Putting a Convex edge on my NMSFNO

MustardMan

MustardMan

Joined
Mar 14, 2009
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As a few of you might have seen, I've been slightly critical of some of the edges I've gotten on recent Busse knife purchases. Well, I figured I can either cry about it like a little girl with a skinned knee, or I can DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I did the former. At first. But then I bought a Harbor Freight belt sander and decided to do the latter.

I have very little experience sharpening on a belt sander, although I have done a fair share of convex edges by hand, and generally consider myself a fairly handy dude when it comes to tools. I also tend to pretty much jump right in when it comes to this kind of stuff, so I didn't take a very long time to work up to using power tools on a 400 dollar knife... my progression in the last week went something like this: Ka-Bar Becker Necker, Scrap Yard Muk, Scrap Yard Son of Dogfather, Busse High Street, Scrap Yard Regulator Bowie, NMSFNO. Basically I started with a knife I carry almost every time I hike, and went right towards knives I like a whole lot. No practicing on machetes and kitchen knives here! :eek:

I'm far from skilled on the sander, but I've been able to put on an edge that will shave hair and slice some mean paper, and it's prettier than when I do it by hand. Not the best looking edge, but I'll take it...

On to the pics!

Before: the factory edge was pretty lousy, unable to slice paper and sure as heck not shaving sharp. I was on the verge of giving up on this blade after a weekend chopoff, until a much wiser Hog said "PUT A CONVEX EDGE ON THAT SUCKER!"

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And here's after ten or twenty minutes on the belt sander:

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All in all, I'm very happy with how the edge turned out. It ain't as pretty as Horn Dog's work, that's for darn sure, but it's darn sharp! Can't wait to put it to a test that's more taxing than grooming my arms :p
 
looks great. i see you didn't have the same problem of rounding tips that a few of us have had . . . .
 
MustardMan said:
Ohhhh yes I did. The NMSFNO wasn't TOO bad, but some of my other blades are pretty awful :thumbdn: I rounded the crap out of my SoD:
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That doesn't look so bad.

A long time ago, Bill Bagwell wrote a column, Battle Blades, for a magazine (SOF?) Bill is considered one of the preeminent experts on Bowie knives and Bowie fighting knife technique. I remember that he believed that the very tip of a fighting Bowie should have a very small radius, NOT a sharp point, so as to improve it's slashing ability.

Consider yourself in good company. :thumbup::D
 
That looks like a pretty good job you did there MM. What grits did you use? Did you use just one belt and then polish it up with a leather belt or did you do the major reprofiling with a heavy grit and then progress to a finer belt? Just wanting to know how someone else might go about sharpening with a belt sander. I just use a 600 grit and then, if I feel like it, polish it up with a leather belt.
 
I did some fairly serious reprofiling with a 180 grit belt, then worked down to 320, 500, and 1200, and finished out on a loaded leather belt. I could have probably skipped some steps, but it takes so little time to switch the belt, and I only did a few swipes at each grit, so it was still pretty fast.

I'm used to working through 5 or 6 grits sharpening by hand on a mousepad, so this was nothing!
 
That's exactly how I started too. After that, I kinda got sick of changing so many belts so I just tried doing the reprofile with a 600 belt and it turned out the same, if not better. I was trying to reduce the number of passes I do since I concluded that the more passes, the more chance of error. Now, I'm stuck on either 400 or 600 grit and a leather belt.
 
I just did a convex job on my buddy HOBOJO's NMSFNO. Its a little crude, but its a user, and sharper than you can imagine!

Stropping that edge of yours will make all the difference in the world though! I love polished edges..

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Good work there Mustard Man, if you ever need any tips or help, feel free to pm/email me!!!
 
I've done similar stuff (on smaller knives!) with the mousepad. It takes a pretty long time. I would say with enough time dedicated to it, yes you could get similar results. I completely hand-convexed the edge on my Swamp Rat Mini Mojo not too long ago, and it was all done with sandpaper and a mouse pad.
 
I did the above knife by hand, on a large, thick piece of leather. I like the sturdiness of leather, plus it doubles as a strop!
 
Paulinski said:
Are the same results possible when convexing on mouspad vs belt sander route.
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yes and yes! Just takes more elbow grease. I have convexed three pieces of infi by hand, including my FBMLE, which is a heavy beast to do that with.
 
resinguy said:
That doesn't look so bad.

A long time ago, Bill Bagwell wrote a column, Battle Blades, for a magazine (SOF?) Bill is considered one of the preeminent experts on Bowie knives and Bowie fighting knife technique. I remember that he believed that the very tip of a fighting Bowie should have a very small radius, NOT a sharp point, so as to improve it's slashing ability.

Consider yourself in good company. :thumbup::D
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I believe I recall that article.
I used to really enjoy that column.
Bill's reasoned arguments and opinions certainly changed the way I though about field/fighting knives for the better.
In fact I think SOF declined around the same time Bill stopped writing for them.
Co-incidence I'm sure.
 
safetyman said:
RR, you're a very good friend. That must have taken you a while to finish!
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The more knives I sharpen, it seems the quicker it becomes. I think I have about a solid hour of work in that guy right there.

We had a nice little trade off though, I was an idiot and polished the washers on my Seb which resulted in annoying blade play. Instead of shipping direct to CRK, HOBOJO lives in Boise, and I was in the midst of convexing his fatty GL Warden, so I sent my Seb back with his knife...

He ended up going to the factory (Meeting Mr. Reeve and pulling the trigger on an Umnumzaan), having them fix up the Seb right there, and shipping it back all in less time than it takes if I would have sent it in myself.

Being a notoriously impatient person when it comes to waiting on shipping, it seemed like a perfectly fair tradeoff to sharpen up his NMSFNO. Plus, I had never held one before, so it was good to get a look (and some action) for comparison to my Busses.

I enjoy sharpening knives though. Its almost as fun as making, or should I say trying to make, the edge dull.
 
The hardest part is droppin nuts and puttin that expensive steel on that belt,, after that your gonna be ok.. You will find out what is too thin next,, then your learning,, great job,,,,,,,,,
 
Are you kidding me? My northern yankee blood can't handle this Georgia heat. If I tried to have a chopoff in this weather, I'd pass out faster than a sorority freshman her first night trying Jagermeister.

I'm waiting for a sub-90-degree weekend before I get some more chopping done!
 
I am very impressed at the tightness of your edge, most convex edges I see, done with a grinder, are much taller.
 
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