Peanut sharpening

The Fort

The Fort

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Aug 11, 2012
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Hey everyone! I have to ask this, just to be sure. I've been able to get a lot of knives what I would consider very sharp using my Sharpmaker and simple homemade honing block. I always use the 40 degree inclusive side of the Sharpmaker. However it seems to me that when I sharpen a blade as thin as a Case Peanut, it seems to need a 30 degree inclusive edged angle to become extremely sharp. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Shouldn't a certain degree angle be of equal sharpness regardless of the blade thickness? What degree do you use on a small, thin blade like a Peanut? Hopefully this all makes sense, and doesn't sound stupid. Thanks for your input.
 
Just do what works for your knife. I got some I can't get sharp on stones but they do on Crock Sticks.
 
The maintenance forum has a bunch of sharpening gurus... if you don't get your answer here, you might have better luck posting over there..
 
I don't recall doing anything different with my Peanut than any other Case knives. I tend to go with 20 dps on the Sharpmaker for all my Case knives. The thin hollow grind blade geometry makes them good slicers, so all I need is a good micro bevel. 40 inclusive works fine for me. That's on the SS Peanut which is what I carry.
 
The Fort said:
Hey everyone! I have to ask this, just to be sure. I've been able to get a lot of knives what I would consider very sharp using my Sharpmaker and simple homemade honing block. I always use the 40 degree inclusive side of the Sharpmaker. However it seems to me that when I sharpen a blade as thin as a Case Peanut, it seems to need a 30 degree inclusive edged angle to become extremely sharp. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Shouldn't a certain degree angle be of equal sharpness regardless of the blade thickness? What degree do you use on a small, thin blade like a Peanut? Hopefully this all makes sense, and doesn't sound stupid. Thanks for your input.
Click to expand...

The thin & very small blade (& handle) of the Peanut make it more challenging to put a perfectly crisp apex on the edge. The small handle by itself is sort of a handicap in controlling a steady angle, and that results in an edge apex that's often more rounded off. And because the blade is so very thin behind the edge, the bevels themselves will be much narrower, even when perfectly flat, and that'll make it more difficult to stabilize on the hone. Wider bevels are sort of self-stabilizing on the hones, and hair-thin bevels much less so. Less than the measured angle itself, I think that's most of what makes it harder to get that same 'sharp' edge performance as compared to other knives sharpened to the same angle. I've noticed this tendency with the Peanut and other similar 'tiny', thin-bladed knives, like a Schrade 108 OT or a Case '44 pattern stockman.

My eventual 'fix' for the problem is to go much lower in angle, in order to produce a wider bevel that's easier to feel and stablilize on the hone. That's the bottom line as I"ve seen it, and these delicate tiny blades will become razors when sharpened as such.


David
 
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When I sharpen my peanuts I cut my tongue. *rimshot*

Sorry.

But yeah, Obsessed got it right. Very thin edges also have a tendency to sharpen MUCH faster than thicker ones, so I would test it every few swipes to see where you're at. Once it's good and sharp the more strokes you're taking the more likely you do one that's a little off, rounding the edge and killing your previous progress.
 
try using two hands when on the sharpmaker with small, thin blades. With your other hand, rest a fingertip on the blade 2/3rds away from the bolster/pivot to apply enough pressure to avoid the blade warping. This gets annoying when making the final alternating strokes and you have to keep switching blade sides, but luckily small blades don't require that many passes.

Hope that makes sense.
 
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