Sharpening 806D2

T

thombrogan

Joined
Nov 16, 2002
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There are two knives in my collection that I can't give a shaving edge with any contraption I've tried (Lansky, Sharpmaker, flat stones):

A Boker Applegate-Fairbairn and a Benchmade 806D2.

My 806D2 has the BT2 gunk scraped completely off of its bottom bevel and the steel there has been thinned out fairly well from sanding a satin finish there, but I can't manage to wrangle a hair-popping edge onto it. I even tried using a little extra force on the Sharpmaker per Cliff Stamp's advice to another forumite and still no dice. It baffles me because I was able to put a screaming sharp edge on a 710HS and M2 is generally a tougher steel.

Would anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks in advance.
 
What exactly is happening when you sharpen, is it forming a burr. Has it seen really heavy use lately? Can you check the edge under magnification?

-Cliff
 
I'm not trusted near magnifying glasses, but, most often, I was using a Sharpmaker and alternating strokes. I tried forming a burr last night, but I think I had the angle of the blade too close to the stone and couldn't remove enough material. Maybe a higher angle would work better for the initial relief? I'll try a softer, coarser stone on lunch and report later.
 
Yes, the first step is to form the burr. If the angles are really off then hogg off some metal with another abrasive, the Sharpmaker is not suitable for that at all. Once you have the angle under the Sharpmaker setting then it should be able to bring the edge up to speed quickly, in a matter of minutes. If this doesn't work, get a really cheap folder and smash it to bits in front of the Benchmade to show it where its fate lies unless it stops fooling around.

-Cliff
 
If you don´t want to use a magnifier, try the magic marker trick, it can tell you if you are just working on the base of the bevel and not touching the edge at all.
 
Thom,

Have any friends around with an Edge Pro? I have had similar problems with some blades and was able to keep a constant angle of attack using the Edge Pro, which would eventually get the knife screaming sharp.
 
Originally posted by Don Luis
it can tell you if you are just working on the base of the bevel and not touching the edge at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Don Luis!

I'm in the process of significantly thinning out the back bevel to eliminate that problem for what is hoped to be the next several dozen sharpenings.

On lunch, I got a slight burr on most of one side, but noticed that the edge is still too thick. Should take some elbow grease, but no longer seems hopeless. On top of shaving hair, I want to make the knife into the slicer I know it can be.
 
Follow Cliff's advice. If you have not already done so, check out the Sharpening FAQ.

I put a 30* back bevel on my 806D2 using the SharpMaker. I used 60 strokes at each step instead of the 20 recommended the Sharpmaker instructions because I knew the D2 would require more work. However, I had already reduced the angle of the factory bevel using Razor Edge Systems' guide and hones.

Reducing the angle of the back bevel on the SharpMaker can be a lot of work. My brother-in-law had a Gerber (a Gator I think) with a relatively obtuse bevel. After I worked on the Sharpmaker's medium hone for maybe 100 strokes I was still not getting a burr. We whipped out the magic marker and saw we still had a way to go. Eventually we got there, but it took a lot of elbow grease.

Now a set of the diamond hones is at the top of my wish list.

BTW, It will void your warrantee, but if you remove the blade from your 806D2, you can take the rest of the BT2 off and produce a nice brushed satin finish in a couple evenings with some green kitchen pads and some elbow grease. I did it a year ago and my blade is still rust free. I'd like to polish it more, but D2 is a challenge to polish. I worked on mine for a while with minimal results before suspending that project indefinitely.

Good luck :)
 
Thanks JDMSMBACPA! I'll be following Mr. Stamp's advice to the letter tonight including the threats with the less expensive folder. Thanks, also, for the tip about scotch-briting the rest of the finish away. I'm bad at reassembling axis locks and don't want to keep bugging my wife for help, so I'll just resume satin-finishing the bottom bevel after it's thinned out enough to do what I want.

So far, the morals to this story are:

Success only comes before work in the dictionary

and

I already own a 921 and a Delica, why did I need another slicer? :D
 
If you do this on a regular basis, you definately need something other than the Sharpmaker, diamond stones or not, to set the initial bevel. For me, even once was enough to look for faster honing. The cheapest method is to buy some very aggressive sandpaper (100 grit or less) and glue it to a piece of wood - use as a file. This can take edge bevels on folders completely off (no secondary edge bevel) in a few minutes. You don't need to be accurate or precise, just hogg the shoulder off.

-Cliff
 
Thanks, Cliff.

Using the garden tool shaping stone has been slow going, so a sanding block sounds great. Especially since there are a few other knives that look a bit thick these days.
 
Have 100 grit paper will travel!

I scrubbed and scrubbed those shoulders down and blew numerous amounts of steel filings off of the blade. Then a Redi-Sharp blacked the edge and it was Sharpmaker time. The tips were criminally obtuse and the 30 degree 'micro-bevel' was something like 4-5 millimeters thick.

Special care to further sand down the tips and then more scrubbing on the sandpaper. Nothing fails like success, so I ran the knife through the Sharpmaker gauntlet (150 alternating strokes on the corners and 150 more on the flats of the diamond, medium, fine, and ultra-fine rods). The knife finally easily shaved hair when I finished with the medium corners, but it wasn't getting high marks on the Razor Edge test stick. By the time it was done on the fine flats, it was still a little coarse by the test stick's standards, but felt much sharper. After the ultra-fine hones' flats, it scored a C- on the test stick. From there, it was 200 more strokes on the ultra-fine flats to earn a solid C on the test stick. What's great about the Razor Edge test stick is that it is harder to have it give good grades as it ages. That "C" quality edge popped hair off of my arms and then popped the stubble off of them.

Thanks again for all of the help. The 30 degree micro-bevel is now only 1-2 milimeters thick (except at the point, where it's thicker) and I didn't have to break any other folders to threaten the 806D2.
 
After using the coarse sandpaper to change the geometry, refining it with some finer paper speedd up the process significantly. The Sharpmaker session should ideally only be a dozen or so passes per grit level. If you jump immediately to a very fine abrasive, it takes forever to grind out all the deep scratches.

-Cliff
 
Originally posted by Cliff Stamp
If you jump immediately to a very fine abrasive, it takes forever to grind out all the deep scratches.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess counting out 1,200 passes to set the microbevel might be a lot, but it was fun and it wasn't more than a few hundred more to get a passing grade on the edge tester. Now I'm sold on files and sanding blocks.

Edited to add:
Now I know there is such a thing as too much fun.
 
Heh, I fully understand the "too much fun" aspect of getting those bevels set properly. How wide is the total ground area now? My AFCK is now set at 30 degrees straight to the edge, but I'm having trouble getting it sharp without using a strop. The Sharpmaker's stones don't hit the edge because they have no give to them.
 
AlphalphaPB,

The BT2 on the entire bottom bevel is gone and I've scrubbed away a lot of steel, but it's only a little thinner than standard. The good news is that it now takes a hair-shaving to hair-popping edge on the Sharpmaker stones (it can shave hair after finishing on the medium flats) without steeling or stropping.

I'm a novice sharpener, so my choice was a scratchy bottom bevel and a sharp edge or a satin-finished bottom bevel and an almost-sharp edge. I was bound to scratch it anyways, so why not get some enjoyment and use out of the knife?
 
Originally posted by thombrogan
I'm a novice sharpener, so my choice was a scratchy bottom bevel and a sharp edge or a satin-finished bottom bevel and an almost-sharp edge. I was bound to scratch it anyways, so why not get some enjoyment and use out of the knife?
Click to expand...
Heh, I just made that trade-off a few days ago with my Buck-Strider. I took it to the benchstone and made some pretty uneven bevels, but now it's sharp and scary. Beer helped me deal with the nasty scratching on the sides of the knife and the uneven bevels. I'm just not prepared to do that to my AFCK yet since I'm down to just a six-pack in the fridge. :)
 
My favorite malt liquor costs less than $2 for a 40 oz. bottle, so maybe I could reprofile even more knives that I feel have overly thick bevels.

Of course, I'd be negligent if I didn't remind you to drink AFTER you're done sharpening. Please search for threads by the mythical Kliff Stump for more info.
 
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