Help - Make my La Griffe Pointy Again

[Jared Karr]

Okay, so I got a little crazy with the dremmel tool, and now my Emerson La Griffe is just the way I like it, but I screwed up the point when re-profiling the blade, and, not having much experience with claw and hawkbill type blades, I can't seem to get it pointy again. It's very sharp on the edge, but not pointy at the tip. It's not blunt, but it just doesn't have that pin-prick sharpness it should. I can run it along my palm without cutting my hand, and have to use some pressure to get it through magazine paper. Once it gets in, it cuts like butter, but it's just too dull at the tip.

I'm not gonna bust out the geometry book and tell you guys what angle I reprofiled the chisel grind to, but it is definitely less of an extreme angle than an out of the box Emerson La Griffe.

I've been sharpening on the Spyderco Sharpmaker, and it is great for that blade design, but how to you best sharpen this type of blade shape and grind to get a good point out at the tip?

Thanks for your help!

 

[UglyJim]

Good question…my Griffe also needs some rehabilitation on its tip (due to my ham-handed attempts at sharpening). Do any of the Emerson aficionados have any suggestions as to how mechanically-challenged person such as myself could restore the point on the LaGriffe? Does EKI offer any type of sharpening/reprofiling service for their production knives? I realize that it may not be cost-effective for them to offer this type of support for a moderately-priced knife like the LaGriffe, but I really like this design and I’d hate to abandon (or replace) this blade just because I can’t seem to get a decent point on it

It’d be cool if someone offered a “tune-up package” for the Griffes…sharpening and reprofiling as necessary, and one of those neat cord-wrap/fob thingies that I can’t seem to pull off…(sigh) it ain’t easy bein’ an uncoordinated yutz

 

[Ken C.]

When I bought my La Griffe the tip was more rounded than needle sharp. I reprofiled the tip using my Sharpmaker and I achevied the desired result I was looking for. It took alot of work and I wore off some of the coating but now it is wicked sharp. I also gave it a pretty good cord wrap.

 

[Hawkins]

i REALLY need to do that to my chain.

and maybe wrap the handle, though i'm afraid it'll make it bulkier in my shirt.

 

[Ken C.]

Dan,

I was concerned about it printing also. I stripped the guts out of the paracord to make it lay flatter. You can't tell that I'm wearing a neck knife at all. I covered the chain like this because the black beads were leaving stains on my shirt and my chest when I perspired. It also adds a degree of comfort knowing it will still break away without the likelihood of being strangled.

 

[Hawkins]

yeah, i read about people doing that when the EKI lagriffe first came out (i was reading the archives.)

love the idea, gotta get my hands on a length of paracord

 

[UglyJim]

That’s a nice-looking little package, Ken…I’ll have to try doing a cord-wrap like that. At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, I’d like to ask if you could provide a few more details as to how you used the SharpMaker to reprofile the tip on your LaGriffe. I’ve tried using a SharpMaker to fine-tune my Griffe but I just seem to keep rounding off the tip more and more . Do you use the stones to remove material from the spine of the blade to develop an acute point? I’ve tried the methods described in the SharpMaker manual for hawkbills, chisel-ground edges and pointed tools; I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. Sometimes I think I’m too stupid to be allowed to play with sharp objects…

 

[Ken C.]

I took the coarse stone of my SharpMaker and inserted into the end slot with the channel facing up and simply slid the tip end of the La Griffe along the channel until I got it pretty much were I need it to be in terms of pointy. I then proceeded to run a coarse stone over the top edge near the tip and rounded it out. I then used the fine stones to polish it up.