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A little work to check on ergonomics, handle security, ease of grinding, sharpening and edge retention.
Here is the edge with a 20 dps apex bevel (MXF DMT) :
Edge bevel is ~15 dps.
The first round I did was 800 slices, I checked every 100 slices and stopped when it would no longer shave arm hair. I then steeled it, back to shaving and 300 slices later the shaving was gone. I then resharpened the edge with the Suehiro Ryu to reset the edge, not over grind, and then apply the micro-bevel again with the MXF DMT. The performance was again 300 slices. The blunted/worn edges looked like :
No chipping, no deformation, just light wear. Grindability was very high, the edges were reset with ~50 pps on the Suehiro Ryu with very low force (~1/2 lbs). Ease of sharpening was very high, the DMT MXF produced an edge which caught the hair above the skin in just 5-10 passes in setting the apex bevel.
Now I would want to repeat this a few times to make a strong conclusion based on it, but the general ideas I have seen before. The interesting thing is the difference in edge retention in the runs :
-Initial with fresh edge : 800 slice
-With steeled edge : 300 slices
-Sharpened edge, not cut back : 300 slices
In general for harder cutting where the edge is getting impacted/deformed you want to cut the edge back a little to get rid of any weakened metal. If you don't do that then the edge retention is generally likely to be compromised as the apex is going to form on steel which has carbides torn out, has micro-fractures and is highly strained by deformation/impaction . In this case the edge retention was reduced by 70%.
As a curious aside you might ask, well if you only judged the edge retention by stopping when it was no longer shaving then how accurate could you be? Good question, I wondered that myself so I measured the edge retention by push cutting Espirit baisting thread after I judged it was equally blunted. The measured sharpness at the end of each run was :
-Initial with fresh edge : 16.8 (8) %
-With steeled edge : 15.0 (7)
-Sharpened edge, not cut back : 15.1 (9)
That is interesting, I didn't expect it to be that consistent. I set the end point being complete lack of shaving meaning even with enough pressure to scrape the skin it would not cut arm hair, so that is fairly blunt. Now of course it still easily slices newsprint so most people still are likely to consider it sharp. It will still easily slice a tomato, open light plastics, etc. . The edge also passes most tests of sharpness, catches on the nail, doesn't reflect light, etc. .
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The handle security is really high. It is contoured in width and thickness and has both front and rear guard. The checkering is abrasive, but not so much that after 1600 slices there was any irritation on the hand, mainly as there is no movement. However the inside of the handle where the blade guard fits is really sharp. I used an aluminum ruler and just lightly scraped off the hard edges and the comfort increased dramatically.
The cutting ability is solid and it depends on the reference standard. It doesn't match the performance of a Mora under light force simply due to the edge angle being significantly higher. However as the force is increased the hollow blade grind starts to compensate and under very high force it will match a Mora. If you run it against a more tactical type knife like a Hinderer XM-18 then it out cuts that easily as the edge is thinner and the angle is lower.
The blade stock on this likely would surprise some as it is 0.145" which is fairly beefy as the blade is only 3" long so it is a pretty durable little blade.