Thread: Sharpening a D2 knife blade: some photos, observations, and opinions

Originally Posted by Tahr

I have never had much time for D2. Difficult to sharpen and chippy. But plenty of people seem to like it.

CPMD2 however is quite a different steel and a very good one. But not very common - mainly because of the confusion between the 2 steels and the bad wraps ordinary D2 gets.

D2 can make a fine knife. It has relatively large carbides and as such suit a toothier edge. For this reason they suit a hunting knife well, but less so a razor or fine work kitchen knife. The big carbides mean they aren't super tough, but do hold an edge really well. At higher hardness edge retention isn't far behind 3v or s30v.

There are a few very well regarded makers using D2 to make excellent knives. Dozier is probably the most famous of them. I have a cbk in D2, is has one of the "stickiest" edges I've used. Fantastic on game.

The steel can be batchy reportably, CPMD2 was created to try get a finer carbide solution.

If you are finding it chippy puffin try lowering the edge geometry a couple of degrees, maybe 17 ish. The lack of refined edge under the fine stones will likely be due to the large carbides washing out right at the edge. Personally I would stop at the second finest stone. I only take my D2 to 1200.