Problem Sharpening Benchmade Contego

C

camo13310

Joined
Jul 23, 2014
Messages
2
Hello all,

I have a benchmade Contego that I have had for about 6 months now. I really like the knife it was my first Benchmade and it has made me fall in love with the Axis lock. One thing I was not anticipating was how difficult it was to sharpen the dang thing. I can sharpen S30v, S35vn and 154cm no problem to shaving sharp. But with this M4 I can work on it for hours and it never quite gets there. I am using a Ken onion edition work sharp at 22.5 degree or 45 degree inclusive. Any recommendations?
 
camo13310 said:
Hello all,

I have a benchmade Contego that I have had for about 6 months now. I really like the knife it was my first Benchmade and it has made me fall in love with the Axis lock. One thing I was not anticipating was how difficult it was to sharpen the dang thing. I can sharpen S30v, S35vn and 154cm no problem to shaving sharp. But with this M4 I can work on it for hours and it never quite gets there. I am using a Ken onion edition work sharp at 22.5 degree or 45 degree inclusive. Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

Does the Contego come with a 45 degree inclusive edge or did you reprofile it?

M4 is tough stuff. I believe it's HRC is 62-64?
 
I re-profiled it. I wasn't sure what the factory angle was most of my knives are at a 45 degree inclusive so I changed changed it to that as well. Yeah it HRC is really high on this knife specifically.
 
camo13310 said:
I re-profiled it. I wasn't sure what the factory angle was most of my knives are at a 45 degree inclusive so I changed changed it to that as well. Yeah it HRC is really high on this knife specifically.
Click to expand...

A diamond stone should make quick(er) work of it.
 
camo13310 said:
I re-profiled it. I wasn't sure what the factory angle was most of my knives are at a 45 degree inclusive so I changed changed it to that as well. Yeah it HRC is really high on this knife specifically.
Click to expand...

45 inclusive?

Might as well be using a splitting wedge

Also, your using a belt sander, you should be spending minutes not hours.
 
I use a KME set angle sharpener. It works really well with the blade shape. M4 is really hard, but the diamond sharpener made very short work of it. One of the sharpest knives I own. I agree with some of the above posts though. Because M4 is very hard, it can really handle a thinner edge. I believe mine came at about 18 dps. I really think it could go down to 15, but any thinner and it may chip. Good luck!

Regards,
Steven
 
Another little tip if you want to reprofile a blade is to make a slight change from factory angle over a few sharpening events so you can do less removal of material and more cleaning and start to lighten the pressure at the end of sharpening. Using something like a belt sander trying to remove lots of material, if your pretty aggressive in your work you could end up just pushing the bevel from side to side with a low grit.
 
No problem here.I believe it took me about 15 - 20 mins on a Gatco with the regular aluminium oxide hones.Afterwards,I said to myself this CPM-M4 takes a really sharp and fine edge.
 
I'm buying my first real stone just for my contego. Bought it yesterday and it came nib super dull. Won't cut paper. Every other BM I've got so far was wicked sharp. I'm probably going to send it in for sharpening and inspection first. I want a new clip for my 940 also so I'm going to see if they will ship everything back together.

I'm really good with my worksharp, but the blade shape is hard to deal with. The upsweep at the tip needs some special care. I sent it through a few times with the lightest belt and permanent marker to see how it touched. I didn't like it, because it was touching the tip wrong. It's very easy to round out a tip with the worksharp. I love the knife so I think it's time to learn the stone.
 
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