How Hard is Koster's 3V?

I've finally knocked the razor edge off of the Dan Koster Wilderness and Survival Skills (W&SS) Necker and need to touch up the edge. The problem I'm encountering is the extreme hardness of 3V and its resistance to abrasives.

First I tried a worn 800-grit belt on a mouse pad and got nowhere. Then I tried stropping and had little success (but I did get the Sharpie to wear off.) Next was my water stone. 4000 grit did little to the edge and I didn't want to go coarser as I wasn't reprofiling the blade but just cleaning up the edge. So, I was left with ceramic and diamond stones.

My Spyderco stones are too fine and my DMT bench stone is too coarse so I looked to my Fallkniven DC3 which I am carrying in my pocket. It's both diamond and ceramic and the dual surfaces were just the trick to get the edge on the W&SS necker popping again. Plus it only took a matter of a couple of minutes to go from start to finish.

I use a circular motion to establish the bevel and then a few "slices" across the stone to unify the scratches in the edge. Repeat the process on the ceramic side and then a quick hit on the strop (despite my previous results) for a few passes to make sure the wire edge is gone.

Then I jammed the knife through an aluminum can and worked my way around the perimeter cutting the can in half just for giggles. The result? NO DAMAGE to the 3V!!!

Fortunately, when the edge does get damaged, I know how to fix it and the tool is right there in my pocket. Now, off to find some more challenging tasks for this knife...

Thanks for reading,


B