BOSS St arrived! Quick question tho...

C

Cadman2008

Joined
Apr 20, 2010
Messages
111
My nice new tool arrived yesterday, and it looks awesome, perfect size for my hand, nice weight to it.

I also recieved, a few weeks ago, my BWM. Big assed knife, will be kept in the safe until the boys are old enough to go camping and I'll actually use it then.

Thing is tho, comparing the edges of the 2, they are quite different. I will try to take a photo of the boss street edge, but I'm not sure how a crappy camera phone will show it up. My question is:

Should the angle of the edge grinds be equal? Is it a specific type of grind that makes one side much more angled than the other? Or does it just need a re sharpen? Straight out of the cardboard sheath, my BWM basically looked at my arm hair and most of it fell off. The BS doesn't shave off hair at all.

I don't have a sharpening system yet (tried all the camping stores in my area this morning, 4 of them, no-one has a ceramic rod. Even tried the kitchen supply store) and, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit new to this whole knife thing. I bought the BS to be my belt knife for working / hiking, so I will have to get it together soon and get set up to sharpen them, just will take some time.

So am I doing something wrong?
 
Welcome Cadman! Congrats on your BS and BW; those two should handle just about anything. I am relatively new to sharpening as well, and I have found that a convex edge is not only easy to achieve...but also easy to maintain. I can't sharpen a v-edge to save my life, but I can get a convex edge to shave hair quite easily. You can find a series of excellent videos HERE showing you how to convex a blade edge. Good luck man, and make sure you watch ALL the videos if you decide to 'vex!
 
Not at all really. I had an old bowie style, no brand name, k-mart cheapie knife that I used to practice with when I was young, but my old man thought knives were ridiculous and somewhat dangerous so he was no damn help :D.

I'm certainly not going to start practicing on the BUSSE knives. I have a few old crappy knives still laying around that I'm going to practice on a lot before I sharpen a 300 dollar knife. Edge retention is the main reason I wanted a BUSSE in the first place, so I hopefully wouldn't have to sharpen it all that often, and the blurb on the site made it seem that sharpening would be relatively simple.

I've watched all your sharpening videos, Ank, but I can't justify that edgepro (?) rig that you use. With postage to West Australia, and the aussie dollar tanking it over the last few weeks, I'm getting bored with seeing "only $200!" and realising that it really means "over $300!" thanks to other-side-of-the-world postage and a 15% drop in the dollar value thanks to market conditions....
 
Cadman2008 said:
Not at all really. I had an old bowie style, no brand name, k-mart cheapie knife that I used to practice with when I was young, but my old man thought knives were ridiculous and somewhat dangerous so he was no damn help :D.

I'm certainly not going to start practicing on the BUSSE knives. I have a few old crappy knives still laying around that I'm going to practice on a lot before I sharpen a 300 dollar knife. Edge retention is the main reason I wanted a BUSSE in the first place, so I hopefully wouldn't have to sharpen it all that often, and the blurb on the site made it seem that sharpening would be relatively simple.

I've watched all your sharpening videos, Ank, but I can't justify that edgepro (?) rig that you use. With postage to West Australia, and the aussie dollar tanking it over the last few weeks, I'm getting bored with seeing "only $200!" and realising that it really means "over $300!" thanks to other-side-of-the-world postage and a 15% drop in the dollar value thanks to market conditions....
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You could get a Sharpmaker or a Lansky System also, much cheaper to start with. :)
 
Or try wet/dry sandpaper on mousepad/leather/hard backing - it's cheap, simple and is more forgiving so you don't have to worry about huge mistakes. INFI is suprisingly easy to sharpen.
 
snwbrdr202 said:
Welcome Cadman! Congrats on your BS and BW; those two should handle just about anything. I am relatively new to sharpening as well, and I have found that a convex edge is not only easy to achieve...but also easy to maintain. I can't sharpen a v-edge to save my life, but I can get a convex edge to shave hair quite easily. You can find a series of excellent videos HERE showing you how to convex a blade edge. Good luck man, and make sure you watch ALL the videos if you decide to 'vex!
Click to expand...

Thanks Snwbrd, I just finished watching the last of them. They are not bad videos and explain the process quite well. I WOULD like to convex it some day, but the current grind is quite uneven and evening it up with even 400 grit paper would take hours. I'd be perfectly willing to do that, if I had any confidence in my abilities, but right now I more or less have very few. I have plenty of 400 - 1200 paper here tho, so I am going to get to practicing on a few old knives first thing in the morning. When I can do it pretty reliably, THEN I'll move onto my new baby :)

Ank, can you use either of these systems to "even up" the edge of a knife? It's like when it was ground at the factory, it twisted a bit and 1 side got a shallower angle and the other a steeper one. I really should fix that before I worry too much about sharpening it or convexing the edge...
 
Cadman2008 said:
Thanks Snwbrd, I just finished watching the last of them. They are not bad videos and explain the process quite well. I WOULD like to convex it some day, but the current grind is quite uneven and evening it up with even 400 grit paper would take hours. I'd be perfectly willing to do that, if I had any confidence in my abilities, but right now I more or less have very few. I have plenty of 400 - 1200 paper here tho, so I am going to get to practicing on a few old knives first thing in the morning. When I can do it pretty reliably, THEN I'll move onto my new baby :)

Ank, can you use either of these systems to "even up" the edge of a knife? It's like when it was ground at the factory, it twisted a bit and 1 side got a shallower angle and the other a steeper one. I really should fix that before I worry too much about sharpening it or convexing the edge...
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The Lansky system will even it up nicely and it's a clamp system too so the edges will be nice and even once you are done. :thumbup:
 
My proto Boss Street was pretty danged sharp. If I got a dull CG, I'd sharpen that bad boy and thin that edge out while I was at it.
 
Cadman2008 said:
Thanks Snwbrd, I just finished watching the last of them. They are not bad videos and explain the process quite well. I WOULD like to convex it some day, but the current grind is quite uneven and evening it up with even 400 grit paper would take hours. I'd be perfectly willing to do that, if I had any confidence in my abilities, but right now I more or less have very few. I have plenty of 400 - 1200 paper here tho, so I am going to get to practicing on a few old knives first thing in the morning. When I can do it pretty reliably, THEN I'll move onto my new baby :)

Ank, can you use either of these systems to "even up" the edge of a knife? It's like when it was ground at the factory, it twisted a bit and 1 side got a shallower angle and the other a steeper one. I really should fix that before I worry too much about sharpening it or convexing the edge...
Click to expand...

with 200 to 400 grit sandpaper, it should not take more tan an evening watching a movie to do. But, for sure, practice on a few cheaper knives first. I did one folder before moving on to my Busse's because it was so easy. Keeping an eye on the tip is the main issue, and where a lot of mistakes typically get made.

Probably the more cost effective system for your purposes would be a Lansky system. It is very easy to even up the grind on a knife with one. With a course stone, it would not take more than a 1/2 hour to do the down and dirty work. The system Ank uses is much better, and faster, but way more expensive. If I was going to buy another fixed angle system it would definitely be that one. I have not used my Lansky since I learned to convex though. Now just the strop, and occasionally a bit of sand paper when needed.

Between that and steeling the edges when needed I am good.


One tip, when using any fixed angle system that I like to advise people, is when you are sharpening, I recommend not clamping right in front of the handles. I like to put the clamp in the middle of the blade. Keep a note with the system of where you put the clamp, and what angle. Makes repeatability much less of a problem. The more consistent, the less material you have to remove to maintain.

The other thing about putting the clamp more forward is the edge bevel will look more consistent in width from front to back. It becomes more noticeable when sharpening longer blades especially. On a longer blade, if you don't move the clamp forward quite a bit, then the bevel will get really long (which actually means the angle is much shallower. Not only will it look funny, but the edge at the point will be much shallower than elsewhere on the edge. Simple geometry, if you kick that length way out on the rod to reach the front edge that is way out there (8-9 inches away from the clamp) then really you are sharpening that angle very very shallow.
 
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Okay, the Lansky system is on it's way as of tomorrow I'd guess. Thanks for the great info guys, but 1 more question.

Using the Lansky, can you sharpen all the way to the tip? It's a fairly hard concept for me to grasp, the way the angles work out as it follows the radius of the curve of the blade. I am probably making it more complicated than it has to be in my head, but does it just.... work?
 
Cadman2008 said:
Okay, the Lansky system is on it's way as of tomorrow I'd guess. Thanks for the great info guys, but 1 more question.

Using the Lansky, can you sharpen all the way to the tip? It's a fairly hard concept for me to grasp, the way the angles work out as it follows the radius of the curve of the blade. I am probably making it more complicated than it has to be in my head, but does it just.... work?
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When you get it, you will see it is much simpler than you are thinking.

Yes, you can get very very sharp tips with the Lansky. I know ;).

I am known in my family for keeping stupid sharp edges. Now, I just do it convex. I have a few V edges still on some folders that I have not convexed, or are too new to have needed edge repair. Usually I just wait till I damage the edge before going convex. Feel like it gives me an excuse. (unless and edge is stupid obtuse or uneven etc).

I have never used my Lansky on a Busse.

Good luck. Just take your time and pay attention. You can cut your self really nicely with the Lansky, and it will be an oily dirty cut once you get sharpening. Ask me how I know. If the 15 years or more I have been using one, I have done it a time or two.

You can also use a marker on the edge to see where the system is hitting. Another thing is don't worry about pushing hard. Just light to medium pressure and let the stones work. Will make them last longer, and the rods will not bend.
 
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