coarse diamond hone=nasty edge!!

Runsalone

Runsalone

Joined
Oct 22, 2003
Messages
1,150
I just sharpend up my EKI 7 with a smith coarse diamond stone. Sharpend the edge side conventionaly and gently wiped the burr off with a ceramic.

Does any one maintain thier EDC's like this this produced an edge that will just barely shave, but if you touch your thumb to the edge and DELICATELY slide it you can SERIOUSLY feel it grab! What are the advantages of a toothy nasty edge comparatively with a polished fine one. I understand a polished edge will push cut better and a toothy edge should slice more aggressively. But what about ease of maintainence , self defense etc...

Great question for any of you edge experts.

P.S. I also got a lansky polishing stone that I use freehand...I got my first spooky sharp edge on a spydie Delica today. Shaving sharp has been fairly easy, so far, but this thing is ridiculous!!
 
I particularly like this type of edge for tactical knive with thick blades and obtuse bevels. I discovered that this is a hell of an edge for a bayonet. I would use a file to put the edge on a bayonet. Not only does it cut though cloth, leather, tissue, etc. It also leaves a cut that hurts and bleads like crazy.
 
Runsalone,
I use a similar system on the majority of my wife's kitchen knives.
Sometimes diamond, sometimes a regular hone, but always coarse.
Over the years I have experimented with all sorts of different edges for kitchen use and in our family, the toothy edge wins.
 
few days ago I was about buying super fine replacement rods for spyderco sharpmaker.
but I'v resignated and I'm proud....
coarse hones & naughty edges rulez in general use, when I need to do pushcut I just have spyderco rookie stroped on leather belt + cro compound.
 
Recently I started experimenting with the edge on my F4 (CRKT version). I sharpened both sides on an Arkansas stone and then stropped one side lightly so it's still a bit rough(ish) and the other side until it was polished. It could be my imagination but it seems much sharper than if I'd polished both sides.
 
I actually prefer the grabbier type of edge. I use only diamonds to sharpen my knives, and usually start with a blue(coarse) DMT stone. It always surprises me to see how nice the edge is with just the coarse stone. I then finish up with the red(fine) or green(extra fine), but I find that if I only had one stone, the coarse would be more than adequate for my uses.
 
SK5T, it's great to see the old bovine necropsy web page again. It is very instructive. When you evaluate the results of that study you have to consider how much your normal usage resembles cutting open dead cows, lots of dead cows. This is not just cutting through meat, this includes cutting through a lot of dirty hide (dirty uncured leather). I would expect that a kitchen knife would last a lot longer in the kitchen.

By the way, cutting leather is one of the things that a coarse edge does well. I never consider a filed edge as the longest lasting treatment, but it is very effective and very quick to restore. My utility edges are usually thinned, smooth sharpened at 15-degrees per side, smooth finished at 20-degrees, and finally roughened back up a little with medium grit ceramic rods used very lightly. The file edge is for crisp crusted bread or for combat.
 
Coarse edges only go dull quickly if used for the type of cutting at which thy do poorly, push cuts, specifically impacts like chopping. At slicing not only will they cut better than polished edges they will last far longer. Mike Swaim did lots of work on this quite awhile ago which can be seen on rec.knives (significantly before 2000).

-Cliff
 
I like polished edges... the toothy ones seem to die too quickly for me. The polished ones I can restore on a strop pretty quickly... the toothy ones need to be rehoned.

-j
 
I prefer coarse edges for most utility work around the farm. Though I use a very coarse aluminal oxide stone- maybe about 150 grit. That toothy edge seems to work best on the kind of stuff I cut, and since my farm knives are used hard and often, the coarser stone makes touch-ups very quick. (a strop or ceramic rod are basically useless on an edge that gets this dull on a daily basis.)

Also, this toothy edge seems to work best for hunting down coons, compared to more polished edges and serrated edges. I was recently reminded of this, and wrote about it on the coon hunting page. And as always, please don't visit this site if you are easily offended.
 
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