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This evening i had to cut a carpet into pieces to fit the dumpster. A perfect opportunity to try out two totally different steels. My ukpk with s110v and my delica with vg10. It was a very thick carpet, deep-pile. In theory the ukpk with s110v must perform a lot better than the delica with vg10. I understand the concept of blade geometry and thickness behind the edge talking about edge retention. The ukpk and delica are as i see it nearly identical in this concept. Taking a bit of a risk here... :D

Both knives were sharpened 15 dps on a Wicked Edge system, maintained on a sharpmaker with the finishing touch on the brown medium stones. I thought that the carpet would be rough on both knives but the outcome surprised me a lot. First i cut with the delica vg10. After 1 initial cut of 3 meters of carpet the delica vg10 was completely blunted. It would not slice paper in any way. I use a flashlight to check the edge and the whole edge was reflecting. It just turned into a butter knife…

After that the ukpk was next. I would attack the carpet with the mighty s110v steel. Maybe it will lose the initial sharpness, however s110v is known for its long working edge. So, i also made the 3 meter cut with my ukpk s110v. I found it extremely though to cut trough the carpet. Even with s110v. After the cut i checked the edge again with my flashlight and could see that the edge of my ukpk was also badly damaged. Not as much as the delica vg10 but damaged enough that it would not slice paper anymore. Maybe this is what some call a working edge, however not for me. I was greatly dissappointed in the difference in edge retention. Yes, s110v did slightly better.

To cut a carpet with a plain edge was not the smartest thing to do obviously. My Salt 2 serrated edge was much better up to the task. I again made a 3 m cut and this time i had no effort at all. It went straight through.

I sharpened both the delica and ukpk again to a level that they both cut newspaper effortlessly. It took about the same amount of time to sharpen vg10 as s110v. Solely on the sharpmaker, First diamond rods than medium. I would have expected the s110v to be much more work to bring back the sharpness. Again i was wrong. I have read a lot about steel and sharpening. Have seen almost any YouTube clip about the subject. Yes i know i really must get a live :D
Beginning to experience and learning from actual practice. I can't wait to cut more stuff!

I am very curious about your experience with the difference in behaviour of the two steels, VG10 and S110V. Not only in using them but also how they sharpen.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this.

It's interesting how often steels that are hugely different on paper, end up being fairly similar in many real-world situations.

Thanks for sharing. :cool:

Your findings run parallel to what I’ve experienced pitting different steels against each other.

In the short term everything I’ve played with breaks down about the same. First we shed initial sharpness and it’s downhill from there, only the degree varies.

I’ve found for example, that S30V will stay with S90V for a couple of hundred feet of cardboard and both will be as blunt (or as sharp) as each other afterwards and it’s not till you start pushing them that S90V will pull away.

I’m a little surprised at your findings regarding sharpening though because I find VG-10 off a 400grit SiC stone and a couple of strokes on any SharpMaker ceramic will leave it hair whittling sharp. Where as S110V sharpened the same way won’t be as sharp but will certainly slice cut anything fibrous more aggressively.

Either ways, I reckon backyard real world comparisons are likely more relevant to the end user that compositions of steels and laboratory testing. :)

Maybe there is a difference but you surpassed the capability of both of them in this test. If you had stopped earlier you might have seen the difference. Old carpet is notoriously hard on edges.

Maybe 15 degrees is too shallow for cutting a difficult material? Maybe try with a 20 degree microbevel.

Chumango wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 24, 2018 6:33 pm

Maybe there is a difference but you surpassed the capability of both of them in this test. If you had stopped earlier you might have seen the difference. Old carpet is notoriously hard on edges.

This

Carpet starts out being made of tough fibers at many angles, then you add grit from years of use that's been crushed in to the weave... it pretty much amounts to cutting rope and gravel at the same time :eek:

Just the thought of carpet screams M4 ; )

Used carpet is full of sand. Nothing is going to do well cutting it.

Probably not going to see much difference in steels below 64 hrc cutting stuff that abrasive.

ABX2011 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 24, 2018 8:29 pm

Used carpet is full of sand. Nothing is going to do well cutting it.

Yep. If only they made something just for this purpose. They could call it a, uh, I dunno, carpet knife?

standy99 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 24, 2018 8:29 pm

Just the thought of carpet screams M4 ; )

Yup, or some kind of steel with good edge durability, as others have said old carpet is filled with so much debris, and as is very abrasive
M4
Rex45
K390
V-toku2
Would all probably perform just as well or better

I guess i really pushed those two steels to the limit. Build up grit in an already tough to cut carpet. What was i thinking...

However, if i need to cut something i tend towards my spyderco folders. Maybe there are better options out there. A carpet cutter? :)

Anyway, it was a fun thing to do. Cut to many cardboard boxes into little pieces. There you can see the difference a lot better between steels. For example, my PM2 m4 loses its sharpness faster than my para 3 m390. Not a scientific test of course. Just my overall experience.

Bloke, i also was surprised about the same amount of time sharpening both knives. Expected the vg10 to be back a lot faster than s110v. Maybe the delica vg10 edge was more damaged than i could tell? Maybe it is just my poor sharpening skills.

Generally, i find s110v not very difficult to sharpen. The new bevel i set on it (15 dps) with the Wicked Edge went easy. A steel i really cannot sharpen is maxamet. There is something about that steel that i just don't get. Even if i use only diamond.
Gladly i already thrown away the carpet or else i would have tested my rex45 without any scratches yet on it.

Not only is carpet itself brutal on a cutting edge there is so much other stuff that accumulates in carpet over time that is even much worse than the carpet itself. Which makes it one of the best materials to test these Supersteels on. And normally VG-10 would do just a bit better than your results which leads me to believe that there much be a lot of additional clay dirt, sand, and GOD only knows what other foreign materials may have gotten lodged in the fibers over the years.

If I had to cut up dirty/used carpet I would strictly only use a Stanley or Husky professional box cutter with replaceable blades. Because not only would something like that dull the **** out of your edge it would also scratch up the blade beyond recognition>> not to mention the possibility of chipping the blade or risking tip damage I think I remember someone doing a test similar to this with ZDP-189 and it didn't fare much better than either one of these steels did.

That's why they make those professional box cutters with replaceable blades. Some cutting chores are not meant to be done with a good folder. Now Spyderedges are another animal all together. I've used a 440V Spyderedged blade to cut about anything you can imagine with only minor damage to the edges.

If I'm cutting something like this all day, I'm going to be concerned with toughness moreso than anything, even more than edge retention because at the end of the day I don't want to have to deal with a chipped up mangled edge that I then have to remove s bunch of steel to fix. Realistically this is why utility blades exist, it just isn't logical to use an expensive folder on jobs like this beyond just playing around testing steels. You'll be sharpening a knife so often you'll quickly reach a point where the blade is very thick behind the edge and performance will start to really suffer.

I learned that s110v was far from invincible a long time ago. This test reminds me of the rope on the dredge that is saturated in sand, silt, and grit (a few people here were in disbelief that s110v could be blunted in minutes). No PE knife stands a chance to a test like this.

We can go on and on about how this task is asking too much of a folding knife, but I really value real life experiences and info like this. In a pinch it's good to know what certain knives are capable of. Like Evil D mentioned I'd be concerned with toughness and apex stability. I wonder how well Vanadis 4e or 4V at 63RC would do versus carpet like this. Some steels break down in different ways as well. SXXXV steels blunt, while some steels, like M4 or zdp will become almost choppy on the edge (not micro chipping) which preserves more slicing performance. Obviously blade geometry is a big issue, as the less pressure needed to cut the carpet, the less damaging the cutting will be do the blade. I think you could use a very shallow angle with an abnormally obtuse microbevel (given the edge bevel angle) and see some interesting results.

Has anyone used angles like 7-10dps, but with a 20dps microbevel?

Pelagic wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 25, 2018 7:39 am

I learned that s110v was far from invincible a long time ago. This test reminds me of the rope on the dredge that is saturated in sand, silt, and grit (a few people here were in disbelief that s110v could be blunted in minutes). No PE knife stands a chance to a test like this.

We can go on and on about how this task is asking too much of a folding knife, but I really value real life experiences and info like this. In a pinch it's good to know what certain knives are capable of. Like Evil D mentioned I'd be concerned with toughness and apex stability. I wonder how well Vanadis 4e or 4V at 63RC would do versus carpet like this. Some steels break down in different ways as well. SXXXV steels blunt, while some steels, like M4 or zdp will become almost choppy on the edge (not micro chipping) which preserves more slicing performance. Obviously blade geometry is a big issue, as the less pressure needed to cut the carpet, the less damaging the cutting will be do the blade. I think you could use a very shallow angle with an abnormally obtuse microbevel (given the edge bevel angle) and see some interesting results.

Has anyone used angles like 7-10dps, but with a 20dps microbevel?

I think that's how cliff stamp used his edges, or something similar

Hard to believe s110v would not make at least a few more cuts than vg10 in dirty carpet.
I don't have any s110v but do have plenty of s30v and it cuts a little longer than vg10 through similar material.
If you can't get maxamet as sharp as other steels, there's something wrong with either the steel or sharpening.
I suspect a sharpening problem.

jpm2, this thread needs some pics. Sadly, i allready threw away the carpet and sharpened the folders. On both knives, the VG10 and S110V, the whole edge reflected light. I did not inspect them closer. Just with my bare eyes and the papercut test. The carpet was so rough on both steels that the difference between them did not really matter at all. Only the H1 serrated stood its ground. The toothy edge was superior in this field. In normal EDC use the s110v is much better in holding its (working) edge. Maybe this sounds stupid but i prefer VG10 for the light work. VG10 touches up like a breeze when you have not really damaged the edge and just want to bring back the razor sharpness. Certainly on a delica VG10 is a fine steel to use.

I agree with David. Something with more toughness would be better probably. A utility blade even more so. To touch up or better said repair a chipped knife is not my favorite thing to do. OTOH I used to baby my knives. Cause indeed they are expensive. Than i remembered Sal saying something like not using the knife is waisting 80% of the effort making the knife.

Pelagic, 7-10 dps would be nice. I have to freehand to reach those degrees. And unfortunately i am not good enough yet to be consistent. My WE is limited to 12-13 dps. Have you ever sharpened your knife at such a steep angle?

Danvp wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 26, 2018 5:09 am

Pelagic, 7-10 dps would be nice. I have to freehand to reach those degrees. And unfortunately i am not good enough yet to be consistent. My WE is limited to 12-13 dps. Have you ever sharpened your knife at such a steep angle?

I've used 10dps with no microbevel on s110v (military) without issue, but I wasn't cutting anything like this carpet.

Use a harder and tougher tool steel, M4 or Rex45.

BTW, I find Maxamet easier to sharpen than S110V, but then I use a Japanese wetstone.

Roland.