I bought a Benchmade 630 some time ago, have not used it as it is too big for me to legally carry and I always have a smaller knife on me. Anyways, the 630 seems to be the exception to the Benchmade sharpening quality as of late. BM used to have horrible initial sharpness quality, then about 2 years ago they started sharpening their knives to ~ Spyderco levels on a consistent basis.
The 630 however did not come sdharp, and all that I inspected (~20) were of the same general sharpness, based on on a thumb sweep and visual inspection.
The knife is fairly thick behind the edge, has a sabre recurve grind on a fairly thick stock made from a decently wear resistant steel. This is not a recipe for sharpeness in a production knife.
Also, a distinction has to be made between sharpness and cutting ability. Sharpness just means a well formewd and evenly finishged edge to em. Actual cutting ability takes into account the primary geometery and ergonoimcs to the extent they effect perormance issues.
The Benchmade 710 in M2 with Axis lock and G10 scales is a directly superior knife for my uses. The thinner stock, less aggresive recurve, stronger axis lock (though lock strength is low on my list of priority, the 630 is plenty strong), ease of carry anhd betterl clip design placement, much greater comfort (especially in cold weather without gloves) make the 710 a better choice in my eyes.
? I have managed to scratch the blade pretty good, so what grit sandpaper should I use to remove the scratches?
I would just leave them. But, if you really want to buff them out, perhaps the easist finish to apply is a "scotchbrite" finish. Get a 3M scotchbrite backed sponge (it is the green pot scrubbing stuff.) Buff the knife out with that, it will scratch the knife a lot, then the finish will even out and it will look decent.
As far as sharpening, due to the recurve you have to use something narrow, which is where the Spydero 204 works well for keeping it sharp, but it not aggressive enough to reprofile it as you will have to remove a lot of metal.
Either buy the diamon stones, which I have not used, or get a dowel and glue some sandpaper to it (100 grit AO or so). It wil have much more surface area (you can made a really long one). Now, clamp the blade in a vise so the edge is straight up and use the sandpaper/dowel as a file and hog off the metal at whatever angle you want (I'g go with 15-17 degrees). Then finsih with a 20 degree microbevel on the sharpmaker, use the corners of the brown stones.
Using this technique, it should take way less than 20 minutes to get a smooth shaving edge on the knife even if it had no edge bevel from the factory.
I have been trying for 3hrs now and almost nothing(except a callus). Am I just doomed to give up and have a big dull knife? Or mabey the diamond rods would save the day? Help me my fellow forumites, you're my only hope! (Sorry just saw Star Wars!)
