What Edge Angle Do You Prefer? Some Help, Please.

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FullFlatGrind

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Mar 8, 2016
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I'm getting a new custom knife. Basically a Kepahrt but with less drop. O1 steel, 4 1/8" long, 1 1/8" wide, 1/8" thick, flat ground. To be used for gutting Western big game, some skinning, cutting string and small branches, and some whittling. Was wondering what edge angle you guys suggest. 30 inclusive? 40? Not sure, but am leaning towards 30 at present.

P.S. I know it has a lot to do with personall preference, but, for those purposes, who would suggest that I go with a blade either narrower or wider than 1 1/8"?
 
Also depends on the hardness of the steel. To what hardness will the O1 be heat treated?
 
For a good steel at 58+ HRC, I prefer a 30 degree inclusive (15 per side). Gives a good cutting edge and will hold up with minimal retouching.
Rich
 
Most of my EDC knives are 40° inclusive, I just find that its a more robust edge for most normal cutting tasks. My kitchen knives however are all sharpened to 30°.
 
Safe and still efficeint would be for me at around 17-20 dps. I do sharpen some at 25 dps if cutting harder materials. My chisel grind edges are 25-30.
 
if its a knife I NEED razor sharp I tend to go 30% ....but for a general utility/bushcraft style knife, 40% is my usual for a slightly more robust edge.....in all honesty I tend to find that for EDC and general use and especially with a lot of Bushcraft stuff.... I do not NEED a scalpel....a good working edge is enough to do the job every time and tends to hold up better to hard use.


The description of your knife to me sounds like 2 different knives... skinning and processing game is where I would want a razor sharp blade with no knicks... it NEEDS to be sharp to do its job...

But then you talk about whittling and cutting small branches and to me that's a more robust knife with a stronger edge... I'd never try and do both with the same knife myself due to the one more common task being the whittling and wood prep being counter productive to having the knife preform its more rare tasks... skinning and game prep.... I say this under the assumption that you hunt/camp/fish like I do and there will be many more nights sitting around a campfire dinking with wood than their will be days spent field dressing a deer....

YMMV
 
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30 degrees inclusive yields a keen cutting edge, but I find it prone to chipping and that it dulls quickly in any area of the blade subjected to hard or repeated use. My preferred edge--and all my knives don't get this due to time constraints--is a 30 degree inclusive on the EdgePro followed by a 40 degree micro-bevel on the Sharpmaker. Subsequent sharpenings are quick, as you you don't have to remove much steel. I use the Sharpmaker for the initial micro-bevel as that's what I use for touch up.
 
For those relatively light uses, I'd go lower than that. They all sound like relatively soft material, unless your game processing will include bone contact/cutting. Even my work knives are 12 dps with a 15 dps microbevel from the Sharpmaker. I'd do less, but its just convenient to use the Sharpmaker for final microbeveling.
 
A good chopper should withstand 10-12 degrees per side. Many don't and will show micro-chipping or wire edging, particularly if the edge shoulders are thick or 0.035" and over, this because thick bevels decelerate harder, and so do more yawing inside the wood. So far only Randalls, Colin Cox and Liles in 440 or D-2 stainless have stayed together chopping wood at such low angles, and it may be mostly due to their thinner edges doing less yawing.

For less heavy tasks, 10 degrees per side is good, but hard to achieve on a thick blade. Folders could go even lower... I consider 15 degrees per side borderline, and anything more open unsafe.

Gaston
 
I put most of my EDC knives to 40 inclusive so that I can easily touch them up on my lansky croc sticks every couple days instead of having to drag out the wicked edge system and all of it's associated parts.

A few kitchen knives are more like 32 inclusive.
 
Urban redneck said:
Most of my EDC knives are 40° inclusive, I just find that its a more robust edge for most normal cutting tasks. My kitchen knives however are all sharpened to 30°.
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That's pretty much my feeling. I often cut plastic and other harder-to-cut materials. So, most of my knives get sharpened to 40° inclusive.

I have a few gents knives plus a few knives with blade steel hardened to 59-60.that I sharpen at 30° inclusive.

My kitchen knife blades only run about 55 HRC. I sharpen them to 40° inclusive

Choppers get sharpened to 40° or 45° inclusive.
 
FullFlatGrind said:
I just got news from the maker that he tempers O1 to around 57. Thoughts on this hardness for O1?
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57 sounds like the blade is going to have Tempered Martensite Embrittlement (TME) because it was tempered above 450°F but below 700°F.

But maybe he has some way of preventing that, but 57 Hrc implies a temp around 500°F.
post-26610-1320642838452.jpg

02_TS21_EffectsofTempering.gif
 
Gaston444 said:
A good chopper should withstand 10-12 degrees per side. Many don't and will show micro-chipping or wire edging, particularly if the edge shoulders are thick or 0.035" and over, this because thick bevels decelerate harder, and so do more yawing inside the wood. So far only Randalls, Colin Cox and Liles in 440 or D-2 stainless have stayed together chopping wood at such low angles, and it may be mostly due to their thinner edges doing less yawing.

For less heavy tasks, 10 degrees per side is good, but hard to achieve on a thick blade. Folders could go even lower... I consider 15 degrees per side borderline, and anything more open unsafe.

Gaston
Click to expand...

10-12 dps would be on the low side for most kitchen knives, let alone any choppers. Are you suggesting based on your experience or simply wisful thinking or even imagination?
 
You go as low as you can for the tasks you perform without damaging the edge. Within reason.

It always takes a few times of sharpening a new knife at different angles to figure out what works best.
 
I've never asked a knife maker to, and know nothing about knife making really, so would it be a faux pas to ask a knife maker to temper a knife to a higher Rockwell Hardness?
He said O1 Will be around 57, does that just mean that that's what he'll temper it to that by default or will most small knife makers tend to only temper a certain steel to a certain hardness?
 
I keep my bushcraft knives between 18 and 20. Just as important is the "toothyness" of the edge. I stop at 300 or 600 grit, then strop a little to make sure the burr is gone. YMMV, but I like that edge a lot.
 
He says he tempers the blade more than once (I assume twice) to get it that low, so by doing that does he avoid TME?

Anyway, he said he'll only temper it once so that it will be harder for me. I prefer a Rockwell closer to 60, anyway.
 
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