Can I get them any sharper?

H

homes

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Jan 12, 2006
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Hello, My name is Paul and I have been lurking on this board almost every day for more than six months. When I started I had almost no knife sharpening ability.

Now I have an edgepro apex and a sharpmaker (both great tools) and from reading the posts on this forum I am able to get the blades sharp enough to shave my arm hair and slice newspaper. I am using the edgepro and putting a 10* backbevel and 15* edge and polishing out with the tape.

This gets my blades as sharp as I can get them. Is there anything that will get them "to the next level" or have I reached it?

Paul
 
Depends on what you're doing with them. You could possibly thin the edges out more. What kind of knives/steel/activities are you dealing with?
 
My knives are Al mar mini, Benchmade, Fallkniven. The al mar is my edc opening boxes, and letters, cutting cord etc. the rest of my knives are hunting knives mainly for field dressing and skinning. I think they are all fairly hard steel since it takes alot of work to bring the 10* bevel to a burr
 
They don't necessarily have to be hard to have trouble making a burr. Poor steel could also have difficulty forming a burr without being high in Rc.

What kind of Al Mar, most are AUS8 and a few are VG10. If it's a SERE/Shrike/Nomad, it'll have the same steel at the edge as your Fallkniven. And what Benchmades?

For the skinning, you could maybe do without the 3000 grit tape for the slicing edge.

Someone much more knowledgable will help more.
 
If you work the edge nice and light on the secondary bevel with the apex and/or the Sharpmaker, you're probably at an extreme level of sharpness for a pocket knife. You could strop. Stropping softens that transition between the two bevels and aids in slicing ability. Once you get the hang of the Apex and the Sharpmaker, the only way to improve performance (IMO) is to look for better blade geometries to sharpen.
 
Slicing newsprint is actually a fairly low sharpness in terms of what can be obtained, les than 10% easily. Sharpness in the extremes is all about minimizing the burr on the edge.

-Cliff
 
Yes, but I think you have most all the tools you need at this point, maybe accent with a quality smooth leather strop, with very very fine or no compound as a final step. My benchmark for sharpness is cutting off hairs above the arm, my sharpest blades will just cut it without me feeling any tugging sensation, you just see the hairs falling onto the blade as it passes over.
 
I really thought I had it mastered oh well back to the drawing board.

I have not been having much success stroping as I have it loaded with compound. I am going to remove the compound and try it.
 
Push cutting newsprint is a fairly solid standard of sharpness, push cutting other papers like paper towel, light toilet paper, etc. are extreme sharpness. However if you can routinely sharpen knives so they shave and slice light papers you are far ahead of the majority of people.

-Cliff
 
Cliff Stamp said
However if you can routinely sharpen knives so they shave and slice light papers you are far ahead of the majority of people.
Click to expand...

Yeap.
An article in Blade stated something I find darn true. Basically if you can shave arm hair with your knife , it is sharp !
Going further and your just wasting metal , but hey , it's your knife...
 
With all other factors being equal how much difference can be felt during normal use between an edge that is at the shaving/slicing paper level and one that is at the push cutting newsprint/paper towel level?
 
It would depend on what is being cut. If you are cutting very flimsy papers then a very sharp edge will make a significant difference, if you are cutting ropes you can notice a difference as well as it can remove pounds off the cut. The main benefit in general is that the much sharper edge will stay sharper longer as it will take awhile to just blunt it down to where the less sharp knife starts from origionally.

-Cliff
 
I was whittling soft wood today, and using a **very** sharp knife. I could debark wrist thick branches and whittle them down layer by layer with easily less than 2 lbs of pressure. The curls of wood were curling around 3 or 4 times as I was taking them off. Talk about fun, and I think when knives are this sharp, you can get a lot more control.
 
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