Sharpening in the long term?

[SuzukiGS750EZ]

Hey guys. I use a spyderco sharpmaker to sharpen. I wanted to know how long you have before you need to sharpen the main bevel. Sharpening the edge every so often removed metal, but how much does it remove and how much can be removed before it needs a new bevel? For instance my sebenza in s35vnv? Or my military in s30v? Or my griptilian in d2?

 

[me2]

This is really a difficult question to answer. It all depends on you. If you are careful and don't oversharpen or damage the edges, a full burr forming sharpening will only remove a few 0.001 of an inch. It also depends heavily on how sharp you want to keep your knives, which dictates the frequency of sharpening. Some people sharpen maybe once a week, so in a year, they'd loose 0.052" of blade width. Some people sharpen every day, so it's much more wear on the blade. It also depends on how hard you use it and what you cut. If it's a letter opener/office/gentleman's folder, it will last much longer. If it's my sorta sister-in-laws ranch knife (a Benchmade Ambush) it will need a full rebeveling much sooner, likely every time it's sharpened.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I think you'll know it when you get there. When the combination of the primary grind and secondary bevels become thick & wide enough from repeated sharpenings (as the secondary bevels gradually get moved up into thicker steel of the primary grind), you'll start to notice a pretty drastic drop-off in cutting performance. That's when the need for re-bevelling will be hard to ignore. That'll also be the time to re-think what angle to establish as the primary, so the secondary bevels (at the cutting edge) will perform better for a greater time span, before needing a full re-bevelling again.


David