Been reading and studying and practicing how to get the ultimate edge on my production buck knives, Skinner and Vanguard models. I appreciate all the advice coming from this forum. It's been a great help. I have a few observations and questions about sharpening. Seems there's lots of advice and devices that can produce the ultimate edge. After looking at sharpening systems for hundreds of dollars, in the end it seems knowledge and painstaking produce the result with any reasonable abrasive. #1. Preserving the original bevel seems to be critical. My buck vanguard out of the box shaved arm hairs. After the first sharpening it stopped shaving hairs. I used the buck honemaster with a double sided 2x6 carborundum stone from my workshop. Used the magic marker trick and got a wire edge, flipped and wired the other side, flipped again and repeated process using the smoother stone and WALLA razor sharp edge that would not shave hair. What did I do different than the buck factory? I examined the edge under the microscope, it showed an exact bevel both sides from point to ricasso.
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The Ultimate Razor Edge
- Thread starter F_Trozzo
- Start date
Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
F_Trozzo :
You can sharpen a knife at any angle you like. However if you want to go more acute than it was ground from the factory the first you do sharpen the blade it will take some additional time, however from that point on it will sharpen as normal in a few minutes.
[buck vanguard]
What do you mean razor sharp? The problem could be the stone. Is it flat and clean? You might want to give it a fresh lapping to reset the surface. It also might even not be fine enough to produce a high quality shaving edge. Though you should be able to shave somewhat with most of the "fine" stones.
The thing that jumps first to mind however is that on the very soft stainless steels like 425, the edge will burr very easily and it can be quite difficult to get it to shave smoothly because you keep knocking the burr from one side to the other. You need to go very light on the edge on the final sharpening and alternate strokes from one side to the other.
Can you slice a piece of paper with the blade evenly with no catches or rips? Can you push cut it. Does it feel any different with your thumbpad from one side to the other drawing it across the blade (that requires some care obviously)?
At what level of magnification? Can you examine it looking right down into the edge?
-Cliff
You can sharpen a knife at any angle you like. However if you want to go more acute than it was ground from the factory the first you do sharpen the blade it will take some additional time, however from that point on it will sharpen as normal in a few minutes.
[buck vanguard]
What do you mean razor sharp? The problem could be the stone. Is it flat and clean? You might want to give it a fresh lapping to reset the surface. It also might even not be fine enough to produce a high quality shaving edge. Though you should be able to shave somewhat with most of the "fine" stones.
The thing that jumps first to mind however is that on the very soft stainless steels like 425, the edge will burr very easily and it can be quite difficult to get it to shave smoothly because you keep knocking the burr from one side to the other. You need to go very light on the edge on the final sharpening and alternate strokes from one side to the other.
Can you slice a piece of paper with the blade evenly with no catches or rips? Can you push cut it. Does it feel any different with your thumbpad from one side to the other drawing it across the blade (that requires some care obviously)?
At what level of magnification? Can you examine it looking right down into the edge?
-Cliff
Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
You color the edge with the marker, and then after taking a pass on the hone you can see where the edge was abraded. It allows you check the angle you are grinding. When the angle you are honing matches the angle of the edge exactly you will see all of the marker worn away from the top to bottom of the edge bevel. Joe describes it in his FAQ.
-Cliff
-Cliff
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2002
- Messages
- 1,801
I tried the Magic Marker trick the first time I sharpened my mini commander. I originally screwed the edge up by trying to polish the edge with a felt wheel and polishing compound on my dremel at low speedd. Apparently my hands aren't as steady as I thought:grumpy: Anyway, I was able to bring the edge to hair poppin' sharp (although maybe a bit more polished than I want because it doesn't slice real well) with my DMT red rod (which folds like a balisong and is tapered). The thing I noticed about using the magic marker is, it does keep you on the right angle, but it takes FOREVER because the marker gunks up the rod I'm using. I used a Sharpie magic marker, and you could actually feel the ink on the blade. I could sharpen all day, and not remove any metal. What the marker allowed me to do was basically use several practice strokes to remove the ink, then I had enough muscle memory to maintain that angle while sharpening the actual edge. I also found that using small circular strokes worked better than drawing the rod down the length of the blade. Maybe I went about it wrong, but it took several hours to get the blade sharp again. I do have to say though, the edge looks better than any other edge I have sharpened freehand. It will pass the hanging hair test. I held one of my wife's hairs with one hand and was able to cut it using a slightly downward angled cut. Now, I think I need to "rough" the edge a bit to improve it's slicing abilities.
Mike
Mike