Frank

[Frank]

He’s a little more in that he does the custom sharpening for Ferrum Forge and has a bit of a following in some circles at least. He does everything freehand, don’t know how I feel about that as a guy that values precision and repeatability, but for people that don’t know how to sharpen knives and are willing to pay $30 for someone else to do it he does pretty well for himself.

Also a heck of a nice guy, when I asked him about the SM-100 he gave freely of his time even though I wasn’t a customer.

[Frank]

Good question- his official reason was “The stuff does NOT like diamonds”. I think that they A)load up really fast and B)cut in a way that does not leave a refined edge no matter how small the grit.

I’m only guessing here, but since this material doesn’t have carbides, vanadium, etc. a good edge may be the result of gently bending the apexes together as opposed to leaving the ideal (but unachievable) 1 atom wide (or would it be 1 angstrom high?) vanadium carbide “teeth” the entire length of the blade’s edge.

Sorry I can’t be clearer- I don’t have any real world experience sharpening the knife yet.

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Brewbear, Organic

[Frank]

As per Mike Emler, do NOT use diamonds on SM-100. Just got a Stinger in SM-100 myself but it’s off for repair so I haven’t had at it yet (I’m a TSPROF user BTW).

You don’t even want to use CBN, just silicon carbide I think. The guys at Ferrum actually just use sandpaper to sharpen their stuff.

 

It will load up fast, and diamonds don’t work on it.

 

You also have to consider the manufacturing process of your specific piece, as this can’t be forged into bar stock under anything resembling normal metallurgy common to carbide-containing metals. It has to be made in a vacuum among other things with knowledge probably only NASA truly understands.

 

From what I have read, it’s plenty good as a blade with zero corrosion and acceptable other properties including edge retention when sharpened “properly”,.

 

 

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Brewbear

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