SRM 9201 at the rope ( review )

[old4570]

SRM 9201 D2 Folder

Where to start ?
A) The very first thing you notice is just how much this knife hurts to hold . It's almost like some one designed the knife to be uncomfortable to hold . It irritates the hand seriously . Only after I chamfered ( rolled ) every edge , corner , did the knife not irk me ! All the edges are sharp and pointy .. One has to wonder what the QC guy was thinking ?
B) The knife runs on bushes , so is not quite as smooth as a knife on Ball bearings . Not bad , but not great either .
C) Factory edge was FUBAR !
One hour of grinding and there was still plenty of FUBAR left . The grind is off center , each side of the bevel is at a different angle . There are dips or hollows in the grind . Making cleaning up the edge almost impossible without removing a lot of metal .
The rubbish factory grind returned a 150 slice fail ..

Yes there is a fresh wet stone grinder edge now , but lots of FUBAR left . The entire 1/3 of the blade on one side toward the handle / grip is FUBAR on one side .
Near the tip there is a hollow I could not correct ...
At the rope again soon I guess ...
Yeah , we had some horrendous rain yesterday afternoon , actually had a river flowing down both sides of the house .. And ponds in the front yard !

 

[old4570]

Bevel under the microscope ...
Did I mention it didn't clean up as well as I would have liked ?

 

[old4570]

Soooo !
I sliced some rope . .....
And the knife returned a 100 slice fail ..
I think this is a first , loosing slices with the wet stone grinder edge ...
Yeah , 100 slices and the edge was gone ...... Bye bye !

On the guided knife sharpener , the SRM D2 offered little resistance to the diamond cutter / sharpener ..
The diamond ate the steel easily ..
Maybe not the softest steel ever , but I cant say it was hard either .
So next will be a 22deg 180 grit diamond cut edge off the guided knife sharpener . ( ? ) Will it do better ...

 

[old4570]

SRM D2

First image is of the ground edge ..
Second image is of the guided edge ( 22 deg 180 grit )
Next rope slice will be interesting ..
Usually the wet stone grinder edge outperforms the factory edge by quite a margin ..
But this time , it lost by quite a margin .
The edge just faded away in 100 slices ..

Second picture shows the guided edge laid over the ground edge ..
Ground edge being around 18 degrees and the guided edge 22 degrees .
Also the very edge is a lot less torn up ..
?? Is it the grain of the steel ?
Oh well , matters not .. What matters is edge holding ..
It either can , or it can not ! ( That's the bottom line )
I think I need a better USB microscope camera in 2022 ...

 

[old4570]

That be around a 800 grit edge ...
Under the microscope = Rough as guts ..

 

[old4570]

In a nutshell !
SRM has produced another ( I own a few ) disappointing knife .
D2 Tool steel blade ? ( I would really have to question that )
I put some effort into the edge , and it hard failed @ 120 slices ... ( only 330 slices short of decent D2 )
120 slices for D2 is abysmal ... ( This sample - the knife I own / tested )
If this is par for the coarse .... Then I recommend you don't waste your money as I have .
For me ( speaking for myself and the SRM I own ) , SRM has been a disappointing brand for blade performance .
And as this sample is showing , for me , continues the tradition of being disappointing .
So in my humblest opinion , this knife might be best avoided . ( maybe / possibly all SRM knives - if built to this standard )

 

[Randall]

D2 Tool steel blade ? ( I would really have to question that )

Anything is possible of course. The few that have been tested by LTK were as advertised. Heat treat is another highly probable cause. Not that the cause matters; if it's pooh it's pooh . For their other steels (14c28n and 12c27) they looked close to the bottom of rockwell hardness (around 56).

The cheap buck knives look like awesome heat treat (end of 2nd video)

I have a cheap ganzo 440c that I think has an awesome hardness too - that was luck, of course.

 

[old4570]

Soon to be tested = Ganzo 440