Let's Talk About Sharpening Our Survive! Knives

A ceramic sharpening rod. I have one on my Work Sharp Field Sharpener. I had a small nick on the side of the blade of one of my knives. I ran the knife up and down a few times on the ceramic rod and it took the bur out.
 
Casinostocks said:
So... I kept stropping that darn GSO 10 which I bought off of eBay, the one which supposedly had sat in a safe and never had cu anything other than paper! However, it was the toothiest GSO (note I didn't say dull, because the blade geometry and the knife's heft would still slice meat off a bone with no problems) that I had ever had go through my hands (admittedly as I'm a newbie, not that many so far). It was time to take out the gemologists' magnifying eyepiece (I'm not one of those but somehow have ended up with one of those pieces!) and low and behold, I note two very, very minor rolls and microscopic chips! Oh the bloody horror! :eek:

Very p*ssed off and not knowing as to whether to direct my cusses at Guy (just because and why not as he's the Papa), at the seller or at myself (I did hack at a few pieces of wood but nothing that I deemed to have metal in it and didn't hit any cement or anything) I just manned up and took out the DMT diamond plates (Fine and extra Fine: red dot / green dot) I didn't have an extra Coarse / Coarse (which I will now be ordering) to take that microscopic chip out in its entirety but actually ended up doing a very decent job just with the aforementioned. I had never sharpened a GSO but I was rather surprised as to how painless it was as I didn't spend more than 15 minutes tops including stropping (Black, Green & White on Flexxx Strop paddles). Now the GSO 10 is very sharp and only catches on that one minor spot about 1/2 way in the middle if I go slowly but will skip that hick up altogether if I use the weight of the GSO 10 to push through.

Obviously I skipped the very fine honing before stropping as my only option would have been to use the dark brown side of my DC4 but I wanted something larger and much higher in grit. I am thinking of buying a Spyderco ultra fine benchstone (3 x 8 size) for home use and the Fallkniven CC3 for field use along with my DC4. Has anyone in here used that Spyderco large ultra fine plate? The reviews on Amazon are a bit of hit and miss and reading the critical reviews, most buyers complain about its unevenness. I can always lap it using the coarse DMT which I will also be ordering, so not too worried. Otherwise do you guys have something better to recommend? Perhaps a Shapeton 8000 grit glass plate? I have never had Shapetons. Decisions, decision!
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Wicked Edge?
 
OBX351 said:
A ceramic sharpening rod. I have one on my Work Sharp Field Sharpener. I had a small nick on the side of the blade of one of my knives. I ran the knife up and down a few times on the ceramic rod and it took the bur out.
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I don't do so well with rods as I maintain a better and more consistent angle when I freehand horizontally on larger plates!
 
Casinostocks said:
So... I kept stropping that darn GSO 10 which I bought off of eBay, the one which supposedly had sat in a safe and never had cu anything other than paper! However, it was the toothiest GSO (note I didn't say dull, because the blade geometry and the knife's heft would still slice meat off a bone with no problems) that I had ever had go through my hands (admittedly as I'm a newbie, not that many so far). It was time to take out the gemologists' magnifying eyepiece (I'm not one of those but somehow have ended up with one of those pieces!) and low and behold, I note two very, very minor rolls and microscopic chips! Oh the bloody horror! :eek:

Very p*ssed off and not knowing as to whether to direct my cusses at Guy (just because and why not as he's the Papa), at the seller or at myself (I did hack at a few pieces of wood but nothing that I deemed to have metal in it and didn't hit any cement or anything) I just manned up and took out the DMT diamond plates (Fine and extra Fine: red dot / green dot) I didn't have an extra Coarse / Coarse (which I will now be ordering) to take that microscopic chip out in its entirety but actually ended up doing a very decent job just with the aforementioned. I had never sharpened a GSO but I was rather surprised as to how painless it was as I didn't spend more than 15 minutes tops including stropping (Black, Green & White on Flexxx Strop paddles). Now the GSO 10 is very sharp and only catches on that one minor spot about 1/2 way in the middle if I go slowly but will skip that hick up altogether if I use the weight of the GSO 10 to push through.

Obviously I skipped the very fine honing before stropping as my only option would have been to use the dark brown side of my DC4 but I wanted something larger and much higher in grit. I am thinking of buying a Spyderco ultra fine benchstone (3 x 8 size) for home use and the Fallkniven CC3 for field use along with my DC4. Has anyone in here used that Spyderco large ultra fine plate? The reviews on Amazon are a bit of hit and miss and reading the critical reviews, most buyers complain about its unevenness. I can always lap it using the coarse DMT which I will also be ordering, so not too worried. Otherwise do you guys have something better to recommend? Perhaps a Shapeton 8000 grit glass plate? I have never had Shapetons. Decisions, decision!
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The Spyderco UF bench stone is excellent, but if you lap it with diamonds you are going to change the surface grit to that of the diamonds. It will not be ultra fine anymore.
The folks that comment on bench stone unevenness have extremely high standards for the flatness of their stones since they are accustomed to lapping their wet stones. This stone won't dish out the way that a wet stone will.
It also won't wear back down to the grit size of the abrasive after lapping the way that a wet stone will. Once the surface of the ultra fine ceramic bench stone is abraded it will stay that way.
The extremely small amount of unevenness that the stone might exhibit is irrelevant when it comes to sharpening a GSO-10. It is a good stone for creating a final polish.
 
Fancier said:
The Spyderco UF bench stone is excellent, but if you lap it with diamonds you are going to change the surface grit to that of the diamonds. It will not be ultra fine anymore.
The folks that comment on bench stone unevenness have extremely high standards for the flatness of their stones since they are accustomed to lapping their wet stones. This stone won't dish out the way that a wet stone will.
It also won't wear back down to the grit size of the abrasive after lapping the way that a wet stone will. Once the surface of the ultra fine ceramic bench stone is abraded it will stay that way.
The extremely small amount of unevenness that the stone might exhibit is irrelevant when it comes to sharpening a GSO-10. It is a good stone for creating a final polish.
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Excellent Fancier! Thank you for your approval. I was also considering the DMT's ultra, ultra fine plate but don't really think that I would need that going from my DMT super fine to the Spyderco ultra fine benchstone (I rather not drop another $80+ on something I don't actually need).
 
I have a set of the DMT Diasharp plates: XC, C, F, XF, MXF, and used to have XXF. The XXF never broke in, and I got a Spyderco 3x8 UF stone. Then I picked up a second. These are great stones for a final polish off of fine and extra fine stones, and I use mine to refine the edge from the Spyderco medium bench stones. Flatness isn't an issue with them when you're freehanding edges. And honestly, with a knife the size of the GSOs and their fat edge geometries you won't notice by cutting performance if the stone is uneven unless you hold a machinists edge to it.
 
Thanks tou Clip.

3 x 8 UF bench stone is now in my Amazon cart :thumbup:
 
Just to be clear, my DMT products are of their DuoSharp variety which is the mesh type diamond plate whereas you (Clip.) have mentioned DiaSharp which as I understand is the continuous surface version. I forgot to mentioned this in my earlier posts but I just wanted to clarify that we are not taklkng about the exact surfaces from this maker unless we are throwing terms around semantically?

If anyone has the XC/C version of DuoSharp, how often do you realistically use that for your GSO and other 3V knives? I don't sharpen my axe on these as I prefer to get the GB's stone for my GB-SFA and I don't use chisels and such which require extra coarse / coarse. At some point I can envision the softer 1075 steel of my LTKT machete to take a beating and need more metal shaven off with the XC / C plate. For now though, I think that it's a redundant $65 or so expenditure so I'll just keep that on the Amazon wish / watch list for now. The Spyderco UF bench plate is coming though. Pulled the trigger on that one based on Fancier's and Clip.'s recommendations :thumbup:
 
Casinostocks said:
Just to be clear, my DMT products are of their DuoSharp variety which is the mesh type diamond plate whereas you (Clip.) have mentioned DiaSharp which as I understand is the continuous surface version. I forgot to mentioned this in my earlier posts but I just wanted to clarify that we are not taklkng about the exact surfaces from this maker unless we are throwing terms around semantically?

If anyone has the XC/C version of DuoSharp, how often do you realistically use that for your GSO and other 3V knives? I don't sharpen my axe on these as I prefer to get the GB's stone for my GB-SFA and I don't use chisels and such which require extra coarse / coarse. At some point I can envision the softer 1075 steel of my LTKT machete to take a beating and need more metal shaven off with the XC / C plate. For now though, I think that it's a redundant $65 or so expenditure so I'll just keep that on the Amazon wish / watch list for now. The Spyderco UF bench plate is coming though. Pulled the trigger on that one based on Fancier's and Clip.'s recommendations :thumbup:
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For comparison, I believe DMT uses the same grit size for each product line, so a coarse Diasharp will leave the same scratch pattern as a coarse Diasharp as their coarse pocket stones. I rarely use the XC unless reprofiling or lapping water stones. The coarse is usually perfect for sharpening out chips or dings, but the XC could perform the same job faster. When I need a general maintenance sharpening (think: haven't stropped in two or three weeks of regular use) I'll pull out the F stone and use that, then to the XF (9 micron grit size IIRC). That leaves a perfectly toothy edge that won't require any more work, but a few swipes on the Spyderco UF refines the edge for better slicing. A lot of passes on the UF takes the edge to a high-polish finish. Typically I'll only use one or two stones instead of going through the full progression, such as the Spyderco M and UF or the DMT XF and Spyderco UF.

DMT jumped to 3 micron for their XXF, and also made a MXF/medium extra fine in the 4-6 micron range. I could never get the XXF to break in, leaving deeper scratches than it should. The MXF is taking a while to break in as well, but getting better.
 
Clip. & Fancier; I received my Spyderco UF 8" x 3" bench plate today and this thing is HUGE plus GREAT! Spent less than a handful of minutes just swiping the GSO 10 across and it already left the metal streak marks which the stropping paddles were seemingly unable to take care of. My GSO 10 is now skeeery sharp. What a BEAST! Both of them :thumbup:
 
Casino, glad you like it. Sounds like your experience was similar to when I first received mine. Very impressed with the edge it leaves. very common for my UF to get dark gray with metal, you can see two distinct arcs where I sharpen until one side gets loaded with swarf and starts cutting slowly, then rotate to the other side.

For cleaning (it always goes back to white) use Bar Keepers Friend and a green Scotchbrite pad. Brings it back to brand new.
 
Clip. said:
Casino, glad you like it. Sounds like your experience was similar to when I first received mine. Very impressed with the edge it leaves. very common for my UF to get dark gray with metal, you can see two distinct arcs where I sharpen until one side gets loaded with swarf and starts cutting slowly, then rotate to the other side.

For cleaning (it always goes back to white) use Bar Keepers Friend and a green Scotchbrite pad. Brings it back to brand new.
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I only have Comet and the blue Scoctbrite pads! Too abrasive do you think?
 
That'll work as well, but the blue Scotchbrite i have is non-scratching, so I'm thinking it's less abrasive than the aluminum oxide green Scotchbrite.
 
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$10 at Home Depot. It's only single-sided, but it'll do just fine.
 
Standard78 said:
$10 at Home Depot. It's only single-sided, but it'll do just fine.
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OBX351 said:
+1 to that!!! I have the blue one....but I paid $15 for it. Oh well...
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10 and 15?? The little ones cost 15-20! Good sales :thumbup:

Speaking of which, if anyone wants to buy my very good-condition DMT Aligner Kit with black, red, blue, and green, + red marker and kids toothbrush ;) I'm planning to list it for sale on the exchange this week:

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