Community Sharpening Journal, Part 2

[vivi]

killed me managing one of the highest rated pizza restaurants in the US and having a ****** edge on our rocking cutter. Fixed that up, excited to put it to use! presentation will improve.

[olywa]

Those wide bevels make me wanna say 'mini scandi'.

[Guts]

Sharpened some 15V this time.

Refreshed the edge on my PM2 with a 600gr Atoma since it's already at the angle I like. A number of light passes with each stone trying not to get a burr. Then a few passes of 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



Reprofiled my new 15V Manix 2 LW. When I got the knife I used it with the factory edge to break down a bunch of boxes to recycle and immediately remembered why I reprofile my stuff to a lower angle. Used my 400gr Vitrified stone to reprofile since it's faster to remove metal, a 400gr Atoma to clean up the work from the vitrified since it gives a crisper edge, then finished on the 600gr Atoma. 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



The heat treat on the 15V always a pleasure to sharpen as expected.

[TkoK83Spy]

Nice looking edges there Guts!

[Guts]

Nice looking edges there Guts!

Thanks. The Manix certainly cuts how I want it to now

[WilliamMunny]

Sharpened some 15V this time.

Refreshed the edge on my PM2 with a 600gr Atoma since it's already at the angle I like. A number of light passes with each stone trying not to get a burr. Then a few passes of 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



Reprofiled my new 15V Manix 2 LW. When I got the knife I used it with the factory edge to break down a bunch of boxes to recycle and immediately remembered why I reprofile my stuff to a lower angle. Used my 400gr Vitrified stone to reprofile since it's faster to remove metal, a 400gr Atoma to clean up the work from the vitrified since it gives a crisper edge, then finished on the 600gr Atoma. 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



The heat treat on the 15V always a pleasure to sharpen as expected.

What angle did you sharpen the Manix to? Looks like 14-16dps?

[Guts]

Sharpened some 15V this time.

Refreshed the edge on my PM2 with a 600gr Atoma since it's already at the angle I like. A number of light passes with each stone trying not to get a burr. Then a few passes of 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



Reprofiled my new 15V Manix 2 LW. When I got the knife I used it with the factory edge to break down a bunch of boxes to recycle and immediately remembered why I reprofile my stuff to a lower angle. Used my 400gr Vitrified stone to reprofile since it's faster to remove metal, a 400gr Atoma to clean up the work from the vitrified since it gives a crisper edge, then finished on the 600gr Atoma. 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



The heat treat on the 15V always a pleasure to sharpen as expected.

What angle did you sharpen the Manix to? Looks like 14-16dps?

It was freehanded and I just eyeball the bevels so not entirely sure tbh, but my freehanded edges usually end up between 11-13dps. On that note I went ahead and threw it in my guided system to check and this one is ~12.8dps according to the angle block thing, so call it 13dps.

Here's a couple shots of when I removed the small unsharpened section at the heel. Can see how much lower the angle was going to end up compared to the factory edge, which if I'm not mistaken are usually at ~16-17dps.

[jasonstone20]

killed me managing one of the highest rated pizza restaurants in the US and having a ****** edge on our rocking cutter. Fixed that up, excited to put it to use! presentation will improve.

vivi,
Nicely done, that must have been a pain. One of the modifications I did to my Harbor Freight 1x30 belt grinder was to remove the table, as since I was only going to be doing sharpening and blade regrinds where I was just going to be using the second modification I did to the grinder was add a piece of felt with just a very small amount of give, to add a natural convex to everything I ground, to the platen, which gave me my type of grind I like on a performance knife. What belt are you running on that grinder? I have an interest in abrasives, belts, stones, well I sharpen knives right?

[horzuff]

Sharpened some 15V this time.

Refreshed the edge on my PM2 with a 600gr Atoma since it's already at the angle I like. A number of light passes with each stone trying not to get a burr. Then a few passes of 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



Reprofiled my new 15V Manix 2 LW. When I got the knife I used it with the factory edge to break down a bunch of boxes to recycle and immediately remembered why I reprofile my stuff to a lower angle. Used my 400gr Vitrified stone to reprofile since it's faster to remove metal, a 400gr Atoma to clean up the work from the vitrified since it gives a crisper edge, then finished on the 600gr Atoma. 1um stroppy stuff on leather.



The heat treat on the 15V always a pleasure to sharpen as expected.

What angle did you sharpen the Manix to? Looks like 14-16dps?

It was freehanded and I just eyeball the bevels so not entirely sure tbh, but my freehanded edges usually end up between 11-13dps. On that note I went ahead and threw it in my guided system to check and this one is ~12.8dps according to the angle block thing, so call it 13dps.

Here's a couple shots of when I removed the small unsharpened section at the heel. Can see how much lower the angle was going to end up compared to the factory edge, which if I'm not mistaken are usually at ~16-17dps.

If that edge is ~13dps then it must mean the BTE is really nice on that 15V lightweight, nice! My factory edge Manix 2 LW MagnaCut has a similar bevel height . But I remember it was similar with the 15V Military 2 - it was thinner BTE than the S30V and S110V versions

Can't wait till the 15Vs cross the ocean, a must get

[jasonstone20]

Well, after keeping the factory edge and bte thickness on my Byrd Cara Cara 2 G10, I decided that I should give it an update in performance when cutting and sharpness. I just laid the corner of the edge bevel flat on my 11" IC11 Norton M Crystolon/F India Combonation Stone, Sharpening Supplies Carries Norton IC11, IC8, IC6 the old Wayne Goddard stone Norton developed for him, and the more I use the big stone and my little 6" IC6, that Wayne Goddard really nailed what was needed in a stone for everyday pocket and kitchen use. The M Crystolon gives you the immense cutting power of the SiC Crystolon Stone, but at a less coarse version than the C Crystolon, which is a #120 grit stone, and with visible gaps and spaces in the stone, it is really too coarse for anything but repair of chips or a broken tip, while the M Crystolon, at #180, is a tightly packed stone, looking similar in appearance to the F Crystolon. Using the M Crystolon avoids the common issue of very coarse stones: they can and often leave large grooves that are very hard to remove with the next stone progression, and often they will lead down to the apex, which can lead to another problem: having micro-chips on your edge, or the edge crumbling if a burr is formed, especial a large one that burr minimization or micro-beveling was not used on. I have had this happen with the C Crystolon, as well as Garden/Scythe Stones like the TASK SiC, and the Nortone SiC. Cliff Stamp told me that when using stones of around #120 grit or even lower, that these stones could have some random larger than other the pieces of abrasive in the stone, along with having gaps and spaces, which oddly enough are also capable of a very coarse grind grooves, kind of like how files teeth are more far apart the more coarse the get. Cliff told me to try and stop grinding before you really get close into the edge bevel apex, for doing rounding the edge bevel like I am doing here. Often, one or two scrubbing passes per side on a #120 grit stone was sufficient to grind a performance edge bevel and behind-the-edge (BTE) thickness into a production blade. Now, if going for close to a zero-grind edge were you lay the whole blade flat on the stone and grind until you almost apex, and grind over the previous edge bevel, this is, in my opinion an extreme performance edge, and can take some care in grinding the knife by hand, and can need care in use, as this edge and now blade geometry will usually fly though material, and it can be a surprise the first few time you cut cardboard with it. Now, here is another example of the C Crystolon being a little too coarse to be the right stone for this job, as again, large pieces of abrasive and spaces/gaps in the surface of the stone can not only leave the finish of the blade rough and gouged, with can sometime slow cutting with binding materials or deep cuts, as well as it can make faint stress points and risers, and since the blade would be fairly thinner with the near-zero grind, it can be more susceptible to again a chip or the tip breaking off, or even gross failure of the blade. Now this is where Wanye Goddard did a very smart choice, and selected the M Crystolon #180 stone. He talks about it in his sharpening article in the January 2002 Blade Magazine Issue, which was an excerpt from one of his books, The Wonder of Knifemaking To paraphrase Mr. Goddard, he chose the Norton Brand stones because of the quality and uniformity of the abrasive grit. The sharpening process was broken down into 3 parts which he called: 1. Roughing (where the wire edge/burr is formed), 2&3. Finishing and removing the wire edge/burr. So for the roughing stone, the Norton SiC Crytolon should be in the grit of #150-240, so that is basically a M or F Crystolon stone. He states that this stone cuts fast, and can cut most steels. Now I believe S60V and S90V had been used in production knives, and if I remember correctly the Jan 2002 Blade Magazine article came out when S30V was still being tested by Custom Knifesmiths. I think it was a few month later that Blade Magazine did an article on S30V for the first time. So we have a stone that isn't too coarse, is fast cutting, and can cut most cutlery steels. Now I do believe Cliff Stamp would argue that an oilstone, whether it be a SiC Crystolon, AlO India, or Soft Arkansas stone, freshly conditioned, can cut almost if not all of today's steels. In fact he has a YouTube video were he sharpened K390 @ 64HRC with a Soft Arkansas stone: Now the SiC will last the longest before it glazes, the India second, and the Soft Ark with glaze the fastest. Not Cliff would use these stones with a lot of oil and a lot of pressure, and for gross grinding with the Soft Ark he would suggest that if it was conditioned in a coarser grit than the natural grit of the stone on one side of the stone, and then you could leave the other side of the Soft Ark stone with a finer grain of conditioning so you could finish on a finer grit if desired. Cliff even said at one point that the same was true for the Spyderco Ceramic Stones and Tri-Angle Rods, that freshly conditioned, with a lubricant of some type, every grit of them, the M,F, and UF can be used to apex an edge. Now this is a little different than gross grinding, as the passes are very light and there is usually only 5-10 passes per side. So Wayne Goddard was nowhere out of bounds suggesting a SiC C Crystolon Stone to do the heavy lifting on the majority of steels, and that could hold for today, if you ask me. I haven't tested it personally, and I like to hold off on saying what is what until I have done it myself. I think the most carbide-rich steel I have right now is M390, but I don't recall what I have sharpening that blade with when I used to EDC it. Now I can say that the Spyderco Ceramics have been able to apex and cut any steel I handed to them, on the rare occasion I had a blade over S30V, ELMAX or M390, as those steels are even usually too high of a carbide content for how I use and the properties I desire in a knife steel, which is high apex stability, ease of grindablility, and ease of apex formation. So, back to the Wayne Goddard sharpening stone selection: On the second and third step, since for a final edge finish that had balanced properties of push cutting and slicing, that the M Crystolon was too coarse for that, but as a pure slicing edge for say rope, it was fine, so you could use it for step 2 & 3 instead of the F India. But with steps 2&3, you used the F India stone, and you removed the burr on the stone by doubling the angle you sharpened at, so Goddard suggested an initial edge angle of 12*-15*, so you would do alternating forward passes, very lightly, until the burr was no longer detectable but detection with the fingernail. Stropping was optional, but it was done with leather glued on wood and with green compound. The doubling of the edge angle to remove the burr in what we call microbeveling these days, was also championed by the great BladeForums longtime contributor Jeff Clark, and Cliff Stamp had told me that Jeff was one of the major influences in him using not only microbevels, but edge leading only passes for apexing.

Well, now that we now what stone I chose, the above pretty much says the why: all three of these Gentlemen had a huge influence on why and how I sharpen the way I do, along with Sal Glesser of course also, and Murray Carter. What this all leads to, is why I picked the M Crystolon to put speed curves on my edge bevels. Two reasons, the first I didn't want to completely ruin the finish and looks of the knife, as I have found most people look at a knife that doesn't look brand new, made out of stainless steel, no rust, no big scratch marks from me handgrinding on a benchstone, often wrinkling up their noses, that the ugly finished blade that cuts like a demon but isn't "pretty" or has a show mirror edge on it, is emitting some odious odor that only they can smell. Believe it or not, one's perception can easily become one's reality, and once that is set, no matter how much right-before-their-eyes proof you show them, they are not only dissatisfied, they are disappointed. So I didn't want the blade finish to look like a total train wreck, and normally, I would just pull out the HF 1x30", with some Norton Blaze or 3M Trizact belt and in a few passes, everything would almost look like it came from the factory like I reground it, it isn't me, it is the belts, one trick is to use a more fine belt instead of a more coarse one, and do more passes, and try and water cool either the belt of the blade or both. But because of how I have been feeling and doing, some days are power machinery days, with no problem, everything goes fine, and other days I do not even think about doing it, it is a bad idea. Also, my bifocal (yes I am that old, LOL) prescription was only good for about 6 months after I got my glasses and that was a couple of years ago, so I didn't want to rely on a visual test like I usually do, so what I was going to do was grind to a burr from the back of the shoulder of the edge bevel to the edge apex, which is what I did. Another nice thing about the M Crytolon is that it is more friable than the C Crystolon, and it produces not only more slurry, but a much finer one, and this also helps keep the finish of the blade edge bevel regrind area looking nicer. Now, why do I really care what people think of the blade I am carrings looks? Because I have run into this often, people find out I sharpen knives, and they are wanting to get their knives sharpened, and the knife I pull out to display my craft looks like it spent a few minutes in the garbage disposal and then a day at the bottom of a dishwasher, and they ask, "Is my knife going to be all scrathed up like that?", and, I can see it in there faces, when I say no, not at all, they are not reassured one bit. Not one bit. Anyway, I did not apex on the Norton F India, as the 11" ICS stone is still fairly new, and I like my F India to be a little milder, but it could just be this stone, or I need to condition it. I have been apexing on the #400 side of the Spyderco 308CBN lately, it really is effortless to get a lower grit edge that will still treetop arm-hair without the need for stropping, just right off the stone. Another very important thing Cliff Stamp taught me: a toothy edge should be able to whittle head hair, and a polished edge should be able to slice tomatoes, plastic, zipties, easily and effortlessly, but that is another conversation, and I have written about twelve volumes here, so onto the pictures:

[Guts]

It was freehanded and I just eyeball the bevels so not entirely sure tbh, but my freehanded edges usually end up between 11-13dps. On that note I went ahead and threw it in my guided system to check and this one is ~12.8dps according to the angle block thing, so call it 13dps.

Here's a couple shots of when I removed the small unsharpened section at the heel. Can see how much lower the angle was going to end up compared to the factory edge, which if I'm not mistaken are usually at ~16-17dps.

If that edge is ~13dps then it must mean the BTE is really nice on that 15V lightweight, nice! My factory edge Manix 2 LW MagnaCut has a similar bevel height . But I remember it was similar with the 15V Military 2 - it was thinner BTE than the S30V and S110V versions

Can't wait till the 15Vs cross the ocean, a must get

I got a second 15V Manix LW in the other day and went ahead and measured the factory edge on it, which came out to 16.85dps. With how wide the factory bevels look in the photo below even with an almost 17dps edge, that seems to confirm the BTE is probably pretty thin from the factory.

Bottom manix - straight out of the box factory edge 16.85dps
Top manix - the ~13dps sharpened example from my previous posts

[vivi]

fixed my condor terrachete.

I had maybe 8 condor models on my list of knives / machetes I'm interested in, but I'm having second thoughts after seeing how thick their factory edges are.

This one was something silly like 30 degrees. Per side. Went through two of my 120 grit belts fixing it. Their steel is definitely harder than the south african cold steel machetes.





Shame about the neat dual grind being removed. I may incorporate that idea later on by bringing the first bit of edge even thinner. Cool idea but atrocious execution. The thinner part meant for carving is about the angle the entire machete needed to be to work well.

Shot videos of the whole process, including some test chops before and after. Whenever I find the time I'll put a youtube video together and share it.

[Scandi Grind]

I had maybe 8 condor models on my list of knives / machetes I'm interested in, but I'm having second thoughts after seeing how thick their factory edges are.

Yeah, unfortunately you are not the first person I have heard who had problems with the edges Condor often ships, it seems like a pretty common issue. I don't really care how sharp a knife is out of the box as long as it has some sort of edge, but that kind of thinning would probably be a problem for me considering I don't have power tools at my disposal.

[vivi]

I had maybe 8 condor models on my list of knives / machetes I'm interested in, but I'm having second thoughts after seeing how thick their factory edges are.

Yeah, unfortunately you are not the first person I have heard who had problems with the edges Condor often ships, it seems like a pretty common issue. I don't really care how sharp a knife is out of the box as long as it has some sort of edge, but that kind of thinning would probably be a problem for me considering I don't have power tools at my disposal.

reprofiling a delica with bench stones is one thing, but I wouldn't recommend this machete to anyone without access to a belt sander. It took me about half an hour to reprofile it with one, while most my cold steels took about 5 minutes. combination of absurd edge thickness and harder steel, plus being careful with the combo grind until I was ready to blend it in with the rest of the bevel.

it seems like a solid design otherwise. I'm gonna do some more test chopping here in a bit.

[u.w.]

Just sharpened this one again. This is what I've been carrying for over a month now (except on my runs). Apexed on a 240, then refined and deburred on a 320.



Toothy, but grabs & pops hair above skin :-)
You may not be able to tell but I've dropped the edge angle just a touch for a bit narrower BTE.
It just falls thru things.

u.w.

[vivi]

nice. the 8Cr versions cut pretty well with a nice thin edge. I was always happy enough with its performance I never bought the S35VN version.

looks like you flattened the spine too. I dig the blade shape that resulted from that mod.

there's a lot to love about that model. really neutral ergonomics and I absolutely love the way the edge comes right up to the handle. I'd get my Millies, Police folders, Manix XL's etc. built like that over a choil if I could.

[vivi]

[vivi]

touching up some beaters for our kitchen house knives.



diamond rods to bring the serrated dexters back to life. 300 grit diamond plate followed by brown rods for the plain edges ones.

the black handled portugese chef knive was one I got free when an old employer of mine closed down, and the rest are $10 dexters & henckels that get treated rough.

someones gonna cut themselves today despite my warnings, haha. happens every time.

[Brock O Lee]

These two came out nicely. 1000 grit & 1 micron strop @ 15 dps.

[Brock O Lee]

It just falls thru things.

Yup I can see this!

How's the durability without a micro bevel? Any chipping or rolling?