How Are Most $150-$450 Production Knives Sharpened?

KLJTech

KLJTech

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
1,180
I apologize if this is a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway.

I'm curious how production knives are sharpened (priced anywhere from $150-$450) when they're a limited edition (under 1000 total) versus a model in which the company will be making several thousand. I assume, maybe wrongly so, that if a company is going to make several thousand pieces of a certain model that they have machines setup to sharpen those knives and if they're making a limited edition that they sharpen them by hand. Is this correct for the most part or do most knives over $150 get sharpened by hand regardless of how many will be made?

Thanks.
 
In my mind if a knife is a custom. i.e crk, scrapyard, things like that that are ordered then made, it should be sharpened by hand. If we're talking about a sprint run of a production knife it'll probably be machine sharpened and quality control will check them all to be satisfactory. Like an endura sprint run is probably sharpened with every other endura but checked before shipping. I don't know anything about this so take that with a grain of salt. Just my thoughts.
 
I believe you will find that the majority of knives are hand sharpened via a belt grinder and buffer wheel in the factory. The higher the price, the more attention is made to the details (fit, finish, grind angles, materials, heat treat, etc.) and just a bit more effort on the sharpening portions. I have only heard of Victorinox having a automated system and they produce a gazillion knives for distribution world wide. My sense (and guess) is that most of the factory knife operations have under 100 employees regardless of the number of knives produced.
 
Not positive, but I believe the majority of grinding on primary bevels at least is done by a cnc mill, and then it is finished by hand?
 
Good question. I always wondered myself if the sharpening was fully automated on production knives.
 
I should have been more specific, I curious about the edge, I realize that the blade is primarily cut by CNC but not sure about the edge itself.

Wondered if you have say 10K knives being made that machines are setup to grind/cut the edge yet on limited editions you have them done by hand as you don't have those setup to be done by machine...maybe most are done by hand...I don't know.
 
You typically find some form of 2x72 belt grinder then any number of polishing methods. It's fast and easy plus it gets a edge very sharp in a matter of seconds. It's all down by hand but with the aid of machine grinders.
 
Yep. Belt grinders are quick and efficient. Just look closely at the edge of a decent blade. The grinding marks are clearly visible.
 
I am curious myself... I thought along the same lines of a machine taking it through a belt grinder or something.
 
A lot of of it may simply be luck of the draw, I have so many knives that cost anywhere from $125 to $250 or so (that thousands were made) that have perfectly centered edges/evenly ground and lately "a couple" in the $350 to $450 range that the grinds are pretty bad. This made me wonder if the knives that are not limited production pieces are done by machine and the ones made in smaller batches have hand ground edges.

Ultimately I have FAR more well done knives than not, its just disappointing when you receive a knife that's very hard to find and the grind is SO far off. I recently received one that was ground at 22 degrees on one side and for the most part at 15 degrees on the other with it dipping below 15 degrees from the tip to about 3/4 of an inch back from the tip. Rather the the tip having a "V" shape or even an uneven "V" the tip was curved off to one side making the tip look like an upside down J.

It happens, they're production knives and I understand that one cannot expect perfection...this just made me wonder about how they were ground at the factory. I appreciate the feedback.

Ya just gotta take the good with the bad.
 
I have never been satisfied by factory edges, but kershaw and hogue were decent.
chris reeve, priced as it is, has terrible edges from factory.
an old SAK my father has, has incredible factory edge.
 
I saw a William Henry video of knives being sharpened on a belt being run over a large contact wheel.
 
Youtube has few knife factory videos and off top of my head (the ones I remeber watching and sharpening being shown) I'll say Benchmade and GEC knives are sharpened by hand...
 
For the most part I'd say they're done by hand on a belt grinder, which is why you'd get uneven bevels.

Some manufacturers like Opinel use sharpening wheels.

Victorinox I think do use machines, which is why their tools are practically perfect.

When your goal is putting out hundreds of blades a day you won't be setting them up on an Edge Pro.
 
HwangJino said:
I have never been satisfied by factory edges, but kershaw and hogue were decent.
chris reeve, priced as it is, has terrible edges from factory.
an old SAK my father has, has incredible factory edge.
Click to expand...
- The only factory edge that I've been satisfied consistently are from Emerson Knives. Most likely because they have a chisel edge, but they're very sharp out of the box. Spyderco also has good edges out of the box in my experience.
 
Ive been meaning to order a spyderco southard as soon as I locate a wooden scale for the southard.

all my Japanese knives came dull, but thats intended as 99% of chefs custom set their bevels.
 
I've been in a few knife factories in the area. Kershaw and Gerber use a grinding wheel of some sort to sharpen their knives, Benchmade, Leatherman and William Henry use a belt sander. Leatherman is the only one I've seen use automated equipment, and they only sharpened a few blade models on a machine the rest are sharpened by hand.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top