Knife dulls overnight after sharpening

[Jan]

EOU, thanks for your confirmation that you observed similar behaviour also.

Initially I expected a monotonous decrease of overnight sharpness drop, but additional data revealed to me that the behaviour is more complicated.

Even more it surely to some degree depends on steel microstructure and also the way how we sharpened the edge. Aggressive sharpening may generate more residual stresses.

I also think about whether gentle elastic bending of a knife blade can speed up the relaxation of internal stresses.

Jan