Terrible Factory Edge on Case Knife

Case seems truly hit or miss with their sharpening, I recently picked up one off the forums, a 1980 vintage small pen knife with a bail, the edges were quite atrocious but after a bit of time on my stones all is right with them. The one thing that I see with most knives are undulating bevels, which take a long time to get them into one plane, not a cargo plane...or a passenger plane, but a plane flat bevel that is the same from ricasso to tip kind of plane, once done it will be easier to maintain by stropping or if necessary by sharpening stones.

This is how it looks after sharpening, should have taken one before but didn't plan on even posting this until I saw this thread ;) when the factory sharpens the knives, they are usually done on a belt sander and any slight movement can create facets or dips along the bevels, so as you sharpen, you will notice there are some places where your stones are not even touching the very edge yet, because of those irregularities in the blade bevels.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

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There are only a couple of makers that actually ship a knife with a good edge. I have yet to find a production traditional knife maker that has a good factory edge.
 
Gary W. Graley said:
Case seems truly hit or miss with their sharpening, I recently picked up one off the forums, a 1980 vintage small pen knife with a bail, the edges were quite atrocious but after a bit of time on my stones all is right with them. The one thing that I see with most knives are undulating bevels, which take a long time to get them into one plane, not a cargo plane...or a passenger plane, but a plane flat bevel that is the same from ricasso to tip kind of plane, once done it will be easier to maintain by stropping or if necessary by sharpening stones.

This is how it looks after sharpening, should have taken one before but didn't plan on even posting this until I saw this thread ;) when the factory sharpens the knives, they are usually done on a belt sander and any slight movement can create facets or dips along the bevels, so as you sharpen, you will notice there are some places where your stones are not even touching the very edge yet, because of those irregularities in the blade bevels.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2
Click to expand...
That is exactly the problem I had in sharpening this Barlow. The main blade had a bit of recurve at the base that made it difficult to get that smoothed down.
 
Gary W. Graley said:
Case seems truly hit or miss with their sharpening, I recently picked up one off the forums, a 1980 vintage small pen knife with a bail, the edges were quite atrocious but after a bit of time on my stones all is right with them. The one thing that I see with most knives are undulating bevels, which take a long time to get them into one plane, not a cargo plane...or a passenger plane, but a plane flat bevel that is the same from ricasso to tip kind of plane, once done it will be easier to maintain by stropping or if necessary by sharpening stones.

This is how it looks after sharpening, should have taken one before but didn't plan on even posting this until I saw this thread ;) when the factory sharpens the knives, they are usually done on a belt sander and any slight movement can create facets or dips along the bevels, so as you sharpen, you will notice there are some places where your stones are not even touching the very edge yet, because of those irregularities in the blade bevels.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2
Click to expand...
Were I American living in the USA I'd be packaging up a few knives for your skill & attention :cool: Beautiful workmanship😻
 
I ordered a 6344 medium stockman several years ago and when it arrived the edges on all the blades were so toothy my first thought was “I didn’t know they made a serrated edge model.” Ten minutes or so on a Lansky and it’s now one of my sharpest knives.
 
I know Case touts their knives as being "hand made," but for the life of me, I can't figure out why they don't just use a machine to put uniform edges on their blades. I'm certain Victorinox isn't sharpening their blades by hand at the plant -- and look at the result. Ever get a poorly sharpened SAK?! I know Case makes a wider variety of blade shapes than Victorinox does, but it seems like the investment in equipment that would be needed to eliminate the problem of inconsistent (and often times lousy) edges would be worth it, especially in a world of every-increasing competition.

-- Mark
 
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mnblade said:
I know Case touts their knives as being "hand made," but for the life of me, I can't figure out why they don't just use a machine to put uniform edges on their blades. I'm certain Victorinox isn't sharpening their blades by hand at the plant -- and look at the result. Ever get a poorly sharpened SAK?! I know Case makes a wider variety of blade shapes than Victorinox does, but it seems like the investment in equipment that would be needed to eliminate the problem of inconsistent (and often times lousy) edges would be worth it, especially in a world of every-increasing competition.

-- Mark
Click to expand...
My thoughts exactly! Even though they’re not usually what I consider sharp, Victorinox knives are consistent in their edge geometry and grinding, which makes for a good starting point for getting the knife sharp. The uneven and very coarse grinding that Case doesn’t bother to clean up makes getting a decent, consistent edge take a lot more time and effort. If Case put as much effort into their edges as they put into the visuals of their knives, they would be so much better.
 
Case edges drive me batty. Good enough for guys casually opening Amazon boxes. I don’t think the edges have always been like this. It’s a lot of work to correct.
 
I would say the majority of recent traditional knives I’ve acquired haven’t had great edges. But I do prefer the GEC’s that seem to be hardly sharpened rather than Cases that have been oversharpened. Either way, haven’t had this with reasonably priced moderns.
 
The ones I’ve gotten over the years are hit and miss. Some were terrible like a hung over drunk just started working that morning and some were very sharp and even. The biggest problem I’ve had with case except two large trappers is they are soft and won’t hold an edge it just rolls over on tough materials and goes dull in a short time. About half of them had a wire edge I had to remove and yes a concave bevel on some . I like case knife patterns and the two large trappers I have one in cv and one in 154cm are nicely made and hold a decent edge but on my other models their heat treatment and sharpening needs drastic improvements.
 
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