Originally Posted By: widget
There are however, knives that just seem to not want to take an edge. There are many different steels and many different designs of blades and some are really tough to sharpen.

I have a SOG folder that a friend gave to me when I was deploying to Desert Storm. I like the knife, nice shape to the blade and it was sharp for a long time. When it first became dull I tried everything to get it sharp again. It is marginally sharp now, still nowhere near as sharp as I like a knife to be.
It has a stud on the blade, which can be unscrewed and removed for sharpening. Something about the steel makes it hard to sharpen. Very hard Japanese steel.


I have run into this a few times also. Frustrating.

I have found that some factory edges actually create a very thin but very hard layer -- harder and tougher than the core steel of the blade. This makes the initial edge last longer, but creates problems when resharpening. It takes a lot of work on a coarse stone to grind that extra-hard layer off. But you'll know when you get there: suddenly the steel responds to your sharpening tools like it's supposed to, and the edge "pops."

That's my 2c anyway. YMMV.