Belt selection, grit progression, and grinding technique for the 2×72 platform: what belt to run for a given operation, why belts glaze or track poorly, and how to get consistent results.
Belts are the single biggest recurring cost in this hobby, and buying the wrong ones wastes money twice: once on belts that wear out…
26C3 is bought for one reason — the finest edge simple steel takes — so its shop story is less about surviving the grind…
ApexUltra sits deliberately between worlds, and the shop experience matches: harder work than the classic carbon steels it forges like, far friendlier than the…
S90V is the steel that teaches makers what vanadium carbide really means: nine percent of the bar is particles harder than most of your…
After the carbide monsters, LC200N is a vacation: low carbide volume means it grinds like a mid stainless, finishes cleanly, and sharpens on whatever…
M390 earns its benchmark status at the cutting board and collects the bill in the shop: its vanadium and chromium carbides resist your abrasives…
W1 is the least demanding steel in the abrasives rack — it anneals dead soft, grinds like the simple steel it is, and sharpens…
AEB-L has the opposite reputation of high-carbide steels like MagnaCut or CPM 20CV: instead of loading and dulling belts quickly, its simple, fine-grained chemistry…
1075 grinds and forges as easily as any simple carbon steel in this database. Its main use case, swords, machetes, and other large hard-use…
1084 is one of the easiest steels in this database to grind, forge, and finish, a big part of why it is the standard…
1095 grinds and forges as easily as any simple carbon steel, requiring no special abrasives or equipment. The one thing to watch is its…
14C28N is the stainless that grinds like it read the manual. Fine carbides mean ceramic belts cut it instead of fighting it, it finishes…
154CM has a well-earned reputation as one of the easier premium stainless steels to grind and finish, which is a big part of why…
15N20 is a pleasure to grind and very easy to overheat, for the same reason: it is almost always sold thin. Stock in the…
5160 is a forgiving steel on the grinder, and the challenges it does present come from the blades people make out of it rather…
52100 grinds slightly more demandingly than the simplest carbon steels in this database, its chromium carbides give a bit more wear resistance and a…
80CrV2 is one of the easiest steels in this database to grind and forge, sharing the same forgiving character as simple carbon steels like…
8670 might be the most cooperative steel a 2x72 ever meets. It arrives thin, grinds clean, tolerates heat-treat improvisation, and sharpens on anything abrasive.…
Good news first: A2 is one of the friendliest tool steels you will ever put on a 2x72. Its restrained carbide structure — the…
CPM 154 grinds and finishes easily, inheriting the same forgiving character as its conventionally-melted twin, 154CM, while the powder-metallurgy process gives it a slightly…
CPM 20CV sits alongside CPM S30V and CPM M4 among the more demanding steels in this database to grind and sharpen. The same heavy…
CPM 3V grinds in the moderate range, tougher on belts than simple carbon steels but noticeably easier than high-carbide steels like CPM M4 or…
CPM CruWear sits in the moderately demanding range for grinding, tougher on belts than simple carbon steels but generally easier than the hardest-edged tool…
CPM M4 sits at the top of this database's "hardest to grind" list, alongside CPM 20CV and CPM S30V. Its heavy vanadium and tungsten…
CPM S30V is one of the more demanding steels in this database to grind, sitting alongside CPM 20CV and CPM M4 near the top…
CPM S35VN was deliberately engineered to grind and finish more easily than its predecessor, CPM S30V, while keeping nearly all of its edge retention.…
D2's heavy chromium and vanadium carbide load, the same feature that gives it excellent wear resistance, makes it one of the more demanding tool…
Elmax sits in the moderately demanding middle tier of powder-metallurgy stainless steels, tougher and easier to work than harder-edged steels like CPM S30V or…
MagnaCut is one of the more demanding steels to grind on a 2x72 platform. Its heavy carbide load, the same chemistry that gives it…
Nitro-V inherits most of AEB-L's easy-grinding character, since it shares the same base chemistry with only a nitrogen and vanadium addition layered on top.…
O1 is one of the easiest steels in the shop to work, and one of the easiest to ruin with heat. It arrives as…
VG-10 grinds in the moderate, well-established range for premium stainless steels, easier than high-carbide CPM steels like CPM 20CV or S30V, but slightly more…
W2 grinds like the friendly high-carbon steel it is — the complications arrive only when a hamon is involved, which for W2 is most…
Hand sanding is the tax every clean blade finish collects, and most makers pay it wrong: hours of scrubbing that polish scratches instead of…
Sharpening is where knifemaking gets humbled: you can grind a flawless blade and still hand someone a knife that won't slice paper. The good…
Grinding dust is a genuine long-term health concern, not just a mess, and it's also one of the most-discussed practical problems in maker communities,…