Busse Edge Problems

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Will say I have had a 50/50 feeling about the edges in the past. I have had some like the Cultelus (forgive spelling) that were razors out of the box with thin edges, but it was meant to have that edge. My Hell Razor had a very obtuse edge and the grinding was a bit off, I cleaned it up myself and it cut to my liking. My BM's have had more obtuse edges but I feel they got shipped with an edge they were meant to be used for. I put a hand rubbed 3000 grit convex edge on a few because I wanted them to cut differently. Its all personal preference for sure, but I also feel the shop does a good job of putting a certain kind of edge on a certain kind of knife. My .2 cents.

If you feel that some people here are a bit defensive its because of all the time I have spent on here and others I have never seen Jerry deny any warranty or any request to fix a problem. You cannot say that about most manufacturers (I dont know them all so I cant say all).
 
While I have a lot of opinions on this matter, it does seem that the culprit behind all of my poorly sharpened Busses from OP2Wks Pt1 is no longer sharpening knives for Busse. And I was very happy with my recent shipment of TGA2 Special Editions that were sharpened by Garth himself.
Surfsidemel
 
My first Busse, a TGLB (purchased in 2012/13) barely had a secondary bevel and was ridiculously thick behind the edge. It almost appeared unfinished and I was really turned off.

Since that experience, the last 15 Busse/Rats have been razor sharp and have cut surprisingly well, considering their intended use. I have been extremely happy with their product and customer service. I will be a customer for life.
 
Roughest edge on a new knife was on my beloved CGFBM. It is now nicely hand convexed and very sharp. Sharpest edge ever on a new knife for me is on my SFNOLE. Sharper even than my Burt Foster camp bolo in my avatar and that thing tree tops hairs.
 
Having had over 80 Busse's now, I have experienced edges ranging from screaming sharp to quite poor from the factory. I have certainly grumbled about it a couple times, but I know that if I wanted I could send it in and have the edge resharpened, and in that case I'm confident that it would come back very sharp. I have never actually sent in a knife to be sharpened by Busse though, I have always just done it myself. I have found that I like to sharpen my larger Busse's to 19 degrees on my wicked edge, and the results are pretty outstanding when done that way.

At the end of the day nobody is perfect. Quality control isn't always perfect, that is true anywhere. The quality of the steel at Busse is amazing, the warranty at Busse is amazing, and everyone at Busse from the janitor to the custom shop will bend over backwards to help you out if you need it. That is why Busse keeps getting my money, and will continue to get my money.
 
All models I had were quite OK and I could bring them to screaming sharp within a few seconds. Especially the CF and satin models had also a quite nice edge angle. The CGs on the other hand usually had like 50° or more edge angle. A few swipes on the leather are enough to make them shave. But I ended up thinning out most of them.

If I was you I'd sharpen it myself. Giving your new favorite knife your own edge will form a strong bond between you and your tool...
 
My two ratmandu were absolute razors with nice grinds and levels. BGTG, badger ergo 2, and ASH2 were all pretty good too. My bgash1 not so much.. Ive had the bg fusion steel heart and bg sfno, both came quite sharp but were kind thick behind the edge.. however they were both very thick knives and performed well for what they were made for, and yes they could still slice lol.. My BURP came really sharp but I still touched up the edge, nothing off or wrong though. Personal preference. I've never gotten one with uneven edges though and I have several others, and I usually change the edge geometry so being thick is not an issue. The only bad one I ever got was actually the Axe Hammer CG. It was quite a while back before I really knew anything about Busse other than they were expensive and supposed to be pretty high end. Didnt know about the warranty, forums, or anything else, please keep that in mind as I'm not bashing. The edge was straight but it had no ability to cut or slice. You could run it across your hand safely. Sold it at a loss pretty quickly. Now that I know what I could have done instead, I would have happily used their warranty service. Which is quite rad btw. Same as their customer service.. just my experience.
 
To the OP - making statements like Busse does not give a crap kind of overshadows your whole point.

I have had .32" stock blades carve s-curves in paper and some smaller knives disappoint in that department as well. My experience with "sharpness" has been varied as well. I do believe you have to take into account all of the aspects of the edge geometry on a particular blade into play and v-grind vs convex, intended use etc, etc, etc...all mentioned by other folks

I have found that some combo of a flex strop, a ceramic and the back side of a leather belt makes most all of the edges perform instantly better in the "paper cutting department".

I cannot say I have ever received a truly dull knife from Busse, although I have been a little surprised from time to time, and felt edges may have been rushed...

I cannot say that I have received a non-sharp knife in any of my recent factory purchases, and the overwhelming majority of older "un-used" knives bought on here are shavers.

C
 
I don't have near the ammount of Busse Kin blades as a lot of the other folks here but I have had enough to actually get a feeling of what kind of edge my knife is going to have as soon as I seen the "Sharpened By ______" sticker on the cardboard sheath.
 
I have only 4 of them(all at least 9.5") , but the cg bb13'(sharpened by Beef) were almost too sharp. Sliced my left thumb near the choil and it took 8 seconds for the blood to show, enough time for me to wrap it and staunch the bloodfest! A bme2 I got 2nd hand isn't near that sharp but I don't have the original cardboard.
 
Good point Yonose - ~ there are varying degrees for sure which tells me, these are hand done. I've had a couple I would put at almost too sharp and a few that I was ok with that I didn't need to dull them up to work with - At first, I was concerned because sharpening was never my thing, but now after getting some tools to satisfy my desires, don't really care how sharp they come. They might even be doing us a favor by not sharpening them to the degree that you you know damn well they are capable - This might be a fine line to teeter on~ idk, just a thought. It's taken me a while not to have blood all over the place but I'm getting it! no serious cuts in many weeks :D
When I was much younger I bought a folding hunting knife- the maker was "Sharp" ... it was cheaper than a Buck and just right for a poor fella~ It was so sharp I cut myself constantly, I think every animal I skinned and cut up I ended up with deep cuts- I still remember than damn thing but I've forgotten all the others I've had. (I had to look it up - it was a Sharp 200, as soon as I saw the handle I knew that was it! it was odd but sharp)
 
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When I read the title, I thought we were in for an awesome thread with user pics that would show a messed up edge. Pfft, silly me.:rolleyes:
In the past 8 years I have had factory edges in all sorts of sharpness levels, but never sent any back for a complaint. In fact, I can only recall one model that ever came too dull from the factory to slice paper. That was my SAR 3 order many years back... in fact on one of the three, the G10 was sharper than the edge!:confused: I just sanded down the handle points and touched up the edge in about 15 minutes and all was well. Others squealed about it and once it was brought to Jerry's attention way back then, he addressed it and it has never happened to me since.
If your knife shows up sharp enough to slice paper and or shave, then it is plenty sharp. The angles are pretty much irrelevant but they have been the target of ridicule for far longer than I have been enjoying them! My FBMLE still has the most obtuse edge I have ever seen on a knife, but that did not stop her from cutting up a pickup truck, splitting wood, opening 55 gallon drums, chopping down trees, butchering carcasses through the bones or anything else I have asked of her.
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TheMtnMan said:
I only received 1 that made me wonder how they cut that SSSS Sheet, and had a few so sharp they dann near cut them selves out of the card board sleeve lol
Now plz ship my Park Ranger.
Thanks
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Dullest knife ever got was a tglb black/tan on black with about a 60degree grind that wouldnt even tear paper. All the others were and are razors
 
After buying a Wicked Edge I do not worry about edges on any knife anymore.
I will say that the only thing I have had to do with Busse blades sense I got the WE is to smooth out and polish the factory edge on the original angle. Makes a big difference. This is something I do not see any production or midtech company doing. If they had someone hand finish an edge the way I do on the WE I would think it would add 50.00 plus to the price.
 
John GERDING said:
Who wants to send off a brand new product for god knows how long to have a mistake that should have never made it past QC corrected.. I can fix the problem myself, This is just some constructive criticism... The Sharpening teqniques at the Busse shops need some serious work... That is all... delete this if you want, But just to be clear you cant shutup your disatisfied customers... Its probably a better idea to just fix the problem before it occures... And with the consistency of this problem Im guessing its just a straight up lack of giving a flying crap about the final product. Aloha.
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mainaman said:
What J-Nats do you use?
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hi,
I have 2 naturals a Shobudani suita and okudo renge suita bench-stones.
I use these to pull any little machine marks off the final edge. OCD like that, I cant have coated blades. Gotta see the grain, i am weird like that. Love these Busse's!
 
u812 said:
After buying a Wicked Edge I do not worry about edges on any knife anymore.
I will say that the only thing I have had to do with Busse blades sense I got the WE is to smooth out and polish the factory edge on the original angle. Makes a big difference. This is something I do not see any production or midtech company doing. If they had someone hand finish an edge the way I do on the WE I would think it would add 50.00 plus to the price.
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I don't even follow the factory angle.
I go 20 Deg for thick knifes and 15 for thinner ones.
Makes it easy.
I havnt had a busse come with a razor sharp blade yet. A few definitely sharper than others though.
 
I have had several with laser sharp edges from the shop. Mostly been uncoated ones. My comp TG and my SAR 4 are really sharp. Both of those are convex edges.
 
The full zero convex edges I've received in new condition have all been very sharp...they're deceptively so because the edge is so smooth rather than toothy.

The handful of CG v-grinds I've had...well, I wouldn't use an axe with those edges. But none of those were what I'd consider a warranty issue, just the level of finish Busse chooses to put on its knives at that grade. Whether the finish and the price line up with each other is a subjective issue only an individual buyer can answer.
 
u812 said:
After buying a Wicked Edge I do not worry about edges on any knife anymore.
I will say that the only thing I have had to do with Busse blades sense I got the WE is to smooth out and polish the factory edge on the original angle. Makes a big difference. This is something I do not see any production or midtech company doing. If they had someone hand finish an edge the way I do on the WE I would think it would add 50.00 plus to the price.
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Recently I saw a video of Peter Kohler (Dark Timber Knives) doing just this.

Of the 50ish Busses I've had, a few were screaming sharp, a few were fairly dull, with the majority falling somewhere in between, and at the very least, having what I would consider a usable edge. Most of mine have been 2nd hand, but I think they were mostly unused. I have had similar experiences with most other manufacturers. I can't think of any manufacturers off the top of my head that I feel like I know their knife will be shaving sharp from the factory. Nice thing about INFI, as bad as I am at sharpening, I can still usually do the job with my Busses.
 
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