time on this than I’m used to. Underlying bevel at 15 deg. with 17 degree micro bevel using the .6 ceramic, 10 or so passes before stropping. I did this with a 14x loop as I’ve been doing but started using a microscope yesterday so when I’m done with the knife I’m currently working on I’ll try to post some pictures of the edge if I can figure out how. Computer skills a little lacking I’m afraid. Very sharp and looks very good to the naked eye.
Tested with the dollop test I’ve seen recently with wax paper and magazine paper very slowly with no problem, popped hair without issue so I think it’s sharp. Curious to see what it looks like under magnification though. Sent a picture to a friend but tried to do it out of the clamp without a lot of success I’m afraid. With all I’ve heard from others, not necessarily on this forum, this was not hard to sharpen at all and took the edge better than the inexpensive steels that I have worked on for the most part. I really like S30V at this point and am looking forward to seeing how the retention on this is.
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Here’s some pictures of the edge of my Buck Vantage Force Pro. More on the edge than I could see through a loop for sure, some debris on the blade and I’m not very good at this microscope stuff yet… 2 of the bevel somewhere around 50x I think then a couple of the micro bevel at a higher magnification.
The micro bevel shown is done with the .6 ceramic stone and 10 strokes edge trailing heel to tip.
Man, that micro-bevel is tiny! Is it visible without magnification?
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