how sharp?

B

bronyblacksmith

Joined
Nov 6, 2012
Messages
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how sharp should a outdoors knife (4.5 inch blade(1084)) be? right now it cuts paper smoothly and removes hair from my arm but should I polish the edge to a razor sharpness? which edge will last longer?
thanks.
 
A polished edge will generally cut for longer. But then again, it depends on your task. Are you going to be chopping or just whittling? Or maybe you might just be doing mostly food prep.

I myself like a semi polished edge. Say 600 grit then strop.
 
Can it skin a deer? Rabbit? At 4.5" it's best use seems to be a skinner/utility blade. A toothy edge would work well, in my opion.
 
I don't do a ton of whittling, more just stripping bark and shaving sticks. But polished edges don't have those little teeth to break off(well they aren't as big). And in my experience a polished edge will last longer/work better(though the working better thing might just be my imagination). This is because you don't need the micro serrations of a toothy edge when whittling, because there's a whole lot of push cutting.

But why not try it yourself, go get a toothy edge on a knife, use it for a bit. Then polish it up and see if you even notice a difference.

Steels are all different, what people recommend are only general guidelines. Certain steels will get a polished edge at the same grit another steel will be super toothy.

Here's my final opinion though. I prefer semi toothy edges for just about anything. The difference in how long they last compared to a fully polished edge isn't significant enough for me to switch. It really sucks trying to cut an orange with a polished edge. It might laser the hair off, but it sucks for general cutting tasks because you really need a little bit a bite(from the toothy edge) to initiate the cut. Otherwise you spend a lot of pressure and time doing that with a polished edge.
 
^Agreed with above, I find alot of cutting tasks require that bite a toothy, or "semi-polished" edge will give, when I polish my edges up it removes all the toothyness, and even though it shaves like a straight razor, maybe better, it sucks to try and even pushcut paracord. So I would stick with your semi-polish to strop edge.
 
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It can be fun and great to put a nice polished edge on a blade, but not always the most practical thing.

My knives are made to be primarily everyday users. Utility, food prep, skinning, everyday carry, etc. Pete Grey of Grey Precision and I were talking a while back about our grit progression and technique for putting on an edge. At the time I was taking things up to at least 800 before stropping. Pete suggested I try stopping at 400 and then go through my stropping routine, which consists of stropping on a barber's strop loaded with green compound, then a clean strop on the canvas backside of the strop.

Since stopping my sharpening at 400 like Pete suggested I find the edges on my knives keep useable edge for a longer period of time. For the type of utility tasks that my blades are used for, the finer grit before stropping was causing the edge to roll a bit more easily.

Hope this is helpful, your experience may be different.
 
jonnymac44 said:
It can be fun and great to put a nice polished edge on a blade, but not always the most practical thing.

My knives are made to be primarily everyday users. Utility, food prep, skinning, everyday carry, etc. Pete Grey of Grey Precision and I were talking a while back about our grit progression and technique for putting on an edge. At the time I was taking things up to at least 800 before stropping. Pete suggested I try stopping at 400 and then go through my stropping routine, which consists of stropping on a barber's strop loaded with green compound, then a clean strop on the canvas backside of the strop.

Since stopping my sharpening at 400 like Pete suggested I find the edges on my knives keep useable edge for a longer period of time. For the type of utility tasks that my blades are used for, the finer grit before stropping was causing the edge to roll a bit more easily.

Hope this is helpful, your experience may be different.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Stopping at 400 and giving it a once over on the strop does the job nicely
 
I'll give you an example, I recently forged a patch knife from 52100, nice and thin with a hair splitting polished edge. Would not cut the linen pillow ticking I use for patches worth a crap. Checked the edge and still scary sharp. Took it too my Norton fine india stone, about 320 grit, and a couple passes on the fine Arkansaw stone and now it's a toothy razor sharp and cuts patches with ease. If your cutting veggies or meat, or for a small light duty pocket knife a scary sharp is good, for a working knife I like a little bite to the edge.
 
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