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Big Nasty Edges
- Thread starter Will York
- Start date
Cliff Stamp
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That's not bad, its natural wool underwear. I like to run my machetes that sharp, but on the softer ones they don't generally get quite that good because the edge is floppy and annoying to go beyond a certain point. I should get a buffer, or at least a leather belt for the sander, or some fine finishing belts.
-Cliff
-Cliff
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What size belt sander do you have? I have a few extra leather belts for a 1X30" belt sander. When I send you the BK9 (not too much longer
) I would be happy to send you one of them if they will match your sander.Cliff Stamp
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Andrew that is the size, the offer is appreciated.
Will the back of that blade looks like it has some stories to tell.
-Cliff
Will the back of that blade looks like it has some stories to tell.
-Cliff
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Cliff-
I was showing my brother how to take the shoulder off of the primary grind on a standard 18" Ontario machete, and transition from the flat of the blade to the edge in one long, fairly smooth convex bevel about 3/8" wide. After I made my last pass with a 1200-grit Trizact belt and then stropped on some soft leather, I tried the edge with my thumb. He asked, "Is it sharp now?" To which I responded with the demonstration above. He had his camera handy, and when I cut that swath across my calf he instructed me to, "Hold it right there." He later sent me a mouse pad with that photo as its surface, and I was using the pad to test a new scanner--thought I'd pass along the pic as a conversation piece.
That edge is very effective, incurring practically no resistance when swung with speed against many of the varieties of light brush we have here in south Texas.
The back of the blade has been hammered and battered with all manner of whacking sticks through all kinds of obstructions. I've even hammered this particular machete through the skull of a deer to remove a piece of skull plate with antlers attached. The edge does need considerable touching up after these episodes.
-Will
EDITED to remove confusing errata!
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...you were right, Cliff. The back is on the left above. I hadn't looked at that machete in a while, and just pulled it out for inspection. It's pretty well beat to hell. 
The convex edge bevel is in shadow on the right side of the blade in the pic, which I can make out on the mouse pad but not in the rendition above.
-w
The convex edge bevel is in shadow on the right side of the blade in the pic, which I can make out on the mouse pad but not in the rendition above.
-w
Cliff Stamp
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WILL YORK :
Something that was really surprising to me was the extremely high quality edges that come off belt sanders. I have tried the worst belts, very cheap AO ones that are very worn, which should give sad edges, but they don't, the edges are completely free of burrs. This was so unexpected that I had never even thought to try it as I always sharpened freehand after using the belt sander to set the bevel. Then my brother, who was ignorant of the fact that you should not do it, commented that he never bothered with that, just left the edge as ground on the sander.
I knew the edge would be coarse and thus slice well, but thought the obvious burr would limit sharpness and edge retention. When I finally got around to doing some edge retention testing neither was the case. The only thing that I can think of is that there is no binder to mask the abrasive and thus apply pressure without cutting ability, which is what makes burrs. It would seem obvious then that maybe BC applied to a plate like Diamond would be the best sharpening surface. Diamond having the problem of fracturing easily, plus wearing due to carbon bonding with the steel.
Using the belts stapled to wood you can make very high quality hones that are fairly cheap. The 40 grit ZO ones strip off metal really fast, I have used them to alter primary grinds on folders. And the fine belts make great finishers. The sandpaper that Lee Valley sells gives the same quality of finish and supports the idea that is is the lack of binder that is the difference. I am beginning to think that the erea of hones has past.
-Cliff
Something that was really surprising to me was the extremely high quality edges that come off belt sanders. I have tried the worst belts, very cheap AO ones that are very worn, which should give sad edges, but they don't, the edges are completely free of burrs. This was so unexpected that I had never even thought to try it as I always sharpened freehand after using the belt sander to set the bevel. Then my brother, who was ignorant of the fact that you should not do it, commented that he never bothered with that, just left the edge as ground on the sander.
I knew the edge would be coarse and thus slice well, but thought the obvious burr would limit sharpness and edge retention. When I finally got around to doing some edge retention testing neither was the case. The only thing that I can think of is that there is no binder to mask the abrasive and thus apply pressure without cutting ability, which is what makes burrs. It would seem obvious then that maybe BC applied to a plate like Diamond would be the best sharpening surface. Diamond having the problem of fracturing easily, plus wearing due to carbon bonding with the steel.
Using the belts stapled to wood you can make very high quality hones that are fairly cheap. The 40 grit ZO ones strip off metal really fast, I have used them to alter primary grinds on folders. And the fine belts make great finishers. The sandpaper that Lee Valley sells gives the same quality of finish and supports the idea that is is the lack of binder that is the difference. I am beginning to think that the erea of hones has past.
-Cliff
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Cliff--
Great tip on stapling (or gluing) belts to wood. Have you tried using very fine-grit belts, especially worn-out ones, as strops? I may try that as well.
The only time I use my EdgePro anymore is with expensive blades on which I am particularly interested in maximizing useful blade life. The belts tend to eat a little more steel than a "non-mechanized hone", thereby lowering the number of times I can re-sharpen before getting back into the primary grind and having to re-profile.
-w
Cliff Stamp
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Will :
Edge first is far less prone to burr formation, Lee discusses this in "The complete guide to sharpening" so I do use them manually but like hones. I only strop now as a finishing step after a final sharpening, I don't tend to use it as edge maintaince, unless the steel is *very* easy to abrade, burr formation is too heavy. The only common blades I sharpen in this manner (stropping) are axes and such and with them it is 2-3 stropping sessions and then the edge needs to be rest with a 4000 grit waterstone.
Yes, the exact settings can make repeated sharpenings quite fast and puts metal wear at a bare minimum. Even with heavy and frequent use, I would expect a decent high edge retention blade steel (D2 ~62 RC class), to show little wear after years of use. It simply takes extreme levels of normal material to induce any wear. A blades lifetime tends to be dominated by the occasional mishaps more than actual wear as the latter is just microns in depth. I use a cheap 22 degree v-rod set up for most utility knife sharpening, just creating a small micro-bevel, a small fraction of a mm wide. This sharpens even very dull knives in a few passes and I reset the bevel once the micro-bevel stops being micro any more.
-Cliff
Edge first is far less prone to burr formation, Lee discusses this in "The complete guide to sharpening" so I do use them manually but like hones. I only strop now as a finishing step after a final sharpening, I don't tend to use it as edge maintaince, unless the steel is *very* easy to abrade, burr formation is too heavy. The only common blades I sharpen in this manner (stropping) are axes and such and with them it is 2-3 stropping sessions and then the edge needs to be rest with a 4000 grit waterstone.
Yes, the exact settings can make repeated sharpenings quite fast and puts metal wear at a bare minimum. Even with heavy and frequent use, I would expect a decent high edge retention blade steel (D2 ~62 RC class), to show little wear after years of use. It simply takes extreme levels of normal material to induce any wear. A blades lifetime tends to be dominated by the occasional mishaps more than actual wear as the latter is just microns in depth. I use a cheap 22 degree v-rod set up for most utility knife sharpening, just creating a small micro-bevel, a small fraction of a mm wide. This sharpens even very dull knives in a few passes and I reset the bevel once the micro-bevel stops being micro any more.
-Cliff
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Cliff-
Yeah, even belts in the 1200-grit-plus range probably would be a problem there. It does seem to me that if I use no abrasive at all on my strop--just soft leather--that I have no problem with burr formation. In fact, if I end up with a slight burr when I'm done on the belt grinder, stropping on soft leather typically polishes off the burr and leaves a nice clean edge under 30x mag. I recently experienced that with an edge-quenched L6 blade that is especially prone to retaining a flimsy burr. Stropping on soft leather takes care of it and leaves a nice clean razor edge.
-w
Cliff Stamp
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Will :
I have used leather as a finishing step as it gives ~15% more sharpness than CrO loaded leather which I think may simply be due to the steel impregnated in the CrO. I have not noticed an ability of plain leather to remove a burr, but I don't think I ever tried it. I don't see why it would so I'll definately give it a look.
CrO stropping doesn't tend to help on the same level as fine SiC sandpaper (5 micron) which then followed by CrO is *much* better than just using Cro by itself which is easily understood. You might want to look into DMT's paste, I have been working with the 6 micron and the results are enough to make me get the 1 and three micron. It is much more aggressive that CrO which you would expect given the nature of the abrasive and thus far less prone to burr formation.
L6 edge quenched sounds like a fine blade. It is interesting that it tends to take a burr, I would not expect that unless the hardness is low, can you ball park it?
-Cliff
I have used leather as a finishing step as it gives ~15% more sharpness than CrO loaded leather which I think may simply be due to the steel impregnated in the CrO. I have not noticed an ability of plain leather to remove a burr, but I don't think I ever tried it. I don't see why it would so I'll definately give it a look.
CrO stropping doesn't tend to help on the same level as fine SiC sandpaper (5 micron) which then followed by CrO is *much* better than just using Cro by itself which is easily understood. You might want to look into DMT's paste, I have been working with the 6 micron and the results are enough to make me get the 1 and three micron. It is much more aggressive that CrO which you would expect given the nature of the abrasive and thus far less prone to burr formation.
L6 edge quenched sounds like a fine blade. It is interesting that it tends to take a burr, I would not expect that unless the hardness is low, can you ball park it?
-Cliff
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It's a Clyde Fischer folder he made for me about a year before he died, and I really don't know what it might Rc. Haven't used it enough to estimate from performance, as it's somewhat of a collector's item these days. I guess Clyde would roll over in his grave if he heard me say I wasn't using the knife good and hard.
-w
Excuse my intrusion into what is a fascinating discussion of sharpening, but I have a few questions. First off, I'll say I like large knives w/ scary sharp edges. Its fun to watch people's eyes widen. My current sharpening set up is a Norton course/medium india stone set on an angled piece of wood, followed by a sharpmaker at a slightly greater angle, perhaps 2-3 degrees. I was toying w/ the notion of making a "backwoods belt sander" by just clamping a piece of sandpaper between 2 vices, followed by a belt w/ white buffing compound. What kind of edge can I expect from this setup, compared to my current one. I was thinking of using sanding belts in the vice, from 180 down to as fine as I could get. I dont have any proof, but a highly polished edge seems to last longer. The cutting I do doesnt seem to have a preference for the aggressive course finish favored by many. Also, I have a Buck Frontiersman I inherited from my dad. The primary grind starts out as hollow, then flows to convex, and finally to conventional bevels at the edge. I would like to continue the convex flow. Would the above belt setup work?
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Elwin--
Please don't apologize. I was beginning to think Cliff and I were putting everyone to sleep. While Cliff composes technically viable answers to your questions, I'll try my best to confuse you:
I don't know why that wouldn't work--easy enough to try it and see. I think you would get much the same effect by just laying your sandpaper on a soft backing, either styrofoam or any thick, soft pad. This will let the edge bevel of the blade "sink in" as the backing gives a little and should produce the slightly convex edge you are seeking for your Buck.
Edge finish is best determined by deciding whether you are better served by "push cutting" or by a slicing motion, and what media you need to cut. Once the blade's edge has been thinned to an appropriate degree for your subject material, a polished finish will push-cut best (razor action) whereas a coarse finish will typically slice best (serration action). You can also apply a very coarse finish to an edge and then go back over it with a fine grit polishing belt to bring the surface of the bevel to a high polish, leaving striations from the coarse abrasive underneath, and thereby gain something of a compromise edge. Busse's factory edges have always seemed to me to be applied with this in mind--though I've never seen an actual reference to it.
Once an edge bevel has been set to my satisfaction, for maintenance I typically "steel" the edge, with edge trailing, on a ceramic rod, then buff with CrO-charged leather laid on a wooden block, and finally finish by stropping on a slack leather belt with a soft suede finish. A great quick fix when away from the shop is to substitute the top of a car window for the ceramic rod and use my pants belt for a strop (inside surface of belt).
-w
Please don't apologize. I was beginning to think Cliff and I were putting everyone to sleep. While Cliff composes technically viable answers to your questions, I'll try my best to confuse you:
I don't know why that wouldn't work--easy enough to try it and see. I think you would get much the same effect by just laying your sandpaper on a soft backing, either styrofoam or any thick, soft pad. This will let the edge bevel of the blade "sink in" as the backing gives a little and should produce the slightly convex edge you are seeking for your Buck.
Edge finish is best determined by deciding whether you are better served by "push cutting" or by a slicing motion, and what media you need to cut. Once the blade's edge has been thinned to an appropriate degree for your subject material, a polished finish will push-cut best (razor action) whereas a coarse finish will typically slice best (serration action). You can also apply a very coarse finish to an edge and then go back over it with a fine grit polishing belt to bring the surface of the bevel to a high polish, leaving striations from the coarse abrasive underneath, and thereby gain something of a compromise edge. Busse's factory edges have always seemed to me to be applied with this in mind--though I've never seen an actual reference to it.
Once an edge bevel has been set to my satisfaction, for maintenance I typically "steel" the edge, with edge trailing, on a ceramic rod, then buff with CrO-charged leather laid on a wooden block, and finally finish by stropping on a slack leather belt with a soft suede finish. A great quick fix when away from the shop is to substitute the top of a car window for the ceramic rod and use my pants belt for a strop (inside surface of belt).
-w
Cliff Stamp
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Elwin :
That is a simply excellent setup, pretty much exactly what I would do with the minor modification of using waterstones. You have a readily functional method of heavy stock removal and then a very quick method to sharpening using a slightly more obtuse micro-bevel, I would imagine sharpening times are very low. I generally do the same thing, except I freehand the more acute bevels.
The major difference is that it will be convex as opposed to flat. Quite frankly I think this is the easiest way to sharpen a knife as the belt will deform to match the bevel so the accepted angle variance is quite high. It is not very prone to burr formation and very fast as you have a very long sharpening surface. As Will noted, you can also use a soft backing to get a very similar effect.
Yes, just take a few light passes to check the way it is flowing and steadily increase pressure until the curvature flows the way you want. You can either have a distinct but light convex bevel, or blend it totally back into the primary convex grind if you wish. With a decently aggressive belt, say 80 AO or more coarse, this is only a few minutes work, and then you just polish to what ever extent you wish.
-Cliff
That is a simply excellent setup, pretty much exactly what I would do with the minor modification of using waterstones. You have a readily functional method of heavy stock removal and then a very quick method to sharpening using a slightly more obtuse micro-bevel, I would imagine sharpening times are very low. I generally do the same thing, except I freehand the more acute bevels.
The major difference is that it will be convex as opposed to flat. Quite frankly I think this is the easiest way to sharpen a knife as the belt will deform to match the bevel so the accepted angle variance is quite high. It is not very prone to burr formation and very fast as you have a very long sharpening surface. As Will noted, you can also use a soft backing to get a very similar effect.
Yes, just take a few light passes to check the way it is flowing and steadily increase pressure until the curvature flows the way you want. You can either have a distinct but light convex bevel, or blend it totally back into the primary convex grind if you wish. With a decently aggressive belt, say 80 AO or more coarse, this is only a few minutes work, and then you just polish to what ever extent you wish.
-Cliff
I tried the soft backing trick. It didnt work very well and mostly just irritated me.
The thought has occurred to me that I would have been better off buying a small belt sander for about $65 instead of $40 for the sharpmaker and $20 for the Norton.
Cliff, the fast stock removal isnt really that fast. I recently sharpned my CRKT Crawford Falcon to 15 degrees. It took nearly 3 hours off and on w/ the course Norton. That was why I was looking for a way to use the more course belts. I may pick up some gear and try the belt and vice idea this weekend. Once the reprofiling is done, the sharpening time is very quick. Thanks for the answers from both of you.
The thought has occurred to me that I would have been better off buying a small belt sander for about $65 instead of $40 for the sharpmaker and $20 for the Norton.
Cliff, the fast stock removal isnt really that fast. I recently sharpned my CRKT Crawford Falcon to 15 degrees. It took nearly 3 hours off and on w/ the course Norton. That was why I was looking for a way to use the more course belts. I may pick up some gear and try the belt and vice idea this weekend. Once the reprofiling is done, the sharpening time is very quick. Thanks for the answers from both of you.
Cliff Stamp
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Elwin :
This is why I would not recommend Norton's India stones in general, the binder masks the abrasive. If you can, try a japanese x-coarse waterstone and note the huge difference in cutting speed. Then use some 80 grit lapping compound to increase it again. Neither is as fast as just using a coarse belt manually, and of course much slower than just using it on a sander, which as you note isn't very expensive. I would agree with Will that it would be of benefit to many to consider it. I put it off for so long as I assumed it would be very skill demanding, it isn't.
-Cliff
This is why I would not recommend Norton's India stones in general, the binder masks the abrasive. If you can, try a japanese x-coarse waterstone and note the huge difference in cutting speed. Then use some 80 grit lapping compound to increase it again. Neither is as fast as just using a coarse belt manually, and of course much slower than just using it on a sander, which as you note isn't very expensive. I would agree with Will that it would be of benefit to many to consider it. I put it off for so long as I assumed it would be very skill demanding, it isn't.
-Cliff