As for rust, I live in a dry climate and yet find it necessary to leave a light coat of pharmaceutical mineral oil on my 10xx carbon blades. Any humidity is enough to get annoying red rust started. And it’s weird– one knife will spontaneously rust next to five others that don’t. So I keep the water away with a little oil.

Love Case knives, this review, and old slipjoints in general.

Some comments on a prior post: ZDP-189 I understand is a great steel. I’m guessing it is harder to sharpen and one will need a diamond sharpener (which makes life easier in the shop anyway). Plus, I don’t know of a stockman pattern made in ZDP-189. I like traditional knives. Lastly, if a stockman was made in ZDP-189 it would probably cost 2-3 times as much. I am prone to abusing my working knives. Browning I think offers a stockman (or did) in AUS-8 which is a very nice stainless. It is no ZDP-189, but still very nice. The CV will still be easier to sharpen.

re: swords — The correct term, I suppose, would be “Hanzo-style” as the swords in question were made by a master bladesmith in Japan using the same methodology. Make sense?

re: CV — As we’re primarily a tool site, the CV knives caught our attention not because the alloy was particularly “original” as much as because we figured the composition would strike a chord with other toolaholics.

Thanks for the great comments. You sound like you’re pretty seriously into blades! Have you done some work in the field?

http://www.shopusmore.com/articles/hattori_hanzo.html

The very fact that you’re even talking about ‘Hanzo Katanas’ speaks volumes about the likelihood of those being real japanese swords (as opposed to ’sword like objects’) or of your sharpener being somebody who’s qualified to properly polish a valuable sword (of which there are very few westerners).

http://www.bigempire.com/sake/sword.html

“Working 10 to 12 hours a day, the entire polish could take a couple weeks. A typical charge, including the polish, a new sheath, and any adjustments needed to the handle, is roughly 400,000 yen.” That’s about $4000 USD for a polish on a single sword.

Either way ‘Chrome Vanadium’ is hardly a unique combination of alloys in a stainless, nor is it even a valid descriptor of a particular steel.

The short take: We did, anyway. He was right. They’re not fake. He is a “specialist” in a number of areas of sharpening. That’s why we go to him. That’s why we mentioned the Hanzos — real ones are rare and difficult to sharpen, and it’s the kind of thing he does — and that helps others to understand why we value his opinion.

Chuck

As for the opinion of your professional sharpener, the sharpening (or polishing rather, they’re one in the same with these swords) of traditional japanese swords is an art form in and of itself. Having a real sword polished by a non-specialist will pretty much ruin it. A “Hanzo Kantana” sounds like one of the cheap replicas styled after the Kill Bill movies.