Okay - good thoughts here. Let me try and distill what is going on with the knife. The 2nd bevel you see in that shot can't be felt as a change in grind angle, but it is a smoother polish. From what Bryan told me about how he created the knife it is a hybrid between a scandi and convex.
Basically he uses a belt to do his grinding and I figure he has the platen and a jig to hold the blade to perform the scandi grind style. I think he then took the platen off and tweaked the edge to produce his usual convex edge. I bet Bryan's thinking here was simply after grinding the knife scandi he thought 'that ain't sharp enough to be called a Breeden' - so he buzzed it convex style and now the thing shaves hair like you wouldn't believe. Its so sharp right now that there is no way in hell I'm going to put my bevel on a flat stone just to figure out how far I need to go to get it a true scandi. My thoughts are that it won't take too much, but I will report back on this the next time I fully sharpen it. In that event, I will do it the old fashioned scandi way
As somebody posted before, I think it is a bit semantics. First - many scandi companies actually put a small v-bevel on their knives. I think this is simply a production component. Simple fact is, getting a scandi grind sharp and polished is a lot of work as emphatically demonstrated by Brian Andrew's recent post on the matter. However, it is relatively easy to take the scandi to the edge without full polish and then produce a super sharp V-grind using a more obtuse angle quick and easy and burr free.
In fact, this is how I treat my own scandi's. When they are dull, I sharpen them on the flat diamond stones scandi style. I don't have the multi-hundred dollar stones that many of you folks do so this invariable scratches the heck out of the thing. I work out as many scratches as I can on finer stones finally proceeding to the white rods of mysharpmaker held in the slots behind the case (using them as a flat stone). I then put a micro-bevel on it with the sharpmaker usually at 25 degrees (by rocking the sharpmaker on one of the course rods with the white rods in the 20 degree slots). So - even my scandi's are turned into saber grinds, except for the brief period of time when I'm not satisfied with the edge but haven't put it to the sharpmaker yet.
I read somebody's statement on the forums who said that if the 2nd bevel on the scandi was more than 1 mm up the blade then the scandi cutting performance was gone. I don't agree with that statement. I can usually see between 1-2 mm of V-bevel on my scandi's sharpened as above and they perform the same, well actually much better cause I get them sharper, then if left at the true scandi grind finished on the white rods held in the flat stone configuration.
I don't find that the small bit of bevel interferes with the scandi-aligning properties during shaving. This is really the only advantage I see about the scandi grind and a microbevel seems consistent with that performance aspect.
The whole bit about scandi's being easy to sharpen is true up to the point when you get it right to the edge. At that point you have to be as patient as mother Theresa going through the grits to get a high polish across the whole bevel and to remove the burr. I remember Talfuchre talking about his 2 h sharpening marathon with is Koster and I'm presuming he already started with a relatively sharp edge. Strop that edge - and you just might inadvertently convert your scandi back to convex sabre
So Bryan - created his scandi like a scandi. I suppose the last little polish of the edge might have converted it to a sabre, but then again, even if he sold it to me without that last little hit - chances are I would have converted it to a Sabre for him by hitting it on the sharpmaker. As it is, I intend to keep his super keen edge tuned by stropping for as long as I can. We'll see how that works out.
Thanks for the comments and thoughts Pitdog - this thread was a fun read
', I then began searching the wonders of the internet for clarrification on the difference between a Scandi and a Sabre.
!!!!!!! Not wanting to spoil Kgd's thread I figured I'd better start my own and hear your views on the subject !!!!!
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