fox river convex edge?

A

aberg

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Jan 3, 2006
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I've never owned a convex ground knife before so I have a question about this one. I love the overall look feel and the very sharp blade of the knife and have been reading all I can find about sharpening this grind before I go about trying it out. Several of the threads show to lie the knife flat on the sharpening substrate and then raise the back of the blade just enough to get the edge to bite. In so doing however I noticed that the blade would lie very flat as if there were no convex aspect at all to the grind. I checked further with a metal straight edge on the sides of the blade and even when holding the blade and straight edge in front of a bright light there was no space anywhere between the straight edge and the blade. Shouldn't there be at least some space or rocking between a convex grind and a straight edge? Of course being new to convex grinds maybe I'm missing something.
Would someone more knowlegeable than I please explain? Thanks
 
Convex blades have varying degrees of curvature, some are so large you can see them clearly just looking at them, on some they are very close to flat, Opinels for example. Most of them are also hand ground so expect variance from one blade to another. On that blade I would expect that the manufacturer spec is that there is a significant increase in curvature at the edge, otherwise it would be ground at about 3-5 degrees per side.

-Cliff
 
so on this blade would you be trying to just convex sharpen the very edge?If so would anything be lost by traditional sharpening methods? I have read many of your reviews and answers to others' questions. I respect your opinions and appreciate you taking the time to answer me.
 
Cliff's covered your question ..... would just like to add that IMO you shouldn't be disappointed at all that your knife has the grind you describe. I've had Bark Rivers where the edge was fairly obtuse, and had to flatten and relieve the entire grind. If it turns out that the edge on yours is too acute and doesn't hold up to the work you use it for, it should be quite easy to simply convex the edge a bit more until it's where you want it.
 
I see we were cross-posting, aberg. Wondering if I'm psychic, mentioning convexing just the edge while you were asking about that. ;)
 
Go to http://www.brkca.com/

Click on Convex Sharpening under Other Documents on the right side of the page.

A convex edge is quite easy to maintain. Just don't press hard. Light pressure or you'll only dull it.
 
aberg said:
so on this blade would you be trying to just convex sharpen the very edge?
Click to expand...

Knives where there isn't a clean separation between the final edge angle and primary grind are often sharpened by abrading the entire grind. This worked well traditionally because such knives were simple steels and fairly soft, I typically sharpen khukuris, axes and bolos in this manner. However on modern cutlery steels this tends to be really inefficient because the steels are much harder to grind.

If so would anything be lost by traditional sharpening methods?
Click to expand...

Meaning just v-grinding the edge at an appropriate angle? After time you will note a decrease in cutting ability and ease of sharpening because the edge will thicken. But this takes a lot of sharpening, meaning dozens. The solution when this happens is to rework the primary with an x-coarse stone. You can raise the polish on the primary if you want but it isn't functionally necessary.

-Cliff
 
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