CNC sharpening

R

rlewpolar

Joined
Oct 4, 2022
Messages
753
I’m always impressed at how even and perfect the edges are on my Cold Steel knives. I’ve often wondered, how is it humanly possible to make such perfect movements to get such even and consistent edges right to the tip?

It turns out the many of the CS knives have their sharpening done on CNC machines. The Taiwanese have invested a lot of money in these machines from what I’ve heard. The irony is that if you send in your Cold Steel knife to get resharpened, it will be done by hand by some poor guy in the US who is doing hundreds of knives per day. Your end result may vary wildly and it will never be as good as the CNC machine sharpening that came out of the box.

Anyone know of any other knife manufacture that uses CNC machines for their original sharpening?
 
Last edited:
The sharpening is done by cnc or the grinds? Lots of companies use cnc for the grinds, even higher end ones like Hinderer.
 
Ernie1980 said:
The sharpening is done by cnc or the grinds? Lots of companies use cnc for the grinds, even higher end ones like Hinderer.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that the sharpening is also done by CNC. I could be wrong but that’s what I’ve been told
 
I've never considered such a thing. If it's dialed in it seems genius. A perfect predictable edge every time. Especially for production knives.
 
rlewpolar said:
Why? Those machines exist


Click to expand...
Id be interested to know the accuracy for such a device. i just don’t see it being cost effective for anyone. It’s not set-and-forget. They require maintenance, replacement cutters, set up and configuration… all of top of the initial cost.

You’d end up paying a disproportionately high amount for the part of the knife that wears out the fastest.
 
EngrSorenson said:
Id be interested to know the accuracy for such a device. i just don’t see it being cost effective for anyone. It’s not set-and-forget. They require maintenance, replacement cutters, set up and configuration… all of top of the initial cost.

You’d end up paying a disproportionately high amount for the part of the knife that wears out the fastest.
Click to expand...
If those machines exist, someone must be buying them, no? It’d make sense that a high volume production knife manufacturer like Cold Steel would go this route? Maybe I will get in touch with CS customer service (ha!!) and see if I can find out anything
 
rlewpolar said:
If those machines exist, someone must be buying them, no? It’d make sense that a high volume production knife manufacturer like Cold Steel would go this route? Maybe I will get in touch with CS customer service (ha!!) and see if I can find out anything
Click to expand...
By all means, worth the investigation, but it’d be a fallacy to say the machines exist, therefor someone buys them.

You’re talking to a guy that at one point was so fed up with factory edges I considered imploring companies not to bother putting bevels on- I’d rather do it myself. Knifeswapper reminded me very gently that I’m crazy.

CNC, like 3-D printing, is impressive and capable of great things, but like most things the capabilities are a little over sold and there’s usually a cost the average person isn’t aware of. Kind of at odds with some other CS cost saving measures, in my opinion.

If they get back to you, I hope you remember to post it here. I’m genuinely curious.
 
91bravo said:
Those perfect CNC edges will eventually get dull and will need to be resharpened and I can’t lug one of those machines around with me. Freehand sharpening is one of the oldest and most used knife sharpening systems known to man.
Click to expand...
That’s a good point
 
91bravo said:
By all means, worth the investigation, but it’d be a fallacy to say the machines exist, therefor someone buys them.
EngrSorenson said:
You’re talking to a guy that at one point was so fed up with factory edges I considered imploring companies not to bother putting bevels on- I’d rather do it myself. Knifeswapper reminded me very gently that I’m crazy.

CNC, like 3-D printing, is impressive and capable of great things, but like most things the capabilities are a little over sold and there’s usually a cost the average person isn’t aware of. Kind of at odds with some other CS cost saving measures, in my opinion.

If they get back to you, I hope you remember to post it here. I’m genuinely curious.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I certainly will
 
I'll get a CNC pocket hone when they invent one. In the meantime, I'll rely on freehand sharpening, which those of us blessed with steel nerves and muscles and micrometer eyeballs use to produce perfect edges. Every time. (Not.) ;)
 
Another Shepherd said:
Out of the 6 Cold Steel knives that I have checked with a laser goniometer, 4 had wildly unequal edge angles.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Were they out of the box or resharpened? Also, do you remember if the edge angles were different on one side than the other or were there different angles along the same edge?
 
rlewpolar said:
Interesting. Were they out of the box or resharpened? Also, do you remember if the edge angles were different on one side than the other or were there different angles along the same edge?
Click to expand...
Mostly out of the box, all unsharpened. Comparing one side to the opposite side. I will probably have time to provide numbers tomorrow.
 
Whoah, that would be really surprising for me to hear that their edges are sharpened by CNC too. I've never heard of that before until now. That'd be pretty sweet. I hope we find out that they for sure do, for curiosity sake.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top