Best angle for EDC knife

R

romad97

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Nov 24, 2012
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What angle do you all prefer to profile for your EDC knives? I just recieved a beautiful custom fixed blade. It has a 3 1/4 in blade and is about 1/8 inch thick I am guestimating. This knife will be used for hunting and just general every day use. I am somewhat new to knives and such. I am ordering a wicked edge sharpening system for christmas. I know it does not need to be sharpened yet, it is very sharp but, at some point I will need to re profile it as it is not perfectly even on both sides right now. Just looking for tips and opinions on what the best angle is for this type of knife.
 
Pics, HT, steel, profile, geometry, maker???

A blind folded recommendation for game dressing & minor bushcraft angle = 15*/side back bevel, 20*/side cutting(or micro).
 
bluntcut said:
Pics, HT, steel, profile, geometry, maker???

A blind folded recommendation for game dressing & minor bushcraft angle = 15*/side back bevel, 20*/side cutting(or micro).
Click to expand...

Excuse my ignorance but, I don't know what back bevel or side cutting(or micro) means. Steel is 1095 and its a dart style knife made by backwoods custom.
 
He means to set the sharpening angle at 15°/side and then add a very small (micro) bevel with just 5 or 6 passes per side at 20°/side. This adds strength to the very edge and doesnt noticably decrease the cutting ability.

I have been using a Cold Steel Scalper fixed blade set at 12°/side with a 15°/side microbevel. It has been fine for everything up to and including bone cutting, though bone does dull it.
 
It also depends on how thick the blade right behind the edge is. If the blade is ground very thin and keen, light touchups with a strop or fine stone at a fairly high angle (20-25 degrees per side) will keep it very sharp throughout a lot of use. If the edge is thicker but you want to use it for fine cutting tasks, I would want a much shallower edge angle for better cutting performance.
 

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For my general EDC I reprofile to a 17 degree angle. I am not 100% sure on the system if the 17 is per-side or inclusive. I'd say its inclusive though as the edge is fairly thin. That would make it 8½° per side.
 
Swoop03 said:
For my general EDC I reprofile to a 17 degree angle. I am not 100% sure on the system if the 17 is per-side or inclusive. I'd say its inclusive though as the edge is fairly thin. That would make it 8½° per side.
Click to expand...

If using the Lansky (per your post in the other thread), the '17' setting is per side, which implies 34° inclusive. As an example, if the blade edge extends ~5/8" or so beyond the front of the clamp, the true angle will be in the ballpark of ~15°/side, when using the '17' setting. The marked settings on the Lansky clamp are accurate as measured at the immediate front edge of the clamp. Angle gets a bit lower as the blade gets wider, and the edge is further away from the front of the clamp. But to get 8.5°/side, the blade will have to be extremely wide (several inches). More 'typical' EDC blades of 1" width or less, will likely end up in the 12°-17°/side range (24°-34° inclusive), which is obviously more reasonable for EDC knives.

A 15°/side (30° inclusive) edge does look pretty thin, and the resulting bevel widths will look pretty wide, if one hasn't been accustomed to seeing it before. Lots of production knives will be thicker than that, and many a lot thicker, from the factory.

David
 
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Buy the strop i post in my forsale section is all you need i free hand my cutting edges,a strop is the best way to go on my knives personally,you go using a sharpmaker and you will take off the wire edge and end up in thick steel and your done for,just being truthful with you
 
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