I am enjoying a UK Legal super steel knife that has a very sane price..

techwg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dGHT4wfYhY

This is the Manly Wasp, in CPM S90V Steel.

It is a powdered steel, meaning the way it is constructed is by creating tiny powdered pellets which contain a more even distribution of other elements and then it is sort of melted/welded etc to be a solid steel. It forms vanadium carbides that are very uniform and offer very long edge retention. It accepts a toothy edge very well, which some of you may know means you sharpen it to maybe 600 grit.

This is a fantastic slicer as it is very thin behind the edge. When you first sharpen it, you get a very razor shaving sharp edge but over time once you use it, that razor shaving edge vanishes and you have the long lasting cutting edge. It is still very very sharp but those tiny carbides just help to shred through what ever you are slicing. It is very highly effective. If you are not familiar with "super steels" my description may not seem the most enticing but I can assure you, having experienced regular steels and now this super steel, there is no way I could cut so much wood and cardboard and still have a great edge cutting even afterwards, as I can with this Manly Wasp.

You can strop it and get somewhat of a shaving sharp edge back but the more you do, the less carbides will be present and so performance will, I believe, go down if you perpetually strop the knife. Just internalise the fact that this super steel is not going to retain shaving sharp forever, but will cut for a long long time before you feel like you need to sharpen the knife again.

Which comes to the sharpening part. This is very very hard steel. If you try to sharpen this with a whetstone, you may be there erm.... a while. Very hard stuff, these super steels. However, if you have a diamond stone it is trivial to sharpen. The default sharpening angle is 15 degrees and is about as optimal as possible for the steel according to Cedric & Ada YouTube channel who did tests and commented on my question about S90V steel and 15 degrees.

It is available around the world and is made by Manly, a Bulgarian company. In the UK I paid like £55 from Heinnie Haynes. Normally I would expect a steel like this to make a knife cost a good £140+ so I was floored when I saw the cost of the Manly Wasp. The quality is good, the steel is good. It is UK Legal and has a few blade stops for extra safety, so rather than smoothly going from closed to open, you have more of a stutter effect a couple of times. This means if you were cutting steeply or bash the back of the blade with the knife in your hand, there is a few points of resistance to help you not cut yourself. Plus there is a finger choil area at the bottom to let you grip hard on the knife when cutting tough materials and know the blade is not going to close on you accidentally.

Epic knife. Just wanted to share this with everyone.
 
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