Just bad luck? Or is this the norm?

[srberus]

I've bought quite a few knives over the years. Nothing real high end. Spyderco, Benchmade, Kershaw, Mcusta, Gerber, and many more production knives. It seems like every single Blade I relieve has the edge poorly ground in my opinion. Where my grief comes from is when I try to set a uniform bevel on the blade. It seems like every single blade almost has a bulbous tip. This causes the edge behind the tip of the knife to be very difficult to sharpen since the tip has to be ground down to be even with the rest of the edge. I just received today a Spyderco para2 in M390. The fit and finish is perfect as far as I can see, but I have the same issue with setting a uniform bevel. Is it just my luck? Or is this basically how it is when you buy a production blade?

 

[me2]

Not all are like that, but you have to look very carefully at the knife to figure it out. Many knives are ground from the factory with a tip left thicker than the rest of the blade, expecting the tip will see some prying or at least rough piercing. Think of it like this. If the knife were a wharncliffe or sheeps foot profile, with a full flat grind, the thickness behind the tip would be the same as the rest of the edge. As the tip gets higher, the metal behind it gets thicker, unless the tip tapers to make up for it. It's not difficult to grind the tip thinner and taper the blade, so I assume the tips are left thicker on purpose.

Another issue I've had is that tips wear faster than the rest of the blade, and over time they thicken quicker with repeated sharpening. This is a user based thing, and if you see thicker tips on your first sharpening, it likely came from the factory that way.

 

[srberus]

It did come from the factory like this, they all do. I could see it being so they don't get a ton of complaints about tip breakage. With a FFG blade like the Paramilly 2 I think the tip should have the same thickness and bevel angle as the rest of the blade. I got my para 2 and my Endura FFG both new in box and they were both like this. I love em both, but it just makes that first time sharpening suck for me. I hate having to remove that much metal from a new blade. Guess thats just part of the game when you are as anal as I am about the bevel. Also holy crap!!!!! I love the way the Paramilly 2 feels in hand.

 

[me2]

I try to thing of beveling as just REALLY low angle sharpening, like at 2.5 degrees per side or something. If you think of it like that, then yes, the tip should be at the same thickness as the rest of the edge. However, its a little more complicated than that. With sharpening, you know you're going all the way to a sharp edge. With beveling, you know you're (usually) going to leave a flat at the apex of what is a very skinny triangle, using a flat ground blade as an example. All the angles can be the same, the only question is how wide is that flat spot on the edge. I'd say at least 90% of knives are made with varying thickness of that flat spot, just for the reasons discussed above. Someone sent me measurements of a Busse's edge thickness, just at the top of the sharpened edge. It varied from 1/32" at the handle/choil all the way up to nearly 3/32" at the tip. However, the edge angle was the same from the choil to the tip, a very even 21 degrees, by his measurements. Now Busse's are meant for hard use, and so this seems perfectly reasonable. However, I would be very disappointed if this type of thing happened on the clip blade of my trapper slip joint, and it doesn't.

That may be the place to look, if you are so inclined. The various old style slip joints have much better cutting geometry than modern tactical folders, even putting the much vaunted full flat ground Spyderco models to shame. My dad's old Parker Cutlery trapper still had an edge that was only 0.01" thick at the top of the 12 degree edge bevel, and he had it so long there is a visible pocket worn line on the blades that stops at the point the blades go into the handles.