Welcome to the Yard, Bill. With all your real world experience using knives, you won't have any problem getting SR77 steel hair flinging sharp. Edge holding on SR77 is very good. Not as good as SR101 (52100) but quite good. As far as tough goes, NOTHING beats it. And you chose two of the very best Scrap Yard knives, IMO. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />