sharpening convex in the woods?

N

newknife

Joined
Jul 6, 2008
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If you're knife is has a convex grind and your in the woods with NO sandpaper, leather, or stropping compound.... and you knife gets dull.. how would you sharpen it?

Thanks
 
My guess would be on some type of rough denim...such as material found on Carhartt jackets, coveralls, and pants. That's just a guess though. I'm sure someone more knowledgable will come in and share his insight :thumbup:
 
I'd say find some sand put it on your quads and start stropping away, a rough edge is better than none.

belt might not work as well, could be a nylon belt or something.

dirt + pant leg seems most likely.

really a fungus strop... he coulda used his pants, besides he was carrying a hatchet and another knife to make the strop with...
 
I wonder if batoning it thru some type of medium to hard wood would help it any? If not, and the piece you split was nice and flat after you split it, you could put sand or pulverized dirt on it and try to strop it. Anything in a pinch right?
Other than that, I'd just find a rock with a good looking crevise or contour that looked promising and try that lightly. Fix it when you get home.
 
I carry a Fällkniven DC4 everywhere i go, and i'm able to sharpen any type of edge on it. Hence no need for anything else.
 
How badly has the edge been dulled, and how sharp do you really need it for what you're doing? If it's become unusably dull, then just sharpen on the nearest friendly rock, then fix it when you get home, as others have said. When you need a sharp edge in the field is no time to be worrying about maintaining a nice convex edge: sharp is what counts at that point, so do what you need to do.
 
I've never really felt the need to sharpen one of my knives in the field. Sure the edge loses its crispness after use, but rarely does it become so dull to not function. Think of your Aunt's kitchen knives that are so dull you have a hard time telling the edge from the spin and yet she merrily prepares dinner day in and night with them.

As a last resort if I felt I need to sharpen, I'd find a flat stone and go at the edge with that.
 
Finally KGD and I disagree about something!!! I'm neurotic about keeping my edges sharp. I keep a small homemade sharpener in a ziplock bag my pack.

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I just stapled some thin foam on one side and stapled some fine sand paper on top of that. It's a portable mousepad. :)

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On the other side I glued a scrap of leather (red!) and impregnated it with stropping compound.

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I made two of these, the one pictured is the larger. The smaller one is about 6" long and weighs next to nothing. This little block will keep a convexed edge hair-popping sharp and was made with scraps from around the house in about 10 minutes plus time for the glue to dry.
 
Same as you would have to any other knife under those conditions, look for minerals.

On the whole though that is as unrealistic a situation as those awful “if you could only have one knife” threads. It's just as oddly contrived a scenario as “if you took your knife but forgot to take the sheath what would you do”.
 
Love that Koyote Nessie Rotte, probably a good idea to keep that thing sharp ;)
 
I use a small river rock I found in the rattlesnake wilderness area in montana. Perfect grit and works as well at keeping an edge as most commerical sharpeners I've used. The flip side of the stone I use for a bow drill hand hold. Was able to carve a small notch in it with a sharp piece of granite I found in acadia national park.
 
how did anybody ever sharpen anything in the days of hard scrabble root hog or die??
all good
interesting thread
 
i have never had a knife go so dull that it needed to be sharpened in the field. just like kgd said, even if the blade looses that shaving sharp edge(which it will if you use it enough)it will still be sharp enough to do all the same tasks as before. if you damage it thats a different story.

to keep that real keen edge all the time on my blades i strop on my jeans between uses. it wont sharpen as much as it will polish out the edge keeping it farely crisp.
 
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