Reprofiling my Gerber hatchet.

G

GroovyMr1337

Joined
Feb 21, 2007
Messages
220
Well, after taking my Gerber camping, and realizing it sucked at splitting, I read somewhere on these forums that by reprofiling the edge, it can split hard wood much easier. However, I have no experience working on my knives, and even less on axes (in fact, most of them I have never sharpened). I have a Dremel and some basic tools, but that is about it. So, how would I go about reprofiling the edge? Can anyone direct me to some sort of tutorial? I tried, but I could not find anything.

Your help is appreciated.
 
If you trust yourself to hold a moderately consistent angle, then I would use a flat file. It doesn't have to be a perfectly flat bevel because axes are supposed to have a convex edge anyway.

I suppose that you could use the Dremel but you would have to watch out for heat buildup.

If you happen to have a slack belt sander then that would be great.

I am not sure if there is an axe/hatchet sharpening tutorial, but there are knife sharpening tutorials and many of the same principals apply.

If you are using a file you could either just choose an angle arbitrarily, or you could make a guesstimate with a protractor.

The very basics of sharpening/reprofiling are: make the two edge bevels meet at the angle you want them to meet at, and then clean/polish up the edge.

Edit: What knife sharpening equipment do you have?
 
FlyingMuskrat said:
If you trust yourself to hold a moderately consistent angle, then I would use a flat file. It doesn't have to be a perfectly flat bevel because axes are supposed to have a convex edge anyway.

I suppose that you could use the Dremel but you would have to watch out for heat buildup.

If you happen to have a slack belt sander then that would be great.

I am not sure if there is an axe/hatchet sharpening tutorial, but there are knife sharpening tutorials and many of the same principals apply.

If you are using a file you could either just choose an angle arbitrarily, or you could make a guesstimate with a protractor.

The very basics of sharpening/reprofiling are: make the two edge bevels meet at the angle you want them to meet at, and then clean/polish up the edge.

Edit: What knife sharpening equipment do you have?
Click to expand...

I have a variety of whetstones, and a file. Some honing oil, a dremel, and that's about it.

By the way, thank you, I had a totally wrong definition of reprofiling in my head.
 
If you can find an old Boy Scout manual there should be a good section on sharpening axes (not sure if the new ones go into such things). Otherwise, there are some excellent books on sharpening available, such as the one from Lee Valley Tools. Sharpening is a useful skill and great therapy. (PS Be sure you have lots of Band Aids on hand:) )
 
Reprofileing usually refers to changing the angle of your two edge bevels (The ones that do the cutting). It could also refer to changing the angle of the primary bevels (The big ones that thin the edge(They're either convex, concave, or hollow). Very few people do the second one because it drastically changes the way the tool looks (And can be a fair amount of work).

Hopefully this is the definition that I conveyed. After reading my post again I thought it may be a little ambiguous.
 
So, basically, I would just start a little bit further back than the start of the current bevel and make the angle more acute?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top