For anybody nervous about Convexing an edge...

S

SuzukiGS750EZ

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Dec 30, 2008
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I've been sharpening knives for 25 years, but convex always made me nervous. I can freehand sharpen (not to a perfect accuracy but the knife has always been sharp) but mostly have used a spyderco sharpmaker or more recently a wicked edge system. I got a khukuri from Kailash blades and put it to use. Well, one day the blade met a rock under the dirt as i was taking down a sapling. I tried to put a V edge on with my diamond stones and succeeded for the most part, but it wasn't the same. The recurve in the blade also was not easy to address. So, i sucked it up and bought sandpaper. 400-600-800 and did a final polish with some 2500 i had laying around that i forgot about. Normally, i'd step up 1000-1500-2000-2500. The 2500 was really more of a strop than for anything else. Anyways, i used a kneeling pad as my backer and the wet dry paper and went to work. 400 produced a good edge but i decided to go all the way up to the 800. I also noticed more of a burr form than i had seen with any other knives which was cool. Much larger wire burr. Anyways, the blade push cuts now even in the recurve. For the recurve i took a round Wera tool roll i had and wrapped the paper around that. So... if you're nervous about convex and have at least some idea as to blade angles on a flat stone, give it a try. I'm very impressed with how easy it was and how sharp the blade is now. It's much sharper than necessary for the tasks at hand, but who doesn't want a blade sharper than necessary? Is there even such a thing?
 
I used a rolling pin and wet sandpaper to sharpen my 710. A slight recurve such as on the 710 is easy to sharpen on flat stones. I used a DMT aligner to set the bevels on every knife I bought, but maintain freehand. I'm not the most consistent in maintaining the angle, so all my knives have a slight convex to 'em. I stopped obsessing over V edges a long while ago, now I just don't care as long as it cuts well.
 
Sharpmaker on a convex is sacrilege!!

I've never tried the sandpaper and a mouse pad technique, but the first thing I do on all my knives is reprofile them with a convex. I find it easier just to do a loose wristed rocking motion with one hand on pocket stones, blending from the shoulders down all the way to forming a burr with a quick loose back and forth.

Now photographing a shiny convex is as a different story. I have a bastard of a time trying,

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