A sharpening ?

T

Tar18

Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
144
Hi folks. I have been cleaning up a knife for a buddy. It needed a lot of cleaning up with a bit of rust on the blade and the handle (stacked leather) needed some cleaning up. It is a fixed blade and about 60 years old and was his grandfathers. It is looking good now and I was ready to sharpen after a lot of polishing. I checked the edge with my loupe and was surprised to see no bevel. Now there is a fuller on both sides of the blade and then it goes from there down to the edge. It is not a hollow ground from what I could see.
How do I proceed to sharpen this???? I hope that I have described this so that everyone can understand what I would like know how to do. So folks any ideas and suggestions.
Regards
Tar :)
 
what style of Pommel does it have; If it's made of stacked metal washers, then it might be a quatermaster
knife. a heavy utility knife that saw double duty as a combat weapon. The blade was generally heavier
than a standard Kabar. look for 225Q & Cattaragus on the Ricasso
 
Hi folks. I guess I was not very careful in how I was asking the question. I would like to know how to sharpen an edge that does not have a bevel and just comes to a sharp edge. This knife handle was made by his grandfather but I believe he said he had bought the knife with just the steel. I have never seen an edge like this without a bevel but did not want to screw it up by using my SM on it. It does have not have a bad edge but could use a sharpening. But then again I am picky.
Regards
Tar :)
 
If there is no edge bevel at all there are (at least) two options:

Some blades are truly full grinds where the "edge bevel" starts at (or near) the spine and continues all the way to the cutting edge. Some Japanese swords are supposed to be like this. Some Scandinavian blades are like this (the so called "scandi grind"). This isn't very typical though; just saying it in case.

Otherwise, you have a blade with no bevel because it's overly worn (no edge bevel left). Or perhaps it's unfinished as you sort of hint at. If you and the owner want it to have an edge bevel, then you need to create one. Creating an edge bevel is just like sharpening one. Grind at one angle until you make some progress. Flip the blade over and repeat. The trick here is to not grind too much on one side. That way you keep the edge centered and the bevel width even on both sides.

I've done this on a good number of old abused kitchen knives. Never on anything really thick as you seem to be describing. I've always used my WorkSharp Ken Onion mini belt sander. It helps to have something like this because you will probably be removing a good bit of stock in order to grind in brand new bevels.

A SharpMaker isn't going to begin to grind in new bevels, even with diamond rods. It would take quite a lot of effort. You need a rather coarse stone (~100 grit) and some time, or a belt sander (and less time).

Brian.
 
Thank you Brian for the suggestion. Now I will talk to the owner and see what he would like me to do. The knife looks just great considering the way I got it.
Still lots for me to learn.
Thanks again.
Regards
Tar :)
 
Tar18 said:
Hi folks. I guess I was not very careful in how I was asking the question. I would like to know how to sharpen an edge that does not have a bevel and just comes to a sharp edge. This knife handle was made by his grandfather but I believe he said he had bought the knife with just the steel. I have never seen an edge like this without a bevel but did not want to screw it up by using my SM on it. It does have not have a bad edge but could use a sharpening. But then again I am picky.
Regards
Tar :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like a 'zero grind' edge, i.e., sharp to the edge with no secondary bevel. Not a big deal; it's usually how I sharpen my own knives, for the most part. You could test for the edge angle by laying the blade flush to a flat & smooth surface, like a piece of plate glass. Look closely to see that the 'cheeks' of the apex just make contact with the surface. Based on the angle you see when that occurs, that would be where you'd set your hold to begin the sharpening passes on a stone. Easier still, edge-trailing or 'stropping' passes on something like wet/dry sandpaper on a hard surface are a simple way to maintain such an edge, again with the apex's 'cheeks' just flush to the abrasive.

The 'zero grind' could just be the result of what's essentially a shallow, low-angle convexing of the blade's primary grind, extending all the way to the cutting edge. This is basically what I've done with mine, either on stones (more recently) or with hard-backed sandpaper. If the blade was originally ground to a sharp edge on a belt grinder with a little bit of slack in the belt, that shallow convex would be a natural result of that process anyway.

Such an edge could also be easily maintained by just adding a small microbevel at a standard angle, such as that set by a device like a Sharpmaker.

I think you'd be right in first asking the owner though, to determine exactly & specifically what he expects from a sharpening, or even if he wants it resharpened at all.
 
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Tar18 said:
Thank you Brian for the suggestion. Now I will talk to the owner and see what he would like me to do. The knife looks just great considering the way I got it.
Still lots for me to learn.
Thanks again.
Regards
Tar :)
Click to expand...
Op If you could post a pic of the edge at 2 or 3 angles it would help tremendously to identify the grind in question. A picture tells a thousand words and every one likes pics :cool: plus the boys here could tell you everything you would want to know about that blade. Good luck with the project:thumbsup:
 
Hi folks. Your suggestion Night Rider to post a pic is great. Would someone be so kind as to let me know how to post a pic. I did look but could not find a spot. I think that I got a pic of the blade (hard to do so shiny) that might show the blade.
Any help in this would be great.
Regards
Tar :)
 
Tar18 said:
Hi folks. Your suggestion Night Rider to post a pic is great. Would someone be so kind as to let me know how to post a pic. I did look but could not find a spot. I think that I got a pic of the blade (hard to do so shiny) that might show the blade.
Any help in this would be great.
Regards
Tar :)
Click to expand...

If you don't have an acct. here, you need to use a 3rd party hosting site, like imgbb, imgr, etc. then copy the BBCode link from that, and insert it into your post here.
 
That blade does look like it's got some convex to the grind, below the fuller and extending to the cutting edge. That's basically what I had referred to in my earlier comments, about how grinding on a belt with some slack would produce that profile.

Pic is a bit blurry, but if the profile is convex as it appears, then edge-trailing sharpening on sandpaper over a firm surface would be a relatively easy way to maintain it. But again, it can also be sharpened up in other ways. It's just a matter of deciding what's best for it, according to the owner. The possible downside to maintaining the existing 'zero grind' profile on sandpaper, is that laying the blade that low to sandpaper will obviously introduce some extra scratches to a large portion of the blade. That's why it'd be wise to check what the owner wants to do, as the cosmetics will be affected quite a bit.
 
Thank you for all of the comments. Yea I know that the pic was blurry but it was hard to take a pic well with the blade being so shiny after my work of polishing it. I will be talking to the owner to see what he would like me to do.
Thanks everyone for the comments and help and I will let you know what he says.
Regards
Tar :)
 
Good morning folks.
I did talk to the owner and he would like to leave it the way it is now. It was his grandfathers and now that it is all cleaned up he is just going to keep it that way and not really use the knife.
Thanks again for all of the help.
Regards
Tar :)
 
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