Have you guys ever sharpened one of these?

DeadboxHero

DeadboxHero

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Mar 22, 2014
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Knives of Alaska "muskrat"
Had a friend find out I could I could sharpen knives.

I admit, I was puzzled at first.
I would flip to each side and sharpen a half cirlce.

But it was starting to form a point, d'oh!

Then I had an epiphany

Just raise and rotate the handle to follow the curvature.

He had given me an old clip point knife he had attempted to modify himself

I was able to finish his work on the waterstones with a mirror polish and a hair popping edge.




Haha what a pain to sharpen.

Anyone else have any experiences with ye 'ole Muskrat design?
 
I've never seen a blade shaped like that... Is it for digging? Or like a quasi oyster/shellfish knife?
 
darks said:
I've never seen a blade shaped like that... Is it for digging? Or like a quasi oyster/shellfish knife?
Click to expand...

I could see that.

Nah it's for skining.

It makes it easy mode when your pulling the hide off the animal.

All you have to do is move the blade up and down and the fully sharpens nose will never piece the hide and get the job down fast.

They would be more popular if they weren't so puzzling for hunters to sharpen
 
Ahhh, I see. Yeah that one would be a tough one... I have a hard enough time getting my tips sharpened correctly as it is.
 
I would think you'd have to sharpen up to the middle, near where the tip would be, in a fairly normal way. Doing the normal angle changing as you go through the curved area. Then, as you go up to and past the middle of the curve (where the point would normally be), you switch hands and continue on rotating the blade the rest of the way around to follow the other side of the curve. You should end up with the handle on the other side of the stone.

Seems like it would be challenging to maintain a nice, soft, smooth, continuous curve, especially when switching hands in the middle. There are probably other ways to do it; perhaps more elegant ways. But that's what comes to mind right off.

Brian.
 
bgentry said:
I would think you'd have to sharpen up to the middle, near where the tip would be, in a fairly normal way. Doing the normal angle changing as you go through the curved area. Then, as you go up to and past the middle of the curve (where the point would normally be), you switch hands and continue on rotating the blade the rest of the way around to follow the other side of the curve. You should end up with the handle on the other side of the stone.

Seems like it would be challenging to maintain a nice, soft, smooth, continuous curve, especially when switching hands in the middle. There are probably other ways to do it; perhaps more elegant ways. But that's what comes to mind right off.

Brian.
Click to expand...

That was my first approach, however I noticed it was starting to form a spear point.
So I sat and pondered another solution.
It was quite the rewarding challenge.
The solution was simple

Start with an edge leading pass

Raise the handle to follow the curve at the belly all the way around into a edge trailing pass at the top.

The blade angle and orientation to the stone stays the same. It's just a matter of raising and rocking the handle to follow the edge all the way around in one pass.
 
Good solution! I video for that would def. be appreciated. I was thinking about getting a KOA set with that in it, but I need to harvest more food from the crowded MD woods before I could justify it
 
Here that video bros

[Youtube]vJtOC-dLkgY[/YouTube]


A hunting buddy had me modify his buck Tanto tip to a muskrat style Skinner.

Gotta love that 420hc from Buck.

Razor sharp.
 
Good vid. Made it a lot clearer what you were doing. I'm just a visual learner I guess. Good job!
 
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