Fallkniven Northern Lights

Mikael. Could not help noticing that your Idun seems to have a very bright mirror polish compared to the slightly less mirror polish of the NL knives seem to have. Is it normal or have you polished the blade yourself using polishing compound?
 
Christian, You're right, I did polish the Idun.

I used a DC4 diamond to flatten the surface, then turned the stone to the ceramic side.
I then used wet/dry paper up to 1200p.
After this I used Autosol and finished on a buffer with white polishing wax.

Right now I have carried the Frey at work for a couple of days.
The tip part of the blade is still the factory edge after about 4 years in my inventory.
This edge quickly rolled and microchipped, after a light contact with a concrete wall.

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I reset the edge with the DC4 diamond side and so far no more edge failure.
There's still a tiny microchip left to grind away, but I will let it disappear as time goes by.

The Idun hasn't behaved like this at all and I have used the Idun very hard for 6 month at work.

The Frey is very nice to work with and I expect it to perform as well as the Idun, when the factory edge is all gone.


Regards
Mikael
 
The Idun looks amazing ... nice job on it.

I actually also chipped the edge of the Frey today when I was shaping a piece of wooden board into a strop. The board has some metal rivets in it, but I had thought I removed all of them ... Well I didn't and I was sort of hitting the board and hit the rivet couple of times (why did I not stop after the first hit :-)) resulting in three chipped points on the blade.

I simply could not stomach those chipped points being there so I sandpapered the edge with 400p, 800p, 1200p and 2000p sandpaper and continued with 6u, 3u, 1 u and 0.5 u compounds on strop(s) and finished the edge on leather. You are right, with the factory edge gone, I was able to get it much sharper than before even though I had several times worked on the edge with strops+compounds. I called the edge 'razor sharp' before, but now it really is razor sharp. It severs all sorts of hair with greater ease and I can e.g. shave off 1 mm facial hair with it without any shaving cream etc.
 
Metal in wood are always an edge killer!
When the edge is right, it should dent instead of chip.

If a factory edge is prone to chip, it has to be resharpened until it starts to dent in light contact with metal or stone.
Luckily the Fällkniven edges have only needed a few resharpenings, to get into the good steel.

When the edge can shave beard of the face, I think it's fairly sharp!
I seldom need more sharpness in a woodworking knife.

With the fine grits You have used, the edge of Your Frey must be pretty glossy by now!
Nevertheless, it's a fantastic knife to work with!


Regards
Mikael
 
With english as my second language, I am prone to use wrong terms occasionally. I think it would be more accurate to call the three deformations dents rather than chipped.
 
Yeah the edge shines like bat out of hell :-).

I noticed that you used a diamond stone to resharpen your convex edge. I can do good v-edge with Edge Pro and create&maintain convex edge with sandpaper+strops, but I hesitate to use any sharpening stone/diamond for the convex edge. That is partly because my hand sharpening skills leave much to be desired, but also because how can you maintain the convex edge shape that way? Few times ok, but I would think you start to lose the convex shape over time and would need reprofile it. I know Fällkniven sells those diamond stones, but ... Personally I prefer the sandpaper over mousepad + leather or denim strops to sharpen and touch up convex edge. Am I wrong here?
 
No, you're not wrong at all!
There are more than one way to get a knife sharp.
The main point is to get the job done, regardless of method.

I have choosed to explore what Fällkniven recommend for their knives, but I was thought about stones as a kid.
My Grandfather showed me when I was 8 or 9.
Today I can make a convex out of any grind and I shape it after what I'm going to use the edge for.

Mostly I do the shaping on a beltsander, but I can do it also with a small DC stone.
It's about LBD - Learning By Doing.

There's one thing to invest in fine knives like the NL's, but without refining Your sharpening skills, You loose about 50% of the joy with a good steel!
Your method works perfectly well and You seems to know what You're doing! :thumbup:


Regards
Mikael
 
Mikael W said:
Christian, I haven't heard of factory numbers on the NL series.
If a model has had numbers from the factory, it has been the first 1000.

Maybe this particular number was a request from a previous owner, as Fällkniven do custom laser engraving.

New pic:

en6u.jpg



Regards
Mikael
Click to expand...

Beautiful!!
 
Thanks!

And here's another one, a NL5 in Honduran Rosewood burl!

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utxt.jpg


zl3q.jpg


It is now owned by one of our boys and he uses it regularily.


Regards
Mikael
 
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