Please share your experience with, and impressions of, K390 in SE

[Catamount123]

Now that some SE K390 Spyders have gotten out into the wild, I'm interested in your experiences with, and impressions of, this edge/steel combo.

[Evil D]

I need to get another one, just hoping for a model I like to get it. From what I saw in my Police before I screwed it up trying to reprofile it, K390 seemed to work really well with serrations. I did some hard use cuts and did see some edge damage but it was pretty inline with other steels I've used with serrations so at the very least it didn't seem like a poor steel for serrations.

I'm really hoping we see the Rock/Leaf Jumpers in this combo.

[olywa]

I picked up a Delica SE in K390 at a really good price a few weeks ago. I had 3 other PE K390 models but I wanted to try SE in that steel. I've been very impressed so far. Probably the sharpest out-of-the-box SE Spydie I've experienced to date. I'm refining the edge on my Galley-V starting with the CBN rods from the Gauntlet, then moving to the white rods. It cuts like a laser and the edge is holding up very well. Thinking hard about snagging an Endura now in K390 SE.

[blueblur]

I’ve been extremely impressed with it. I have a police, endura and Delica in se but have used the endura the most.

I don’t know if it’s the hardness of the steel, the profile of the serrations, how I touched up the edge or a combination but it’s an absolute beast. When push cutting, it feels like a pe but doesn’t slip down what’s being cut but has all the advantages of se.

I worked through the fine and ultra fine SM stones the way Michael Christy uses them before trying to strop on the edge of a strop and this finish has worked very well for me.

I have more knives than I’d like to admit and I’d say this Endura is the best performing pocket knife I’ve ever used. I really like the profile of these factory serrations. They’re less aggressive than my pacific salts but more aggressive than my ayoob. I know a lot here prefer very non aggressive serrations but to me the ayoob is almost like a wavy pe than a serrated edge. I think they struck the perfect balance on the K390 Endura (I’d have to look at the police and Delica again to see if they’re similar) to where they don’t snag but you definitely know they’re there when you want a se.

I highly recommend serrated K390.

[benben]

Bought 3 new Spyderco's during the recent MAP sale, had a SE K390 Endura in my cart for several days and backed out!

[on_the_edge]

I've had the Endela and Delica and sold them both, but not because of the performance of the steel. I did not compare their cutting ability directly against my Salt 2 H1 SE or against a VG10 SE knife I had, but my sense was that the K390 did NOT cut any better than H1 or VG10. Nothing scientific here, just my gut feeling. How long a K390 SE edge lasts versus the H1 or VG10 is altogether a different question.

[RustyIron]

Now that some SE K390 Spyders have gotten out into the wild, I'm interested in your experiences with, and impressions of, this edge/steel combo.

The only Spydie Edge knife I have is a K390 Police 4. Prior experience with plain edge K390 knives has me believing that it's easy to sharpen, keeps and edge, and is resistant to damage. I wasn't too hesitant about the steel when I decided to give serrations a try.

For doing real work, the P4 K390 SE excels. Recently I had a small tree blow over in the rain, which gave me a good opportunity to use this knife for real. I was impressed by how well serrations do on twigs, branches, rope, and rubber hose. The knife just kept cutting and cutting, with no substantial degradation in performance. When I was done, the knife didn't NEED to be sharpened.

The interesting thing about the serrations is that when I look at them under the scope, they don't look all that great. A plain edge that looks that way wouldn't perform well, but the serrations really grab things and easily separate them into smaller things.

The SE is not very good at slicing food, or cutting t-shirts into rags. It's not very often that I use a knife to dispatch attackers--like never--but the SE's dismal performance on clothing leads me to believe that it wouldn't be the optimum self-defense choice.

To summarize, I'm not ready to go all-in on serrations, but its performance as got me thinking that some day I might own another. And if I do, there's no reason it shouldn't be K390.