Tom Brown Tracker!! Need help

V

Vita89

Joined
Sep 3, 2016
Messages
14
Hi Everyone!

First post and long time follower of the forums. I recently picked up my all time favourite knife (i know lame its a tracker). I want to get the blade extremely sharp as i plan on using it as an all around knife for the canadian hunting season (bear, deer, turkey, moose) and its all coming up within the next few weeks. Ill obviously be caring a secondary and a third knife but i wanna see what this guy is made of.

I was working on reprofiling the blade to a 20* angle. It is VERY hard steel. I am using a lansky pro sharpening system with diamond stones. Id like to invest in a work sharp but the $800 cost is a bit heavy atm. I have an untrafine waterstone and leather strop to put the final edge on it but i feel like i just cant get this knife as sharp as i want it to be. Anyone have any advice?
 
You could send it to someone to get sharpened. I'm sure there is a sticky somewhere on this forum with a list of people who offer sharpening services.
 
Say Heah Boys and Girls, I never thought of the Tom Brown Tracker as being as a practical bush knife, But I sure would like one with a Hollow Handle as a Tom Brown Tracker Survival Knife, It would have to be a Custom, But Yeah, How kewl would it be.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
 
Is it new? If it is, it may take a while to wipe out a factory edge, perseverance is what you need. And a coarse stone, for starters.
 
Vita89, I'm going to move this to Maintenance, which is where we discuss sharpening.
With diamond stones you've got what it takes to sharpen the Tracker. You just need some expert advice.
 
Thank you^^^

I spent about 2 hours getting rid of the factory edge. Guess its gonna need a little more work from my trusty lansky lol
 
My advice would be to get a second thinner knife, that is easy to sharpen, and use the Tracker for the heavier tasks. I've spent many hours reprofiling thick knives, only to be disatisfied with the results, since they never make good slicers.
 
Agh, unfortunate. I may possibly look into a bench made bush crafter as my skinner, or something else, because theres like 36 million options and 3 times that many videos to watch on each product :(
 
mtangent said:
You don't need to watch them all.:) How do you sharpen your other knives?
Click to expand...

haha i know I don't I just like to do a thorough amount of comparison before i purchase. I use mostly (because I sharpen regularly and don't put too much of a beating on my blades) A spyderco sharp maker and a wet stone. i only get the lansky out when I need to do something a little more substantial.
 
Whenever I am having trouble re-profiling an edge, I just take it in waves. I'll write down a note on what I was doing and sharpen a little here and there until it is done.

Of course, I use a work sharp now and it gets things done much quicker. But re-profiling some edges on a sharp maker was brutal in comparison.
 
bushcraftusa may have more info on the tom brown tracker, there's a lot of guys that find the quarter round essential to wood crafting and such... and yes it's an extremely thick knife, but no reason it can't be thinned out a bit to allow for super easy sharpening and very high cutting ability :D

IMG_20160902_141612-X2.jpg
 
Vita89 said:
Hi Everyone!

First post and long time follower of the forums. I recently picked up my all time favourite knife (i know lame its a tracker). I want to get the blade extremely sharp as i plan on using it as an all around knife for the canadian hunting season (bear, deer, turkey, moose) and its all coming up within the next few weeks. Ill obviously be caring a secondary and a third knife but i wanna see what this guy is made of.

I was working on reprofiling the blade to a 20* angle. It is VERY hard steel. I am using a lansky pro sharpening system with diamond stones. Id like to invest in a work sharp but the $800 cost is a bit heavy atm. I have an untrafine waterstone and leather strop to put the final edge on it but i feel like i just cant get this knife as sharp as i want it to be. Anyone have any advice?
Click to expand...

I'd pick up an ACE combination stone, a little mineral oil, and some patience. Large overbuilt knives benefit from a serious regrind (if you want to send it out), or by having the edge thinned out and convexed. Using a system that has relatively small hones will take forever to make changes to a large blade even if they are diamond. Grind it thin and then come at it with the Lansky.
 
Vita89 said:
Hi Everyone!

First post and long time follower of the forums. I recently picked up my all time favourite knife (i know lame its a tracker). I want to get the blade extremely sharp as i plan on using it as an all around knife for the canadian hunting season (bear, deer, turkey, moose) and its all coming up within the next few weeks. Ill obviously be caring a secondary and a third knife but i wanna see what this guy is made of.

I was working on reprofiling the blade to a 20* angle. It is VERY hard steel. I am using a lansky pro sharpening system with diamond stones. Id like to invest in a work sharp but the $800 cost is a bit heavy atm. I have an untrafine waterstone and leather strop to put the final edge on it but i feel like i just cant get this knife as sharp as i want it to be. Anyone have any advice?
Click to expand...

I'd pick up an ACE combination stone, a little mineral oil, and some patience. Large overbuilt knives benefit from a serious regrind (if you want to send it out), or by having the edge thinned out and convexed. Using a system that has relatively small hones will take forever to make changes to a large blade even if they are diamond. Grind it thin (less thick) and then come at it with the Lansky.

20° inclusive is a bit thin for a carbon steel chopper, I'd shoot for 14-15° per side.

You could also pick up a 1x30 Harbor Freight belt grinder and some Norton Blaze belts at 60 grit. It will make short work of this job but you could easily wreck the thing too, likely to wreck it actually if you don't have some familiarity/practice.

If it were me I'd want the lower portion hollow ground thin on a wet wheel to 24-25° inclusive and the upper belly ground convex to closer to 30°.
 
^^^^ Thank you all for the input. Sharpening services aren't widely common in my area and they are costly and slow if they are. They more cater to the restaurant businesses.

I was thinking more of a 40 inclusive edge all the way through. Its close it is a work of patience for sure. Ive always loved the tracker so its def something I want done properly. Thank you all for the advice!
 
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