TOPS with thick factory edge - what do I need to do here?

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Bungwrench

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Dec 21, 2006
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I just bought a TOPS Wolf Pup because I thought it was a neat little fixed blade. It is and I really like it. The thing came as dull as a butter knife. I actually tried to cut myself with it and I cannot slice into my hand with a good amount of pressure.

I have a Lansky system with the Coarse/Medium/Fine stones. The Coarse stone didn't do much after about 30 minutes at 20 degrees. It seems that the factory edge is 30 degrees per side. Seems a bit steep to me so I was going to try 20 or 25 degrees per side.

I have some questions:

1. To put a new bevel on this knife, should I buy the Lansky Extra Coarse Stone? Will that be fine? It's only about $6. Or should I buy a Diamond DMT whetstone in Coarse or Xtra Coarse or what? I have seen these for about $30.

2. The blade on the Wolf Pup is thick as heck. I have never had a small fixed blade with this thick of a blade. What edge angles would work best on something like this? The factory 30 degrees per side seem way obtuse.

Thank you.
 
I would buy(and did) the lansky extra coarse diamond stone. A bit more spendy, but worth it, if your going use a lansky to reprofile. I'd go 17 on the lansky.
P.S. What the hell were you trying to cut yourself for?:confused:
 
samhain73 said:
I would buy(and did) the lansky extra coarse diamond stone. A bit more spendy, but worth it, if your going use a lansky to reprofile. I'd go 17 on the lansky.
P.S. What the hell were you trying to cut yourself for?:confused:
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LOL. :D

I was simply confirming that the dog gone knife couldn't cut jack squat out of the box. The edge felt really literally just like the edge of a butter knife, so I knew it wouldn't cut me. I just did it.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the steel would be 1095 carbon and, if that's right, it won;t take too terribly long to reprofile that thing to 17 degrees. I mean, I re-beveled a RAT-3 D2 blade with the standard Lansky setup. I won;t do that again without diamond stones. That said, I suppose those diamond stones work faster on any steel.

I've fondled several of the TOPS knives at my favorite fondling store. The problem I have with TOPS is they use nice thick steel, but the primary grind starts waaay too low on the blade. I mean, they're spine heavy and by the time they start grinding the primary bevel, they're almost at the edge. I wouldn;t be surprised if you grind that edge at 17 degrees and it almost climbs up to the start of the primary bevel. Very shallow grinds. 'Spensive too.

They have more models of knives than Buck or Case, it almost seems. I wonder if they actually sell very many of them. I do thaink that Wolf Pup is pretty cool though. If you like those thick 1/8" blades, you might try a Bark River. My little mini-SKinners and mini-Candian are even thicker, albeit with a much more useful grind.
 
I think I am going to get the extra coarse DMT Diamond whetstone and try to get a 17 to 20 degree edge on it free hand, and then get out the lansky to put a final 20 to 25 degree final bevel on it.

I should probably try to learn to sharpen free hand at some point.

And yes, it is 1095 carbon. It's just so thick it takes a while to remove material. I'm not fond of the thick blade in reality for such a small knife. I'm wondering if I should attempt to take the primary grind higher or send it to somebody who can? This knife just seems way too thick to do anything useful. I would understand if it were a 6" or longer blade but at 2 1/4" it's a little small to be that thick.
 
Bungwrench said:
..........................I'm not fond of the thick blade in reality for such a small knife. I'm wondering if I should attempt to take the primary grind higher or send it to somebody who can? This knife just seems way too thick to do anything useful. I would understand if it were a 6" or longer blade but at 2 1/4" it's a little small to be that thick.
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Bungwrench,
ALL of the TOPS knives I've seen are spine heavy (I'm not sure if that's the right term or even if it describes the grind properly). I would re-bevel the edge like you're talking about, but I wouldn;t bother trying to get somebody to grind the primary bevel up closer to the spine. After all, it's a TOPS that you have and that's just the way they are. Just my opinion, of course.

I really am curious to see what happens when you grind the new bevel. I'm wondering how wide your edge will be.....how far up the blade it'll go..... and what primary edge angle you end up with. I still say re-bevel it to 17 degrees (like someone said) and put a micro-bevel in at say 20. The edge on a little knife like that should be thin (relatively) and sharp!

Please report your results, Bungwrench. I like that little knife and am curious about the regrind. Thanks.
 
Thanks StretchNM! Whatever happens I will repost pictures when I am done and let you know what I did.

I am still undecided on if I should just get a large DMT Extra Coarse Diamond Whetstone or just get the extra coarse Lansky stone to do this work.
 
Tough to say. I'm not a benchstone user and, as I said, I re-beveled a D2 blade on the Lansky (though I thought it had an extra coarse stone). It took alot of work on that D2!
 
Bungwrench said:
I just bought a TOPS Wolf Pup because I thought it was a neat little fixed blade. It is and I really like it. The thing came as dull as a butter knife. I actually tried to cut myself with it and I cannot slice into my hand with a good amount of pressure.

I have a Lansky system with the Coarse/Medium/Fine stones. The Coarse stone didn't do much after about 30 minutes at 20 degrees. It seems that the factory edge is 30 degrees per side. Seems a bit steep to me so I was going to try 20 or 25 degrees per side.

I have some questions:

1. To put a new bevel on this knife, should I buy the Lansky Extra Coarse Stone? Will that be fine? It's only about $6. Or should I buy a Diamond DMT whetstone in Coarse or Xtra Coarse or what? I have seen these for about $30.

2. The blade on the Wolf Pup is thick as heck. I have never had a small fixed blade with this thick of a blade. What edge angles would work best on something like this? The factory 30 degrees per side seem way obtuse.

Thank you.
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Hiya Bro, I too have the Wolfpup and mine came pretty blunt as well ( TOPS would probably call it a working edge ),
Anyway before you do anything drastic just buy one of the little cheap knife sharpeners as sold in hardware stores, mine cost about $5, they have a carbide sharpener on one side to set the angle and a ceramic on the other to polish the edge. After about 5 mins mine was shaving hair and it's great.
Once you have sharpened it you will grow to love the handy little blade !!!:thumbup:
 
pitdog said:
Hiya Bro, I too have the Wolfpup and mine came pretty blunt as well ( TOPS would probably call it a working edge ),
Anyway before you do anything drastic just buy one of the little cheap knife sharpeners as sold in hardware stores, mine cost about $5, they have a carbide sharpener on one side to set the angle and a ceramic on the other to polish the edge. After about 5 mins mine was shaving hair and it's great.
Once you have sharpened it you will grow to love the handy little blade !!!:thumbup:
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Wow that's a good idea. I'll see what I can pick up around here locally first.

Thank you! :)
 
No problem bro glad I could help !
I'm about as much use as a chocolate fire guard at sharpening with stones but with that cheap sharpener you can't go wrong just keep dragging it across and checking till your happy with it !
 
pitdog said:
Anyway before you do anything drastic just buy one of the little cheap knife sharpeners as sold in hardware stores, mine cost about $5, they have a carbide sharpener on one side to set the angle and a ceramic on the other to polish the edge. After about 5 mins mine was shaving hair and it's great.
Click to expand...

Two problems here: These little sharpeners *don't* give you a really good edge. In my experience it just isn't very clean at all. Plus using such a sharpener doesn't really make that much of a difference, even if the knife is a bit sharper afterwards. The problem is that the edge angles are far too steep, so cutting performance won't be satisfactory until you change the edge geometry.

Hans
 
Habeas Corpus said:
Two problems here: These little sharpeners *don't* give you a really good edge. In my experience it just isn't very clean at all. Plus using such a sharpener doesn't really make that much of a difference, even if the knife is a bit sharper afterwards. The problem is that the edge angles are far too steep, so cutting performance won't be satisfactory until you change the edge geometry.

Hans
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Everone has their opinions bro but I can't really see where you are coming from here. My knife now shaves hair off my arm and cuts feather sticks from wood for fire starting ! I don't care what my angles are now at, the knife works and that is all I ask of it !!!:thumbup:
 
The problem with those carbide one isn't that they don't work, its how they work. They actually TEAR the edge away, making it more fragile, and usualy just give a sharp wire edge. But hell, if you don't mind, and it cuts, it don't matter! More power to ya! :D
 
I hear what you saying but we are talking about a new knife here that just needs touching up, as did mine. I can see what you are saying maybe a problem if you were trying to drastically alter the angles on a carbide sharpener but as I said we are just touching it up !!!
 
pitdog said:
I hear what you saying but we are talking about a new knife here that just needs touching up, as did mine. I can see what you are saying maybe a problem if you were trying to drastically alter the angles on a carbide sharpener but as I said we are just touching it up !!!
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If it ain't broke...break it so you can fix it and spend lots of money on a sharpmaker...if it costs more it must be better:D
A cheap fix can't be better than a more expensive fix!!:eek:
 
I'm going to buy an extra coarse DMT Diamond Whetstone for about $30 to take the edge down to about 17 degrees. Then I will give it a 20 degree microbevel with my Lansky setup.

I'm pretty sure that the sharpened edge will be quite wide.
 
Using one of those cheap carbide sharpeners is a quick and dirty way to reprofile en edge.

Two problems here: These little sharpeners *don't* give you a really good edge. In my experience it just isn't very clean at all. Plus using such a sharpener doesn't really make that much of a difference, even if the knife is a bit sharper afterwards. The problem is that the edge angles are far too steep, so cutting performance won't be satisfactory until you change the edge geometry.
Click to expand...

This may be true except in instances where the factory edge is more obtuse than the carbide sharpener, quite possibly the situation with the TOPS knife. In such a case, the result is a more acute edge.

The problem with those carbide one isn't that they don't work, its how they work. They actually TEAR the edge away, making it more fragile, and usualy just give a sharp wire edge. But
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It's unclear to me how a carbide sharpener could make an edge weaker by virtue of 'tearing away" material from the edge, at least any more than "grinding away" an edge. Essentially, it's acting like a very coarse file. Removing metal either way would not seem to weaken the steel. I'll grant you, it leaves behind a rather unrefined edge, and possibly a wire edge. But wire edges also happen with stones, and either way, care needs to be taken to remedy such a result.
 
What a pain in the ass.

I ended up just using the red (coarse) stone in my lansky to reprofile the edge to 17 degrees to see if I could do it. Then I did a 20 degree final cutting bevel. I bet all in all it took me over 3 hours to do this. I had to clean the stone out about 5 times with dish soap and a tooth brush because it kept loading up.

I realize that I could have done it faster with a better stone (more coarse) or diamonds.

I will say that for TOPS to ship the knife as dull as a butter knife is ridiculous. I will probably never buy another TOPS knife because I don't feel like having to put an entire edge on the knife. It may have well just not even been sharpened at the factory.

At least now it will shave hair and has an almost mirror polished edge. ;)
 
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