Kershaw 1820 factory grind: Mistake or Desgin?

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KennyB

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Jan 19, 2010
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So I bought a Kershaw 1820 "needs work" with a Wharnecliff blade yesterday. At first the factory edge imrpessed me because it shaved really well, but when it came down to slicing jobs it just wasn't really all that great, and there was a large dent in the blade I hadn't noticed, so I decided to sharpen it, and I noticed someting weird.

On one edge there's a normal flat bevel that would constitute one half of a V bevel, but on the other side where the other half of the V bevel was, there was a microbevel. So it was kind of like a microbevel on only one side of the blade.

I decide to just sharpen along these angles and the microbevel and not reprofile, but I'm wondering if it's supposed to be like this or if it's some kind of factory mistake. It seems to make a very nice edge so I wonder if it's design, but I can't really find any information on Kershaw design stuff.
 
Its a factory grind, don't expect much.
 
You mean on the other side, the bevel was of a higher angle? It was most likely just factory error as kershaw AFAIK does not do chisel grinds. I'm sure it cuts nicely, but it wouldn't hurt to even the bevels.

Can you take a picture? It may be because the primary grind was sloppy so that caused one side of the knife to be thicker or thinner than the other, giving the bevel the appearance of having a very high (obtuse) angle.

Pictures would really help in this case.
 
Heiheit said:
You mean on the other side, the bevel was of a higher angle? It was most likely just factory error as kershaw AFAIK does not do chisel grinds. I'm sure it cuts nicely, but it wouldn't hurt to even the bevels.

Can you take a picture? It may be because the primary grind was sloppy so that caused one side of the knife to be thicker or thinner than the other, giving the bevel the appearance of having a very high (obtuse) angle.

Pictures would really help in this case.
Click to expand...

I don't have anything but a cell phone camera. In any case, it's not that one side was uneven, it's that there was a secondary bevel on one side of the edge, but not the other, as if someone had ground it to be a half microbevel.
 
i have one and the edge was off a little but it was sharp. i get a lot of kershaws sent to me for resharpening and some are pretty bad.
 
I don't have that problem, but I have another with the 1820. The edge is not a perfect wharncliffe; there is about one quarter of the edge toward the tip that has a slight belly, so I can't sharpen it by putting it flat on the stone. Does yours have that?
 
Yup just a typical factory grind, I've seen them with this exact issue. They just do them so quickly, all by hand, all day, that they don't pay as much attention as most of us would like. I will say though that in my experience Kershaw consistently has the best factory edges out of the top 3.
 
nevermind35 said:
Yup just a typical factory grind, I've seen them with this exact issue. They just do them so quickly, all by hand, all day, that they don't pay as much attention as most of us would like. I will say though that in my experience Kershaw consistently has the best factory edges out of the top 3.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I've seen uneven bevels and angles before, but I've never seen a factory grind with one bevel on one side, and two distinct bevels on the other. Seems very sloppy to me, honestly; on the other hand I can see how it would make it easier for them to get a razor sharp edge out of the box, so I kind of wondered if it's done by design. As I said, it's almost like having a microbevel but on one side.

@THG

Yeah, I noticed that, I think it's because the tip is so much more narrow than the rest of the blade. It doesn't bother me too much though as getting the whole blade onto the stone isn't too hard, but yeah it would have been nice to get the whole edge on the stone at once. I'm toying with the idea of grinding down the wider portions of the blade so it will all fit evenly on the stone.

So far though it seems just fine with the weird semi-microbevel.
 
After sharpening, Kershaw buffs just one side of the blade, presumably to remove the burr, which results in the microbevel on just one side. It's sometimes more noticable, but if you look under magnification, you'll see it on almost all their blades. (p.s. I used the word "buff" loosely... I don't know exactly what they use).

cbw
 
THG said:
I don't have that problem, but I have another with the 1820. The edge is not a perfect wharncliffe; there is about one quarter of the edge toward the tip that has a slight belly, so I can't sharpen it by putting it flat on the stone. Does yours have that?
Click to expand...

I've had mine from the time they were released. The edge was never perfectly flat, but it was kind of hard to tell unless you looked straight down at the edge, with the point aimed at your eye. From the side, you couldn't tell.

The only issue I've had with Kershaws were weak edges out of the box that rolled easily. Both incidents were 13C26, fwiw. The grinds on all my Kershaws, however, have always looked perfectly pretty.
 
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