Question: Edge quality near the heel.

miso2

miso2

Joined
Nov 19, 2014
Messages
2,633
Hi,

I am relatively new to the traditional knives and now really fond of my GEC #73.

When I sharpened it (and a Queen country cousin) with a diamond stone at #150, I noticed that the burr at the heel of the blade for about a quarter of an inch was very flimsy and sticky.
I could remove the burr from the rest of the blade very easily with the stone, but I had to use a fine lapping film to remove the burr from the heel region.
Still, if I was not careful, the burr just folded over to the other side.
The edge seems to be very fragile as well.

My question is whether this is common in traditional slip joint knives and if this is due to the heat treatment to the blade tang.

I've seen a video of Laguiole knife manufacturing, which shows this process to reduce the hardness of the blade tang to match with that of the spring.
In that video, the edge near the heel appeared to be red hot.
I believe that this process is also mentioned in the GEC factory tour video.

Not really a big deal, but want to learn.
Thanks,
 
They Anneal the tang where the sharp meets it so they can center the blades in the assembly process.
 
jsdistin said:
They Anneal the tang where the sharp meets it so they can center the blades in the assembly process.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
So, are you saying that the edge near the tang could potentially be heat damaged?
I am not quite sure what you are implying.
 
I would not call it damaged, but just probably softer than the rest of the blade. As part of the final assembly they bend the blade to make sure it sits centered in the closed knife. Every GEC is like this. I have never noticed an issue and have never heard of one. I think many people use a strop after sharpening which gets rid of any burr as far as I’ve noticed.
 
Thanks for the clarification.
Mine might be a lemon.

I did not notice it at the beginning.
When I inspected the edge under a microscope after loaded leather stropping, I found small burrs remaining near the heel.
The apex was also rugged.
In subsequent sharpening sessions, I found it very difficult to remove the burrs from that area.

After removing a good amount of metal there, the edge seems to be little more stable.
 
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