You need all four components to make a knife cut well. If you are missing one, your knife will not perform at optimum level. It might not even cut at all.
- Good Quality Steel
It doesn’t have to be one of the exotic super steels but it has to have fine grain structure that can be hardened enough to hold an edge. - Good Blade Geometry
The actual grind of the blade has to be angled and thin enough to enable sharpening. If not, you have an ax instead of a knife. - Heat Treat Process Done Correctly
The steel has to be hardened and then tempered back to the optimum hardness for that steel to hold an edge. Usually in the realm of 54 to 65 on the Rockwell C (RC) scale. - Sharpened Correctly
Once all three components have been met, you can sharpen the knife to the correct angle – 14 to 30 degrees – and hone it to a glass smooth edge.