CS blade sharpening

L

longbow

Joined
Jan 9, 1999
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I have just purchased 2 new cold steel knives. One being a new MH and the other a Bush Ranger. The MH is great to sharpen, takes and holds an edge like gangbusters. The Bush Ranger after putting it to some use can't get it sharp to save my life. Using a Diamond Lansky system on both. I notice on the MH that the edge cantels are 25 deg. and on the BR the cantles are 22 and 25 so made them 20. I have read Joe T's sharpening FAQ's and for the life of me can't get the BR nearly as sharp as the MH. Also it didn't come out of the box as sharp as the MH. Thinking of sending it back to CS for evaluation. Thinking heat treat is wrong. Anyone else with similar experiences? Keep'em sharp.

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Bad knife. I used a Bush Ranger, it was sharp, worked for me. Not sure what is up.
Was it a 2nd?
I hate the Master Hunter, can't imagine why anyone likes those. Must be me...

 
Tuff, neither knife is a second. Don't know why you don't like the MH. Far as I can tell it is a great hunting knife. Now if CS would only put the MH handle on the Bush Ranger they may have something. I know the difference in sharpenability and sharpness alone is astoundingly different between the two. Definetly considering sending the BR back. Not real happy with the way the handle is mounted to the tang either. There is a bit of a gap on the right front where the Kraton starts. Don't know how far the tang extends on the knives. I have had a 2nd MH for several yrs. and has held extremely well. Keep'em sharp
 
Send em back and see what the next one is like..tell if it was that blade. or the Bush Ranger. They might be designing them differently now...SRK supposudly is...
 
Can you wait till thursday? I just ordered both the Bush ranger and Master hunter two days ago. They should arrive soon and I will evaluate them. The bush ranger should be much sharper than the MH if the thickness is 3/16ths and the blade width is much longer.
 
Longbow, what exactly is the sharpening problem? The basic idea as Joe has described in detail is to just grind the edge to a full burr and then remove it. At what stage of this is a problem setting in and what exactly is it?

-Cliff
 
I have both the MH and BR and both sharpen well and hold an edge through a great deal. Indeed the knife you have may indeed be defective since the bushranger, for me is easier to sharpen. The tang goes almost all the way to the end of the handle since the lanyard hole rivet passes through the tang (except for the stag handled trail master which has a shorter tang)
 
Cliff can't get a burr up on the BR. The MH is almost to easy to do this with. But the caveat here being is that it seems to really hold an edge well and the edge on the MH is super grabby. As for the BR don't know why I can't raise a burr, but I have gone up on my Lansky to the next higher angle to try and all the way up to 30 deg with no good effect. Frustrating to say the least. I would think also the BR would be a might easier to sharpen just cause of the wider blade and would think thinner edge. I do like the style and concept of the knife though. The blade cantels on the BR are equal on both sides right now. I also have a hard time feeling the hones grabbing when I am sharpening it. Unlike the MH that is a breeze. Thanks for all the info. Keep'em sharp
 
Longbow if you are not creating a burr you are just not removing enough metal. You have noted that you changed the bevel angle on the BR, this takes a very long time to do even with a large x-coarse hone. For example when I blunted an A1 bladly by digging a couple of holes with it it took me 400 strokes on a coarse AO hone using heavy pressure to get all the nicks out. Note that even then I was still staying at much the same angle, just bringing the bevels in contact once again.

In general if I want to lower the bevels on a knife I don't do it all in one go as I just don't have the patience. What I do is sharpen at my desired angle for a while, usually a couple of hundred strokes or so, then raise the sharpening angle and micro bevel the very edge (this is a very short process - say 10 strokes). I finish with a ceramic rod, again just on the micro-bevel and have a sharp knife that I can cut with. Eventually after doing this a few times the more acute bevel will reach the edge and I have the cutting performance I want.

If you are having a problem with the angles then make sure to use a marker to outline the edge, this will tell you where you are removing metal from.

-Cliff
 
Have done all you have said an more. Seems to take longer than I thought would to no avail. Don't understand why the MH is so much easier to do. I also put the micro bevel on the MH and it is down right scary. Wish I could do this on the BR. thanks
 
Sounds like you are doing everything right, if you are grinding right to the edge and still not getting decent performance, the only thing I can think of is that the heat treat was so bad that the steel properties are really distorted.

-Cliff
 
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