Cheap blades

[JamesV]

I bought a beautiful stainless blade for cheap on E***. It was made in Pakistan. Made a beautiful knife but then I tried to sharpen it.

Man...............what's the deal???????

James

[Bladepeek]

I think you now know why you got it cheap    

Actually, sharpening it should be pretty easy. It just won't stay that way long enough to shave more than one hair.

That stuff that is knocked out to sell cheap is usually cheap steel and you have no way of knowing what it is or how it was heat treated.

If you are going to put a lot of work into finishing a knife, spend the money to get a known, good blade to work with.

[JamesV]

Thank you for your reply, but actually the blade is hard as glass,maybe I should give it another go.

James

[Bladepeek]

In that case, I'd say definitely work at it a bit. The grind may be especially steep and you may need to thin it down to a decent taper. You're probably not even touching the true edge right now. If it Rockwells up around RC60, it will take some serious sweat. Don't give up on the coarser grit until you get a nice edge. Then you can re-polish it by hand with some wet/dry paper on a hard backing. Depending on how deep the sharpening scratches are, you could start all the way down around 220 grit and work your way up to 1000 or 2000 grit.

By the way, gonna post a pic?