Final edge - When?

Sean O'Hare

Sean O'Hare

Joined
Jul 24, 2003
Messages
1,183
Okay I'm sure I know the answer to this question but...

When do you put the edge on your baldes? I do this very last, ie. knife is done, sheath is done, everything is done.

I've read a few threads over the past year which seem to indicate that at least some people put the edge on their blades long before the knife is complete. What is the benefit of doing this? I don't do it because it greatly increases your chances of a shop injury, at least in my feeble little brain and I might add clumsy hands it most definitely would.

Just curious here.

Sean
 
Last thing before it goes into the box to be shipped, or right before it goes into the case heading for a show......otherwise bad things seem to happen...mostly to me!:eek:
 
Same here. Absolutely dead last. If I can't, I end up paying the price later.
 
I decided to do a little more sanding on a handle where I'd already sharpened the blade. The reward was this 2 1/2" scar where I cut the side of my thumb off, shaved a little bone, and split the nail in two. "Nanc...better bring the tape and some gauze" That was about 15 years ago, and I learned my lesson.

I'm with you guys....LAST thing!! LOL
 
I put an edge on after my final grind(after heat treat)...Then test my blades.
If everything is to my satisfaction I go ahead and do my hand finnishing.---keeping in mind I have a sharp blade. Some times I dull the edge before sanding, but not always.
I will dress the edge before it goes out.
Mace
 
Last thing before sending to sheath maker (sheath makers love me for that:eek: ) and the 'why' I do that is because by the time I get the knife packages back from my sheath maker I am in the making of the next batch of knives and do not want to stop in order to finish up a previous batch. Scandi's get ground to zero before heat treat. Scandi's can hurt ya on the post heat treat clean up.

RL
 
I do same as mace also, heat treat, sharpen, then test. I do all my hand sanding with the blades laying on a 2" angle iron, cranked down in a vise, so the sharp cutting edge is always inside the edges of the angle iron, after hand sanding I tape up everything good and then final strop after the knife is complete.

Bill
 
dead last thing after sheath, logo burn, everything. Then it gets waxed up with Bri-wax and to the light tent for pictures. I have still nicked myself a few times doing it this way....
 
Normally it's the very last thing I do after handle work and sheath are complete. I learned the hard way by putting a sharpened knife in a sheath when fitting it by slicing the leather.:rolleyes: I will sharpen before only if I suspect something didn't go quite right during HT or if it's a new steel I'm trying. I'm doing an S7 blade so I'll sharpen and test it before I finish it. In a case like this, I tape the edge with electrical tape to reduce the chance of getting cut.
Scott
 
Funny question because I just finished a very interesting little knife. You can see its beginnings here:
3.jpg


It was going to start off as a shop user/letter opener. I made it up, and had been slicing things with its semi-sharp endge for some time. Last night I took it out of the scrap box and finished it up to a nice 1500 grit finish on the handles and am still working through grits (currently at 800) on the blade.

This thing is 3/16" O-1 tapered to about 1/" for the length of the blade with a full length katana-grind along the spine (no idea the term, but bevels forming upwards from the top grind line)

It is a full zero-grind. Almost zero concavity at all on the edge, with no secondary bevels. At 100 grit with no other sharpening, I can take a strop and get this thing SCARY sharp with a polished edge that feels a lot duller than it is when cutting. Instead of a boring life as a letter opener, it is going to be a wicked little knife.

Sharpening on this has become scary. As i finish the blade, each grit increase makes the blade itself sharper, and the paper gets thinner, making for some very scary sanding moments as my hand passes slightly along the edge and it shaves slices of skin off painlessly. If I had intended to do htis, id never have thrown the scales on....it was never meant to turn into anything other than a junker!
 
Bill do you have a pic of your setup there? My little brain is trying to visiualize your setup and can't. When I hand sand I'm using a piece of micarta (1/8" thick) with the sand paper wrapped around it. How are you sanding the entire blade?

Sean
 
Hi Sean, How ya doing, buddy?

I finish the knife completely before sharpening. Its always the last thing I do. Lots of times I sell the knife before its sharpened, even taking photos and posting them. I wait until the very last thing because thats the final transformation a knife takes from chunk of steel to a weapon or tool.
 
I always grind down to 320, then TEST THE DAMN BLADE! More than one master smith has told me they do this. One was Greg Nelly. He related a story wherein he was about to haft a knife when he decided to just check out it's "chop". Lo and behold, the edge rolled over and he realized He'd never hardened the blade. Stuff lays around sometimes too long before we get to it in our shops and we (I) forget things. Not to mention you could have just made a bad blade somehow. I need to know it will do it's stuff before I send it anywhere.
For hidden tang blades, use an old extra large screwz-on file handle and be careful who's about when your testing. Once that's done, I just run an old piece of coarse whet stone over the edge a few times and then go to sanding. One real advantage of this is that you can get that "apple seed" edge geometry that's impossible to get when you just rely on a sanding belt "rolled edge". Yea you can get'em super shaving sharp but they will roll over on you or chip out in a serious chopping test.


hammer hammer hammer, sand sand sand

mitch
 
I'm with Mitch. I test every blade I make before I proceed. I grind to 320, sharpen and knock the blade around for a while. 320 is the best "testing" grit for me; the knife is close enough to final dimensions that I get an accurate reading of how the blade will perform, but it's still course enough to take out any stray scratches that it picks up during testing.

I also test the completed knife, I try to be as careful as possible to avoid scratching the blade, usually I do pretty well :).

You really have to be careful when workin with a sharpened blade, you need to be aware of the edge at all times. I cut myself very badly once, and haven't done it since. I still get little "paper" cuts on my index finger from time to time, but they heal rather quickly.
 
Ive wondered about this for a while after one of my completed knives showed problems during use....it had a 5" 1/8" thick blade, a pretty thin edge and was scary shaving sharp you describe. HT passed the brass test, file didnt dig after quench, and it was tempered for an adequate time. Upon taking it and chopping through a 2X4, i found some minor edge damage. No chips or break or that type of thing, but the knife would not easilly shave at all.....is this test beyond the intended use of a knife with a blade that thin? Should a blade designed more for slicing be able to pass the 2X4 chopping test with no edge damage? Ive always wondered if certain tests are outside particular blades' scope. Ive kept the knife because that experience always worried me that somehow the HT wasnt perfect. The blade has a very defined hamon, but I am not sure that necessarily means anything when it comes to verifying HT success or failure.
 
Forged blades it makes great sense to put a temporary edge on to test. I knock them back off before I work up the blade and handle.

Stainless blades, I test the rockwell at every step of the HT process, and if it's good, I wait until the end to edge it.
 
When do you guys (that put the edge on last) test your blades? Or do you?
I see no sense in puting a handle on a blade that is no good.

Tiktoc, Your heat treat may be good on that knife....maybe the edge is too fine and you need to beef it up a bit. Maybe you didnt grind the edge back past the decarb after heat treat. Try sharpening it a few more times and see if that helps.
Mace
 
I'm with Mace and the other's, I take to a 320 grit finish and sharpen and test. After that I am just damn carful of the edge and finish sanding. I do that with stainless or forged, it's the only way I can be sure of the heat treat and get the edge I like.
 
More of the same.

I test every single blade I make. Even before I do the final finish grind and any hand sanding, I cut in an edge bevel and chop / slice, edge flex etc. The I use a coarse Scotchbrite belt to dull the edge. I find that by cutting in edge bevels, it is actually easier to grind in the final finish.

Even with a dulled edge (must see a visible flat on the edge), it is possible to cut myself when hand sanding. Hands moving at high speed and all that. As mentioned by another maker, when I clamp the blade for hand rubbing, the edge of the blade only comes up against the side of the platform it is clamped to, to avoid any major injury to my fingers.

These days the very final edge goes on when the knife is finished, before I make the sheath.

Technically would make the very most sense if I completed the sheath, etched, THEN sharpened only before shipping.

Jason.
 
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