Best EDC Angle?

B

blan

Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
161
Is there a consensus?
I know Spyderco says 40 but it seems that a lot of people here say that if you are reprofiling, might as well reprofile to 30 or less.

Is there a consensus on what is the best angle for an EDC blade? Say 440C/Aus8?
 
it really depends what you do with it
slicing its better with an acute angle, but hard stuff like twisting the blade , some chopping...would keep the blade safe on a 40 degrees angle
440c amd aus8 , i think for a normal use, they should stick to 20/20 angle, that is 40
40 is a more safe angle for the blade, 30 or less is more fragile
i wouldnt worry about that too much, i sharpen my knives freehand at some angle betwen those two, regardless of steel, and with the sharpmaker, i only use the 40 angle setup.
the 30 angle would see use only when the edge is to worn out, and it needs some light regrind
 
Been sharpening for folks for almost three years and the general consensus among returning customers is 20°/side (40° inclusive). This holds true for kitchen knives and utility pocket knives. There are a few that like their hunting knives set at 30°/side, but 20°/side seems to the favored angle.
 
I rebevel at 12-13 degrees per side, then put on a secondary micro-bevel of 15 degrees with the Sharpmaker. I don't chop or twist or pry with my knives, and I find the 30-degree inclusive angle cuts like buttah! The narrow shoulders give good geometry for not getting hung up so the blade really goes through easily. I find a narrower edge deforms less because less force is needed to cut materials. I use mainly CV, 1095 and Dozier and Queen D2.
 
I've been sharpening knives for people off-and-on for about 50 years. Once they use a knife with a 10-degree back-bevel and finished with a few strokes at 12-degrees per side they consider more obtuse blades as defective.

It's really funny to see that happen. I was sharpening knives at the local soup kitchen. I started out the volunteer crew with some of my own thin MAC Knives carefully honed to a 10/12 degree combination. I started down the line honing the soup kitchen's knives. I handed the crew some decent Wusthoff chefs knives that I did a quick 12/15 degree sharpening job on. Within an hour they started to come back to me as "needing sharpening". The joke was that 2 hours earlier those knives would have qualified as the sharpest knives any of those housewives had ever seen. Once they had tried a really thin and acute blade they were spoiled.

Now I have seen broke blades and rippled edges, but usually that comes from hammering on the spine of a thinly ground blade--something with a thin hollow grind or a thin full grind. The edge bevel usually doesn't cause those major problems. Until you try and cut through metal acute is better.
 
I use about 10-12.5degrees per side for pocket knives, and 20degrees per side for kitchen knives(my mum sometimes abuses them abit >_<)
 
I have a Lansky and a Sharpmaker. The lowest they go to is 15 degreed. What sharpner do you use to get down to 10 degrees?
 
I have a Lansky and a Sharpmaker. The lowest they go to is 15 degreed. What sharpner do you use to get down to 10 degrees?
 
It depends on the thickness of the blade. You wouldn't want 10/10 degree angles on a thicker blade. or a 20/20 on a razor blade. For general pocket knives for general use I like 20/20 or 25/25. They're sharp enough and hold up well at that angle.
Greg
 
Depends on the knife and the steel for me. For a gents knife, I'm more than happy with a 18-24 degree inclusive angle and sometimes thinner. For my "tougher" all purpose EDC knives (Hinderer XM-18 and my soon-to-be-owned Yuna Hard 1) I'll probably keep them at the maker's angles which as far as I can tell is some where around 40-50 degrees inclusive. Overall, I like a good 30 degree angle.

One of the biggest things that prevents me from getting a thinner edge on my knives is that I suck at reprofiling and keeping the edges pretty. I can sharpen pretty good, but my reprofile jobs look very sloppy even though the edges are effective.
 
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