Over Sharpening

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BeavertRON

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Apr 23, 2005
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I had a question for the guys here that have had and have sharpened there knives for many years.

have you ever sharpened a knife so much that it became un-useable. Un-useable becosue you just over the years took off so much steel. I think it would have to take a real long time.
 
This usually happens with knives that are sharpened improperly. I've seen many old pocket knives like this, when you look through antique shops, etc. The people probably scrapped them on a sidewalk or something to rough and removed to much metal each time they sharpend the knife. Once you have a sharp edge you can maintain it with steeling or stropping so you have to take it to a stone less often.
 
If you know what you're doing, it does take a very long time to sharpen away so much steel that the knife isn't anything more than a spike. But an unskilled/overzealous person can easily destroy a knife with just a few bad attempts at sharpening. I've bought junk knives, who in their former lives were good knives (Buck, Case, Schrade, etc), that had been sharpened flat on the edge. Some of these were basically folding butter knives. I was able to reprofile a few of them for use as actualy knives again... others were too far gone.

Foldings knives, Buck 110/112s are especially bad for this because of the pronounced clip, have a tendency to lose so much steel due to poor sharpening or just too much sharpening, that the tip is no longer enclosed in the handle when closed (I've got a 110 right now like this that I'm trying to decide what to do with).

The simple solution to all of these problems is either have someone else sharpen them, or learn to do it yourself on old, cheap knives.

In today's world, if a knife lives to the point that it was sharpened away by good sharpening, it must have been a damn good knife.
 
As long as the whole blade is heat treated you could sharpen it down to an awl if you wanted to ;)
 
For the 110's tip if there is not too much gone file or sand down the kick and that will drop the blade down when closed.
 
Only slightly. It still works as a pipe cleaner well. LOL Actually I am kidding. I don't smoke. But the guy that used to own this did and that is what it was used for. I bought it at an estate sale from the widow of the man that owned it. She told me the history behind it. I kept it just because in it's own way it was a classic. Something about the history of this knife that is most likely older than I am and the thought that it was carried in someones pocket for that long turned me on in a way. The stories it could tell kind of thing you know?

Onlyslightlysharpened.jpg
 
I can't wait for industrial-strength welding lasers get cheap enough so I can keep one at home to quickly reprofile screwed-up knives. ;)
 
I'm not old enough to have sharpened any knives away to nothing

We've got some butchers knives that have worn out though. One boning knife was an inch shorter after so much sharpening
 
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