Let's Talk About Sharpening Our Survive! Knives

Silver Needle said:
To the SURVIVOR!s reading this, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but there still seems to be at least a small misconception on the difficulty (or lack of difficulty) on sharpening 3v. A few days ago I read a comment online from someone saying that 3v is great in the field, but the trade off is that it takes extra long to sharpen. This has not been my experience!!! After an afternoon of batoning and light delimbing AND several evenings of whittling and drinking bourbon all it took was 25 strokes on each side of the blade on a small fine diamond plate to get my GSO 5 back to shaving my arm hair. If you're just getting into SURVIVE! Knives and cpm 3v, let me tell you that this steel is very user friendly :thumbup:

Click to expand...

Nice! I have one of those. I haven't used it yet. What kind of bourbon were you drinking? I had a Blanton's last night.
 
Use it! You'll have to let me know what you think. The main feature that attracted me were the guides and I do appreciate all the features.

I just posted this pic in another thread and I already forgot which one. I've been rotating between this, Knob Creek and Eagle Rare oh and Jim Beam Black too. I've never had Blanton's, but I'll remember your endorsement!

 
Silver Needle said:
Use it! You'll have to let me know what you think. The main feature that attracted me were the guides and I do appreciate all the features.

I just posted this pic in another thread and I already forgot which one. I've been rotating between this, Knob Creek and Eagle Rare oh and Jim Beam Black too. I've never had Blanton's, but I'll remember your endorsement!

Click to expand...

Nice! I have that knife, those scales as well as a bottle of Buffalo Trace (who makes Blanton's and I believe to be the last of the US owned Bourbon distillery) at the house.

Anyway, I tried the guided field sharpener. It did a GREAT job getting one of my chewed up 4.1s back to a straight edge. It got it back to a serviceable edge. I used the fine ceramic rod to start to polish the blade and finished off with my JRE Industries Strop Bat to get it hair popping sharp. It's not as sharp as Guy can get but I can shave with it and I'll continue to polish it on the bat to fine tune the edge.
 
I sharpen by hand. Free hand. I use the cheap hardware stones and Spyderco ceramics. That has worked for me for everything from 420HC and 1095 to VG-10, SR-101, M390, and CPM-M4. Never had any issue with the stones resetting a bevel, and the ceramic brings the edge to a shaving edge. It isn't easy to learn (or wasn't for me). And I've played hell with some finishes. But I've not yet met a steel (steel, not some ceramic super-material) that I can't make that work. Including Talonite, if anyone remembers that fad. Stones worked on it just fine.

I envy guys that can make a strop work, though. I've tried. I haven't figured that one out yet. So I end up even sharpening my Fallknivens on stones and ceramic.
 
OBX351 said:
Nice! I have that knife, those scales as well as a bottle of Buffalo Trace (who makes Blanton's and I believe to be the last of the US owned Bourbon distillery) at the house.

Anyway, I tried the guided field sharpener. It did a GREAT job getting one of my chewed up 4.1s back to a straight edge. It got it back to a serviceable edge. I used the fine ceramic rod to start to polish the blade and finished off with my JRE Industries Strop Bat to get it hair popping sharp. It's not as sharp as Guy can get but I can shave with it and I'll continue to polish it on the bat to fine tune the edge.
Click to expand...

Woohoo! That is awesome. I guess you don't need me to tell you that you have good taste :thumbup:
 
Texas_toothpick said:
I've heard to build my own from several others as opposed to buying one. I just ain't got leather. I seen a bush craft video a guy did it out if a paint stick for his pack. It was kinda neat.
Click to expand...
I made my own strop by gluing leather to a large paint stir stick. I glued leather to both sides. The coarser side was some sheath-making leather I had laying around, and the finer side was from an old belt. I picked up some green honing compound from Lee Valley Tools, and my knives have never been so scary sharp!

The other thing I have that works well is a Japanese water stone. Requires some maintenance, as you do have to true the surface from time to time, but that is easy to do, and I have had good results with the stone.

My first S!K, a GSO 5, is scheduled to arrive in the mail in a few days. I'm worse than a kid on Christmas Eve right now! These are the tools I'll be using on my 5, as needed. I imagine the strop will be the primary sharpening tool. It is compact, light weight, and easy to use. Takes up no room in my pack.
 
Very cool. I made my first stop similar to yours. I ended up ordering a stropman strop and compounds. Black and white.



Don't mind the screws. Sorry Guy. Please don't stop selling to me.
 
I use a Work Sharp Ken Onion Edition with the Blade Grinding Attachment to sharpen all my knives. Love that thing.
 
The trick with a strop is to use a very light touch. Take a sharpee and color just the edge bevel. Then you can see if your angle is correct. Too steep and you will only wipe sharpee off the very edge. Too flat and youbwipe it off the shoulder and not the edge. Just right and you remove it all. Too steep and or pressing too hard will round off your edge, dulling it. Strops and free hand on stones make very mildly convex edges. I find them to be very durable and crazy sharp. Stropping a flat beveled edge, like the factory survive edge, will make a small convex micro bevel.
 
Last edited:
does stropping compound "dry out" I stropped one of my knifes the other night and effectively scraped all the compound off the strop...(I am sure at least part of the problem was my technique) I ordered some more compound, so no big deal....just curious...
 
Silly question... Were you going spine to edge or edge to spine?

Its possible that you just had too much compound on the strop
 
Riz2530 said:
Silly question... Were you gping spine to edge or edge to spine?
Click to expand...

haha... i believe spine to edge but to make sure this isn't a "your left my left" situation:



my only thought was that i had the knife too steep possibly?
 
redwood22 said:
does stropping compound "dry out" I stropped one of my knifes the other night and effectively scraped all the compound off the strop...(I am sure at least part of the problem was my technique) I ordered some more compound, so no big deal....just curious...
Click to expand...

I'm thinking you have a bunch of rolls on the edge or you just had it at to high of an angle.
 
Do the sharpee trick to see where you are stropping. Nice drawing. That is the correct way and what i meant by spine to edge.
 
I know I posted this in the other thread but it belongs here too...

I use these spyderco stones for sharpening when needed. To finish off the edge I put the stone back in its leather slip and strop right on the slip. It works great. I dont ever let my blades get so dull that they need real reworking of the edge. I have found that really I can get away with using just the darker (medium) stone and then stropping on the slip will give me a very nice shaving edge. The white stone (fine) doesnt seem to do much to 3V, S35VN or S30V. I think they are too wear resistant.






I also have a few strops that I made like this one. Its a small piece of oak board with leather, rough side out, glued to it. Black compound on one side and green on the other. I also made a 4 sided one that has black, green and plain rough side out and plain with the smooth side out. They all work great. They were very easy to make too.



 
Standard78 said:
I'm thinking you have a bunch of rolls on the edge or you just had it at to high of an angle.
Click to expand...

It was a busted up old Chinese spyderco, so its very possible that's what the problem was... I was trying to practice on something cheaper. Once the new compound comes in ill try the sharpie method, see how good i can get at it...

thanks guys!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top