Cheap Convex Edged Knife - Learning Convex Edge Sharpening

[Brian6244]

I am interested in learning to sharpen a convex edge but I don't want to practice on a $200 Fallkniven or a $100+ BRKT so what should I do? I have read a lot of threads and have studied the guide at http://home.nycap.rr.com/sosak/convex.htm and now I am ready for some practice. Is there a cheap convex knife out there and if so should I buy it to practice on or should I try reprofiling my carbon steel Mora from a flat scandi edge to a convex edge or should I go about learnig in a completely differnt way all together? .... Thanks!

 

[STR]

Find Jeff Clark in a post and clik find all his posts. You'll probably find lots there to read that way. You might also check the FAQ section where Joe Talmedge listed a sharpening FAQ. Always lots to learn there as well but I'm not sure what is there for convexing. The Bark River forum and the Fallkniven forum may be good places to check out also.

As for the knife to buy. I'd shop around for a convex knife like a used Bark River knife or maybe even a Marbles from when Mike Stewart still worked there. You could get into one of those for probably $50 to $60 maybe less depending on condition.

Hope that helps.

 

[djolney]

I learnt to sharpen a convex edge on my Chris Reeve Shadow 7”. I didn’t have another knife to practice on at the time, and (even though I was a bit worried that something might go wrong) everything turned out fine.

I wouldn’t worry about buying a knife to practice on: either reprofile your Mora, or start sharpening a convex edged knife that you already have.

 

[hardheart]

are the Frost's knives convex? those are cheap.

 

[STR]

I think the easiest way to get the hang of it is to find a used knife already convexed but dull. Then move up to taking a knife with a conventional grind and turning it into a convex once you get the movement down and have a reference point from a knife already done right to go by. Thats what I'd do anyway.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Buy an Opinel and a carbon steel Mora. The Opinel is already lightly convexed and the Mora won't be to hard to convert.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

...should I try reprofiling my carbon steel Mora from a flat scandi edge to a convex edge

You can sharpen these two profiles in a near identical manner anyway. All you have to do is use a little roll on the Mora at the end to give convexity to the edge, or in the beginning to bring the shoulder down.

-Cliff

 

[DGG]

Grab a bunch of ratty old kitchen knives (buy at any consignment shop if you are lucky enough not to own any) and sharpen away.

It isn't hard to do, just a progression of angles. A Spyderco sharpmaker works well for this.

 

[Brian6244]

I didn't even consider convexing the kitchen knives!!! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately in this case), thanks to the insistance of my otherwise wonderful wife, I have more than enough cheap, dull kitchen knives that I could be practicing on.

 

[DGG]

I didn't even consider convexing the kitchen knives!!! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately in this case), thanks to the insistance of my otherwise wonderful wife, I have more than enough cheap, dull kitchen knives that I could be practicing on.

One of life's little mysteries is why wives will not sharpen their knives. I have an electric sharpener, no good. She won't use it. She is a sweetie who can bake a zillion kinds of bread and other goodies but heaven help us when we have to slice it! I did discover Victorinox and Spyderco paring and chef's knives that have lessened my sharpening load significantly.

 

[yuzuha]

One of life's little mysteries is why wives will not sharpen their knives. I have an electric sharpener, no good. She won't use it. She is a sweetie who can bake a zillion kinds of bread and other goodies but heaven help us when we have to slice it! I did discover Victorinox and Spyderco paring and chef's knives that have lessened my sharpening load significantly.

Hm, when I was a kid, the lady next door would occasionally amble out with a butcher knife and proceed to "strop" it on the low concrete wall that separated our yards ( 0-grit sandpaper method?) Got a sharpening stone from the hardware store once and it would have been great if I'd wanted to sharpen a shovel! Tried various disk and motorized sharpeners and they basically chewed the crap out of the blades, and scratched the sides up.

If I hadn't tried taking up wood carving with a friend once, I'd have never discovered eze-laps and waterstones. And, if I hadn't stumbled into some "sharp" Japanese steel at a local Asian market when I impulse bought a deba, because it looked so unique, I'd have never owned a kitchen knife that was sharper than the lid of a tin can (I thought they quit making sharp knives, except for box cutters and Xacto knives).

Given the disposable serrated junk and the supposedly "good" stainless that won't hold an edge for more than 5 minutes (what happened to the good old hard, carbon-steel that my mother had?) that they try to peddle to your average person... and the crap they sell for sharpeners, is is any wonder that many of us throw up our hands in frustration and just get used to dull blades? But hey, we're good little consumers and fill our drawers with plastic & sheet-metal stampings so some marketing reps and poor Chinese prisoners can have jobs (that's American consumerism, isn't it?)

Does that maybe answer your question?

BTW, I gave the friend that got me into wood carving a small set of Japanese knives and she loves them and treats them like a treasure (she can actually "dice" rasins now instead of smash them to a pulp ^0^)

 

[Simple Man]

There is also a lot about convex edges over at the Swamp Rat home forum. I don't want to cross link to it, but if you do a search over there for the "Convex edges....learning curve" thread, it helped me quite a bit.

 

[lupara]

The best article I've read on this is under the following URL:

http://www.mhcable.com/~yocraft/sosak/convex.htm

There's a downside to stropping however - your knife won't look the same as when you first bought it...

The reason for this is that when you strop, you have to lay the blade parallel to the surface you’re stropping on (e.g. 200 grit sand paper!). This, of course, takes away material from the entire surface of the blade, and not only from the edge of it – ergo – you’re scratching up the entire blade.

Like the article says, however, that’s the idea behind effective stropping – the entire blade “reduces” itself, and not just the edge. This means that at the end of the day, a convex edge will cut as well 10 years down the line as on the first day you bought it.

The trade off is – once again - that sandpaper really scratches the fine polish on an expensive blade (e.g. on an H1, or an S1), not to mention the coating on tactical blades that have convex edges (i.e. Busse, Chris Reeve, Entrek etc.). This having been said, however, my experience (at least on fine polished blades like the H1) is that after having used sand paper (on top of two mouse pads) on the blade, I finish it up with a loaded, leather strop, which then polishes it off well enough so as to take away most of the nasty scratches, leaving a very acceptable finish to an extremely sharp blade. What I really mean is that the stropped knife still looks good...

This is my experience with stropping – I've only obtained results with this method. If someone else can give me a useful tip re coated blades, however, I’d appreciate it. For the record, I haven’t stropped any of my coated tactical blades yet, as I don’t know how the heck they’re going to look after having been dragged over hard core sandpaper. Again, if anyone can give me a tip here, I’d appreciate it! Best