trouble sharpening my BM 710

Joined
Jul 9, 2003
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I got the front end of the blade scary sharp, but the recurve end won't do it. I've been using the Spyderco Sharpmaker. Help?
 
Use the edges of your SM hones. Sharpen with the greys, polish with the whites. If you do a search for the 710 there have been some great articles written about the 710, I believe Ciff Stamp did an article about sharpening the 710 specifically to improve its cutting ability significantly. Basically, segment the blade from the recurve into 2 areas; recurve front then back. Finish sharpen and polish the front, leave the back at the grey hones. I use that method with my 710 SBK and M2 and it works very well. Good luck. :D
 
It was Mr. Talmadge who wrote the sharpening tutorial.

If all else fails, do the black marker thing to verify your sharpening the edge and only use the corners. Sometimes I'll have problems when I switch from corners to flats (bad day I guess).
 
Well I tried that method of BH49, it made the knife sharper overall, but the upcurve is still not as sharp as the downcurve....
 
Use a black marker to make sure you're really hitting the very edge with the rod on the recurve.

My first 710HS came with an uneven, fairly obtuse edge. On one side, it was < 20 degrees, and on the other it was > 20 degrees. So, out of the box, it could not be sharpened with a 204 Sharpmaker. I ended up reprofiling it to 30 degrees inclusive.

So I'm wondering whether your edge becomes more obtuse in the recurve, on one or both sides. The marker trick will tell you.

Since it has the recurve, I didn't feel comfortable reprofiling on a flat benchstone. So, I wound up reprofiling with the Sharpmaker. That took 4-5 hours. :eek: Others may suggest that the recurve is so slight that a course or extracourse flat benchstone would be fine for reprofiling. They may be right.
 
When sharpening extreme curvatures you also need to rotate the blade to keep the edge at 90 degrees to the hone, the biggest problem is usually the angle varies a lot and needs to be recut to allow efficient sharpening.

-Cliff
 
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