zyhano
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2009
- Messages
- 1,593
Hey guys,
gave my alpha dorado charcoal birchwood in 420HC steel a little tuneup recently. Sharpened her right up to where she cuts like a lightsaber
You can read more about the why and how here, but here are the shots of the process.
enjoy 'em :thumbup:
little hairs from shaving on the blade. as you can see the tip needs some work. I went for a shallower angle at the tip and I'm not yet touching the edge there. by going for a shallower angle I had to take some metal away getting a larger relief edge at the tip.
I started with XC but went to XXC to be able to remove more metal (this is the other side btw). A sharp edge grind with an xtra coarse diamond stone. The diamonds give a nice scratch pattern. Even the XXC can rip hair and makes a mean slicer of a knife.
a little assymetry on the tip, more metal needs to be removed
xxc results, I'm finished on this stone and moving on to the coarse.
As you can see, clean cuts through paper, no burrs that catches paper...
light strokes when finishing the sharpening on the XXC and a light cut through wood gets rid of a burry edge. the 420HC didn't seem to give a lot of burrs anyway..
A little sharpie left near the heel of the blade. I did not sharpen all the way to the heel since there was just too much metal there because of the shape of the blade and the widening near the heel. I tried to do it as best I could and in the end it's still really sharp there (.3 inch), just not as nice as the rest of the finished edge, since it did not get an even amount of time on the different grits.
the XC stone. nothing to add. A sharp knife already.
Coarse stone. When moving from stone to stone, I really took my time this time to get a decent amount of moves in, removing the scratch pattern of the previous stones. Important to get to a polished edge in the end and the right thing to do.
the edge after the coarse stone, the angle at the tip is almost the same angle as the rest of the edge, only a slight difference. scratch pattern is already a lot finer than the xxc.
Fine stone, a duosharp 10" stone by dmt (red, 25 micron). very easy cutting of the printing paper. a hair pulled tight can be whittled here...
no pictures of the xxF stone.
this is the leather strop with 6 micron diapaste on it(see the demo on how to make them in my signature)
it whittles, makes curls and cuts slivers from a hair without going through the hair.
Easily makes turns when cutting through paper.
The finished product all the way up to 1 micron on the strop. mirror like edge baby
I like it..
hair whittling 420HC steel on a buck alpha dorado
light reflection. In normal conditions it is really mirror like, but I cannot get really good shots on the cam. I still see scratches tough. At the same time, I can read newsprint very clearly in the reflection. Anyone want to comment on that?
check out more on this specific knife on my youtube channel right here:
buck alpha dorado rosewood review
thanks guys, hoped you learned something like I did :thumbup:
gave my alpha dorado charcoal birchwood in 420HC steel a little tuneup recently. Sharpened her right up to where she cuts like a lightsaber
You can read more about the why and how here, but here are the shots of the process.
enjoy 'em :thumbup:
little hairs from shaving on the blade. as you can see the tip needs some work. I went for a shallower angle at the tip and I'm not yet touching the edge there. by going for a shallower angle I had to take some metal away getting a larger relief edge at the tip.
I started with XC but went to XXC to be able to remove more metal (this is the other side btw). A sharp edge grind with an xtra coarse diamond stone. The diamonds give a nice scratch pattern. Even the XXC can rip hair and makes a mean slicer of a knife.
a little assymetry on the tip, more metal needs to be removed
xxc results, I'm finished on this stone and moving on to the coarse.
As you can see, clean cuts through paper, no burrs that catches paper...
light strokes when finishing the sharpening on the XXC and a light cut through wood gets rid of a burry edge. the 420HC didn't seem to give a lot of burrs anyway..
A little sharpie left near the heel of the blade. I did not sharpen all the way to the heel since there was just too much metal there because of the shape of the blade and the widening near the heel. I tried to do it as best I could and in the end it's still really sharp there (.3 inch), just not as nice as the rest of the finished edge, since it did not get an even amount of time on the different grits.
the XC stone. nothing to add. A sharp knife already.
Coarse stone. When moving from stone to stone, I really took my time this time to get a decent amount of moves in, removing the scratch pattern of the previous stones. Important to get to a polished edge in the end and the right thing to do.
the edge after the coarse stone, the angle at the tip is almost the same angle as the rest of the edge, only a slight difference. scratch pattern is already a lot finer than the xxc.
Fine stone, a duosharp 10" stone by dmt (red, 25 micron). very easy cutting of the printing paper. a hair pulled tight can be whittled here...
no pictures of the xxF stone.
this is the leather strop with 6 micron diapaste on it(see the demo on how to make them in my signature)
it whittles, makes curls and cuts slivers from a hair without going through the hair.
Easily makes turns when cutting through paper.
The finished product all the way up to 1 micron on the strop. mirror like edge baby
I like it..
hair whittling 420HC steel on a buck alpha dorado
light reflection. In normal conditions it is really mirror like, but I cannot get really good shots on the cam. I still see scratches tough. At the same time, I can read newsprint very clearly in the reflection. Anyone want to comment on that?
check out more on this specific knife on my youtube channel right here:
buck alpha dorado rosewood review
thanks guys, hoped you learned something like I did :thumbup:
that's what I said too.