Recommendation? what angle and finish grit to put on a skinning/field dressing knife

[metulburr]

I just started hunting recently. I am looking for what is the best angle and finish grit to put on a knife that you only use for skinning and field dressing. Quartering, and slicing meat would be done with another knife.

I could try to adjust the edge year after year myself....but i only hunt whitetail deer, which where i am is 2 weeks and then wait for the next year. So it would take me forever to try all the variations of grit and edges. So i am asking those here what their suggestions are for their angle they put on the edge as well as what is the finish grit? Trying to save myself some testing on my own.

I got a few new knives i plan on using this year...but i need to redo the edge. The factory edge sucks. I have a series of naniwa stones, (mostly bought for straight razor sharpening) ranging from grit 100, 250, 1K, 6K, and 12K grit. The 12K stone mainly for straight razors....but the 6K will put a mirror finish on.

I know some people use a low grit (250) to finish on and then they use their knife more like a saw. While some use high grit...but what are those people referring to as high grit? (1K, 6K, 12K)? Is there such a thing as too fine when it comes to hunting?

If i dont hit bone i am assuming i can put a low angle on the knife for skinning and field dressing. But what angle 25/20/15? would be best for skinning and field dressing?

What is the best type of edge when field dressing/skinnging? V Edge, compound bevel?

 

[chiral.grolim]

15-20 dps is the standard range for just about ANY steel cutting blade, and you needn't be too exact for a field-dressing tool. I recommend going with 15-dps and if you experience too-rapid edge degradation, either change your grit or strop to a broader angle micro-bevel. Grit-suggestion: 1200 (9 micron) or lower.

 

[me2]

I'd go down to 5 to 7 degrees and finish on the coarsest stone you can get an arm shaving edge with. This blade sounds like a single use blade, and you can afford the optimization.

 

[Distelfink]

You might consider the guidance of Ben Dale and Cody Kendall of EdgeProInc. They have found that almost every knife, including hunting knives, can be sharpened to twenty-one degrees on each side. Twenty-one degrees is an excellent compromise for both durability and sharpness. Much thicker knives can be sharpened at 23 to 24 degrees, and Japanese kitchen knives at 17 to 18 degrees.

If the width of the primary cutting edge is greater than 2mm (or 1/16") they recommend adding a secondary edge/bevel of about five or six degrees less than your 21 degree primary cutting edge / bevel, say 15 degrees. Carefully add the secondary edge/bevel until the primary cutting edge has a width of 1 mm or 1/32". The knife will be easier to sharpen.

Ben has found that refined, polished edges last longer and are recommended for hunting knives (but not kitchen knives). So you can use your finest grit stones to polish the primary cutting edge / bevel for good effect. Some steels require a highly refined edge for durability.

 

[GatorFlash1]

1. 30 total angle for the back bevel (15 degrees per side) and 40 total angle (20 per side) for micro bevel edge angle. The knife doesn't have to have a polished edge. A good knife steel should hold up for dressing and skinning out one deer but it never hurts to have a small pocket sharpener to touch up the edges if needed. Unless the knife has a very good steel it will tend to dull faster if you put too much of a fine edge angle on it. Remember, it is a knife, not a razor. I'm including a video of how to field dress a deer. You can see the knife isn't used much in the field dressing process, and I find a boning knife works better than a folder because of the longer fixed knife blade. If you know what you are doing and have a sharp knife there really isn't much to field dressing a deer as you can see. Once cutting around the anus I tie it closed with a piece of string so I don't accidentally get poop in the body cavity. I do the same thing with the penis to avoid any urine getting into the body cavity. You want the body cavity as clean and cool as possible which is why you wash it out after field dressing a deer. There are some other scent glands that need to be carefully removed but that is in part 2 when you are getting into the skinning. You might watch all three of the butchering a deer process to see the process to the end.

All this being said about knives, I carry a good Victorinox Fibrox boning knife and a good bone saw when I go deer hunting; makes life a little easier. Notice in the video where the bone saw is used to split the pelvis bone, and how a larger knife (where I use a boning knife) is used to split the rib cage. I use these tools in addition to my Gayle B. folder.

 

[l1ranger]

i use two differnet knives for field dressing and skinning.

field dressing is 20 dps and i take it 600 or 1000 grit - i dont fret over these too much - its gonna see some bone, if not now, when quartering later. it just needs to be serviceable to get me through an animal or two, and then i can touch it up again. my usual knife is a old old timer folding hunter

skinning is 17 or 15 dps and I generally take mine to 2000 grit and then strop. i do lot more pulling than cutting - but when i do cut, i want it to be smooth and effortless and I can skin out several animals before it needs attention. i like a blade with a wide rounded belly - what I've always refered to as a skinning blade. a Buck 103 is a classic example of what I like

when quartering, after skinning, I go back to the field dressing knife

neither activity requires too much in the way of knife work, for me, for deer.

 

[NapalmCheese]

I agree with GatorFlash1. I sharpen everything by hand and I eyeball the angle. If it doesn't cut the way I want I lower the angle. Most of my knives are somewhere between 15 and 20 degrees per side on a 1k-4k Norton combo stone. When I'm field dressing deer all I ask my knife to do is cut the hide, split the rib cage, cut the butt out, cut the trachea, and cut the diaphragm. I've never had to stop and sharpen while field dressing, but I usually have a small red DMT pocket sharpener with me just in case. For skinning I rarely use a knife for anything other than the initial cuts around the legs, choosing the pull the skin off instead of cut it off. I've never had to touch up a knife in the middle of doing this either. So far I've used knives with Carbon V, 8cr13mov, 1.4116 Krupp, and 420hc. The 4116 Krupp (Cold Steel Finn Bear IIRC) was the worst (chipped out going through the sternum and dulled quickly), with the other three being pretty equal. The 8cr13mov (Kershaw Antelope Hunter 2) might have dulled faster than the 420hc (Buck 110) or the Carbon V (Cold Steel SRK) but the blade shapes are so different between those knives it's hard to tell, and it's been a few years since I used that one.

Ultimately once you've got the body cavity open and the cut around the anus you could use a butter knife for just about everything else so far as field dressing is concerned.