Old sharpening technique on new steel

jprime84

jprime84

Joined
Jul 7, 2014
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Decided to try sharpening one of my ZTs for the first time. They come pretty sharp, so I didnt bother sharpening them out of the box. Here is what my 801 looks like after working on it with traditional japanese whetstones (1000 and then 6000 grits) followed by a leather strop. I did lightly scuff the face of the blade some when I misjudged my angle early on, but thats all part of the manual process. It will get scuffed and scratched with use anyway. The elmax did take quite a while to work down. I am pretty pleased overall.



tl;dr: Dont be afraid to work with and sharpen your higher end blades!
 
Its a fantastic flipper. You can open it like its assisted but it is not.

Also the black version is out now, so take your pic. You wont be disappointed.
 
Nice little out of my price range though I really want a bench made 586 mini barrage that's what I'm saving for
 
Excellent job!! Nice polished edge man. And it warms my heart to see a knife that most guys would baby and put in a safe getting some use. Don't be afraid guys.... If you use em, you'll just love em more!
 
Very nice job on that edge. Ive always had trouble freehanding to that level of uniformity and high polish. Probably because I do it with only like a 6 inch Arkansas stone, so I cant really get the whole edge. If Im paying close attention, I can polish up about 3/4 of the edge really nicely, but nowhere close to what you did. The thing is, I can get an shaving sharp edge on every steel ive used to date using only the Arkansas stones, but I cant manage to completely dial in the consistency to where I can produce an edge like you did. Oh and its worth mentioning that theres just something about 154 cm that just doesnt respond well to the method I use. I swear, I could more easily sharpen Elmax and S30V than 154cm. But in terms of ease of sharpening, nothing compares to 154cm when you take it to ceramic rods. I can get it SUPER sharp then. Not sure whats different.....:confused:
 
Here's a CTS-XHP Military I did freehand on waterstones, then finished on a strop:

 
Here are a couple freehanded edges on fairly $$ knives. My EDC ProTech Godson (was DLC but I wanted a thinner blade behind the edge so I thinned it, which removed the DLC there) and my Benchmade Infidel, which I completely reprofiled from a chisel type grind to ~35° inclusive.











These were both sharpened/profiled on a DMT coarse then micro-bevelled on a 1,500 grit Suehiro and stropped.
 
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