It sharpens up real easy. When I first got it, and before I rotated back to the states every time it got dull I just wet down the top of our concrete wall and went to work. Took a little while, but it worked. I finally after about three months got a whet stone and things went a lot better. Like I said, it's temper is what ever they did when they made the leaf spring it was made out of. All the work to make the knife was done by hand by the indigenous natives of the Philippines, the Negritos.