This is a huge article. Can anyone give a 1-paragraph synopsis of its main thrust?
Other benefits of the steel include grindability, which means makers can spend less time and abrasives on shaping the knife. You can obtain higher hardness than a standard stainless steel, which helps with forming an apex and removing the burr (sharpness for lack of a better word).
Spyderco, a major player in the knife world, has a line of knives called their Salt series. These knives are supposed to be as rust-free as one can make. MagnaCut will first enter their catalog as a Salt knife. This was a big shock given how well LC200N (nitrogen-based steel used by NASA for ball bearings) can resist rust and remain tough (wear resistance isn't anything special though).
Bottom line, Larrin built a well-balanced steel exclusively for knives. Many steels are adopted from other industries or were "knife-specific" but based on something like 440C, which was never intended for cutlery. So MagnaCut is upending the knife steel market by offering something you can't get elsewhere.
In between sharpenings, does a steel work?
(Sorry, I don't know much about steel or knife making. I just appreciate a really good kitchen knife.)
So if MagnaCut is run hard, it will most likely dull before rolling or chipping. It will still cut, especially if you have think geometry. Once a blade starts to roll/chip, performance really suffers. That's when you need to sharpen.
I have never sharpened MagnaCut, but it only has 4% vanadium (the hardest carbide) and 2% niobium (another hard carbide). You can probably get away with something like the Shapton Pro line of stones. They are readily available.
Watched a YouTube video and got half a dozen kitchen knives sharp enough to shave arm hair in about an hour. They seem to be holding their edges reasonably well a couple of weeks later.
I'd previously not had much success with Japanese water stones and with the lansky(?) gadget.
It seems like the key part of the process is (a) detecting when you have formed a burr so you know when to change sides/move to the next grit and (b) stropping at the end (get the leather strip with polishing wax).
The Chinese gadget is a bit crude but was honestly surprisingly effective.
I don't think the theory is that complicated but getting good practical results reliably can be a bit tricky. The gadget seems to work quite well for that.
Ps: Just looked at Cliff Stamp's sharpening site. I think that's an order of magnitude sharper than I was going for with my kitchen knives.
There are so many different methods and tools you can use. I say find a well regarded technique and stick with it. Sharpening takes time. Sharpening can be distilled down to forming an apex and removing the burr. It doesn't matter if you use soaking stones, a fixed-angle sharpener, splash and go stones, sharpen with both hands, etc. You need to build muscle memory so there is as little change in angle as you sharpen. That will develop the apex. Then you need to remove the burr. You'll use different strokes, different pressure, and different tools. Focus more on the technique and worry less about the tools. Maybe Murray Carter doesn't appeal to you. Take a look at Big Brown Bear and Michael Christy (also on YouTube). Find a method that makes sense to you and practice a lot. Start with a simple technique with fewer grit jumps. You can add complexity over time.
The best thing I got was a jeweler's loupe. You need to understand what you are doing (or not doing) at the apex to improve. Take your time and evaluate your work often. Even an inexpensive USB microscope is helpful.
Bonus making it even more relevant to HN: most of the "discovery" was done via software, before any physical experiments (which are hard and expensive in this case). The fact that this new approach yielded good results is promising wrt developing steels with different properties.