I bought this Microtech DOC a few weeks ago because the nightmare grind and robust design were intriguing. I quickly found out what the cold truth had known all along: The nightmare grind makes for a really, really poor cutter. The blade tang is 16 hundredths, and the middle part of that grind carries the full-tang thickness to within a half inch of the tip. The spine flare a mere 0.11 inches behind the tip is more than a tenth of an inch wide. Yep, it is a manly pry bar.
What to do. I sent the knife off to a custom maker to have a slicer grind on it, but he couldnt strip the proprietary hardware off, so back it came. I kind of like this knife because it is so stout. The lock up is incredibly solid. The flipper is stiff, but the general fit and finish are excellent.
Eventually, I decided to reprofile it, even though it was clearly going to be a bear, not just because of the Elmax steel, but because so much metal would have to be removed, especially from the front half of the blade where the grind gets thick. It was also going to ruin the resale value of the knife.
I decided to try my usual 30-degree edge profile, even though a reprofile that severe was going to leave a very wide edge bevel. You can see from the photo that the front bevel is 18 hundredths (4.7 mm) wide at the tip. The back part of the blade has a much thinner grind and the bevel is more normal. Removing that much metal created a tenacious burr. Normally, I have no trouble removing a burr, but my sense is that grinding a bevel this wide on a 30-degree back bevel made burr removal almost impossible. In the end, I decided to add a 34-degree microbevel. The burr went away.
I kept the sharpening simple: all diamond stones on my Wicked Edge, from 50 grit out to 600 grit, with a final freehand stropping on a green-compound-loaded strip of hard leather glued to a board. Its not a pretty edge, but it is sharp and functional. It easily slices curlycue shavings off notebook paper.
Honestly, the new bevel is ugly: thick at the belly, thin at the back half of the blade. The thin bevel is 0.022 inches behind the edge, which is not too bad. The front part of the edge, just behind the tip, carries an insanely thick 0.073 inches behind the edge.
Still, the tip isnt too bad for detail work. Even though there is a lot of steel behind the edge, the edge shoulders are so far back from the apex that it cuts well. I can easily slip the tip into a tightly glued envelope flap or seed packet, which is not something I can do with my 0560.
The new edge profile makes the nightmare grind reasonable for an EDC, but nothing like a really fine detail knife like the Military. I like large, robust folders, and I have several, but none have the solid feel of this knife. And with the more acute edge, it also has a bit of finesse. But only a bit.
