Reviews of Boye knives

[AV8R]

I bought the BDS knife with micarta that Will York posted for sale a few weeks ago. I received the knife in brand new, unused condition. It had a slightly uneven, toothy edge that would shave, but not real well. It did cut very well with this edge, though. Push cuts on rope and cardboard were fairly ineffective, but just the slightest slicing motion made it cut very well. I sharpened it on my Edgepro, starting with the 180 grit stone adjusted to grind a VERY small bevel. Formed a burr very easily. I followed that up with 600, formed a nice burr and then polished it with 3000. The result is that I removed no metal to speak of, had basically no ill effect on the tip, produced a polished, hair splitting edge. I've been using the knife a lot in the last week on rope and boxes, as we're moving. Cuts like a demon! Push cuts are very effective, slicing cuts are the best I've ever seen from any knife, shaves like a razor. Also, as far as edge holding, it feels and looks exactly the same as when I finished sharpening it. I've been through a lot of boxes and rope and have been unable to detect any loss of cutting ability at all. Extremely comfortable, too. I love this knife.

Pete

 

[UnknownVT]

Originally posted by Cliff Stamp
Yes, it is possible, like steeling almost when you go very light. It can be done but you have to achieve a delicate balance if you want to keep the edge crisp so it can for example shave on both sides.

I spent some time working on this with an opinel which is also difficult to hone on ceramic rods because very little force will bent the edge. The problem is when you are sharpening many knives and they all require different levels of force to be effective. Since you got by feel most times it is near impossible to do it well consistently.

Great explanation - many thanks.

Yes, the way I touch up on the ceramic V-hone is like steeling with a very light touch - my final strokes are almost by the weight of the knife alone.

Talking of Opinels - I also use the V-hone with that, and now that you've pointed this out - I have noticed parts of the blade with very subtle but rolled over edge after use on the V-hone - which stropping removed. Maybe that's why stropping worked so well with the Opinel verses using the V-hone for the finish.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Yes, honing on a wide surface with a decent abrasive has a much lower tendancy to burr or roll the edge. Opinels are also a plain carbon steel and thus can be machined readily so respond well to stropping.

The problem with sharpening is only really significant when you have a steel which is both soft and difficult to machine. It then folds over readily on v-rods but yet is slow to respond to hones. High alloy steels should be kept hard for this reason, plus they are very brittle by nature anyway and are poor choices if the blades need to be kept soft. You end up with the worst aspects of the steel.

I just reread the post you made with the interview from Boye. I never knew he grinds that thin with his hollow grinds. Those boat knives look more attractive every time I think about them.

-Cliff

 

[UnknownVT]

Originally posted by Cliff Stamp
I never knew he grinds that thin with his hollow grinds. Those boat knives look more attractive every time I think about them.

The specs on his web site at -
http://www.boyeknives.com/technical_info.cfm

has this illustration with pointers -

This says -
"Boye Dendritic Cobalt blade, hand-ground to a fine 0.010" edge."

That's only 1/100th of an inch.

I thought he told me 1/1,000th -
perhaps that's for his BDS steel only? - since I was talking to him about the BDS Eagle Wing lightweight lockback.

ADDENDUM - perhaps I was wrong about 1/1,000th of an inch -
perhaps he said 10 thou and I mis-heard or had wishful thinking working....

I went and searched my old rec.knives posts where David had 0.012" edge thickness in his old brochures - and when I spoke to him then he told me he could get down to 0.008" - that is 8 thou

rec.knives thread on Boye's Blades Re: Blade thickness - Date: 1998/01/16

My apologies for the confusion - I'll edit my interview post so as not to propagate this mis-information.