Better edge on a Buck Nighthawk

[Walter1534]

I have a plain edge Buck Nighthawk. I love the strength and heft of the thick blade, but it cuts about as well as a sharp rock! Would it help to have the bevel reground to something sharper than the standard 20 deg. factory edge, or would that make it too fragile?

------------------
Lefty The Blade

 

[Matt Shade]

It depends on the type of steel, how its heat treated, and how your going to use the knife. A thinner edge would make it perform a lot better at slicing and things like that,but it would roll more easily and chip alot easier if you use it for chopping and really heavy cutting.

------------------
Fix it right the first time, use Baling Wire !

 

[Walter1534]

Thank you. It's a buck knife, so the steel should be of fairly good quality. The blade is too short for effective chopping anyway, so that would be an infrequent use for the knife.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Lower the edge bevels and see what happens, it is not like the knife will snap violently in half if you go too low. The worst case senario is that it starts to chip more than you want. If this happens you just raise the bevels back up again.

Buck has also commented that they have changed the way they sharpened their knives and are now using an "Edge 2000" method or something similar, but I have not seen a description of exactly what that is. It is supposed to give better performance so you might want to contact Buck about it if you have an older blade.

-Cliff

 

Buck's edge "2000" is 30° Angle and works nicely with their "Mentor"-knives. (el cheapo!) They are sharp ex works.

"Old" angle was about 50° which is way too much. Grind was OK, but it wouldn't shave...

------------------
D.T. UTZINGER