Sharpening a 5

tarditi

tarditi

Joined
Mar 9, 2010
Messages
825
At Tracker School, I chipped the edge of my 5, batoning wood while building my bowdrill kit.

Here is my buddy's knife from the same activity!
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Anyhow, I was able to get the chip out using my DMT diafold coarse and an arkansas medium stone. Problem is that when I try to put a final edge on it with the DMT fine, it just doesn't seem to help. I can get paper to slice a bit, but it's more of a tear.
I'm not sure if I re-profiled the grind by accident (I used a DMT magna-guide) but I may have horked it up somehow. The magna-guide says it's for knives up to 3/8" thick, but I was able to get it to clamp on the 5 just fine.

I did use the marker trick, and it's removing all the way to the edge, just can't get it even close to factory (hair-popping) sharp. It's not wiring that I can tell - from the blade width and setting on the angle guide it should be about 20 degrees.

Overall, I've put about 2.5-3 hours into it, and it doesn't seem to be making a lot of progress... Any ideas?
 
That's a lot of sharpening time.Too bad you had poor results. When that happens to me, I try different approaches. Sometimes I will change to a different grit or even type of stone. If that doesn't improve, I start changing angle. I'll go to a more shallower angle (12-15 deg.) and try that for a bit. If it's helping and I'm catching the edge ,I'll continue. With my thick ones like the Esee 5 or BK-2 ,I find putting a back bevel really improves the edge. ( reducing the steel behind the cutting edge.)
When I'm sharpening knives, if I don't see an improvement within 50 strokes or so, I know I'm doing something wrong and try a different approach.
Hope this helps, Tarditi. :)

Btw, nice middle choil on that Omni Hunter , Lol !
 
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Hehe - yeah he was bummed, but got a Frost/Mora from the Tracker School Store and had no problems the rest of the class.

I'll give that a try - I figured the thickness and grind of the knife was throwing me off somehow - I have my Izzy and HEST hair-popping sharp with no problems.

Something I will definitely need to figure out for the 5 - it's my SHTF knife, after all! :-)
 
send it to RichardJ.. I know you want to do it yourself and all, but if you're putting that kind of time into it, it may be worth your while.. hes extremely affordable and very professional..

aside that I'm not familiar with that system, but I've heard with the BK2 and that system you need to make sure its adjusted for that blade..
 
I second the idea of sending your 5 to RichardJ. Let him get the edge worked over and back on track, then you'll be good to go.
 
Rich275 said:
I'd like to hear more about Tracker School:)
Click to expand...

Ask away :)

PM, FB, or email me - I didn't want to clog the forum with it.

FB: Dustin Tarditi - just put ESEE Forum or BladeForum in the friend request

email: tarditi (at) yahoo (dot) com
 
got your email dustin. lets see if i can help you get the knife fixed up yourself. you can always send it to me if you dont have any luck.
 
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