- Joined
- May 16, 2006
- Messages
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Nothing new or ground breaking here, just wanted to mention how happy I am with the sharpening technique I've been using pretty much exclusively for the last few months.
First I grind a relief bevel using a DMT coarse hone. For knives like my Mule in CPM M4 I might use a 6 degree per side bevel and for knives like my Izula maybe an 8 or 9 degree per side bevel. I grind until the edge is fairly sharp, say hair popping sharp but obviously still toothy. Then I use a DMT extra fine hone at the same angle to pretty up the bevel a little and then raise the angle a degree or two and sharpen fairly lightly until the edge gets to or close to hair whittling sharpness. Then I raise the angle another degree or two and with just a few light passes on a Spyderco ceramic ultra-fine the edge will tree-top hairs with ease.
To maintain the edge I'll just continue using the ceramic which will take a slightly dull edge back to tree topping in just a few passes. After about 4 or 5 touch-ups the bevel is wide enough that it becomes inefficient to use the ultra-fine ceramic, which for me and my regular use knives is about a week's worth of time. Then it's back to the coarse relief bevel and the cycle continues. From the DMT coarse to the ceramic usually doesn't take longer than 5 or 10 minutes and maintaining the relief bevel helps keep the knife cutting efficiently and makes maintaining the edge extremely quick, even on higher hardness, wear resistant alloys. The edge bevel also gets a slightly convex shape which is very fashionable these days
Just thought I'd throw this out there, its been working very well for me :thumbup:
First I grind a relief bevel using a DMT coarse hone. For knives like my Mule in CPM M4 I might use a 6 degree per side bevel and for knives like my Izula maybe an 8 or 9 degree per side bevel. I grind until the edge is fairly sharp, say hair popping sharp but obviously still toothy. Then I use a DMT extra fine hone at the same angle to pretty up the bevel a little and then raise the angle a degree or two and sharpen fairly lightly until the edge gets to or close to hair whittling sharpness. Then I raise the angle another degree or two and with just a few light passes on a Spyderco ceramic ultra-fine the edge will tree-top hairs with ease.
To maintain the edge I'll just continue using the ceramic which will take a slightly dull edge back to tree topping in just a few passes. After about 4 or 5 touch-ups the bevel is wide enough that it becomes inefficient to use the ultra-fine ceramic, which for me and my regular use knives is about a week's worth of time. Then it's back to the coarse relief bevel and the cycle continues. From the DMT coarse to the ceramic usually doesn't take longer than 5 or 10 minutes and maintaining the relief bevel helps keep the knife cutting efficiently and makes maintaining the edge extremely quick, even on higher hardness, wear resistant alloys. The edge bevel also gets a slightly convex shape which is very fashionable these days
Just thought I'd throw this out there, its been working very well for me :thumbup:
