What to do with a dull knife of hard steel?

bladeprince

bladeprince

Joined
Jun 12, 2006
Messages
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Is there a technique or tool that can shorten the time needed on the Sharpmaker when a knife made from a quality steel gets fairly dull? Especially if the blade is large, like my Rat-7 in D2. I can spend several sessions over a number of days to get the edge back if I've really used it during a camping trip or a survival practice "session". Help, please.

Regards
 
take some low grit sandpaper (80-200) and some strong paper clips (the black clampy ones) and clamp em on the rods.

alternatively i also just use some cheap $10 coarse benchstone from the hardware store to take off a bunch of steel.
 
The "what to do after you get back" suggestions are excellent and already stated. You will find that it's much less work (at least I do) if you take one of the eze-lap or dmt folding paddle sharpeners (I usually have one coarse/fine combo, and an extra coarse) with you and touch up your blade whenever it starts losing it's edge. Then, when you get back, you can put things right pretty quickly plus, if your trip runs longer than expected, or you do something to really mess up your edge but still need the use of your knife, you can fix it up right on the spot and get back to business.
 
My X coarse DMT cuts through ZDP pretty well, I'm sure it would go right through D2 with ease.
 
Hi,

When using the dmt stones, do we slice into it (i.e. edge first) or do we strop (edge trailing). If we slice into it, won't it rip out the diamonds?

Thanks
 
bladeprince said:
Is there a technique or tool that can shorten the time needed on the Sharpmaker when a knife made from a quality steel gets fairly dull?
Click to expand...

Proper use of mico-beveling is designed to do exactly that as well as enhance cutting ability, edge retention, etc. . Once you determine the edge angle which gives opimal performance then you reduce the angle behind the edge because it is very rare it needs to be the same. Now when you do to sharpen the knife you are only hitting a very narrow strip of metal at the edge and not the entire edge itself. Since the time spent honing is proportional to the edge width itself you can easily thus reduce sharpening time by about a factor of 25 or so, much more if you truely optomize the bevels.

-Cliff
 
I use a $7 Smith's diamond sharpening rod that I got at Wal-Mart, it works very well for what I use it for. I just recently accquired two Ka-Bar Doziers in a trade, and one came very dull, I tried using a cheap coarse stone that usually works, but I got tired and it was taking too long, so I searched my sharpening kit (it is an ammo can with all of my stones and jigs) and found the diamond rod, it worked very well, very quickly, now my Dozier has a microbevel of 30 degrees included, and it is sharp. Sorry for the long reply, but it seemed like it might make someones sharpening a little easier if I told my story.
 
Thanks for all for the great info. I'm keeping a link to this thread and trying these several of the suggestions. Thanks again.

Regards
 
Coarse diamond stones work well. If I really mess one up or get a bad one I put it on my Craftsman wet sharp grinder, then hit it if needed with the cardboard wheel grinder or diamond rods. If you have the right wheels and grinders and learn how to use them they work great. I just put some elmers on the cardboard wheel and roll it in 1200 grit sand. When dry take a piece of metal to even out the wheel for buffing.
 
I gave up on my D2 knife, It was never really sharp when I bought it and it just seemed to get worse when I tried to sharpen it. I sharpened S30V and 13C26 in the same way and they turned out good. Especially my 13C26.

I use 3 ceramic "grinding sticks" with decreasing roughness and sometimes my steel cooking knife sharpener.

With more professional gear you will surely be more successful than me.

//Jay
 
JayAndersson said:
I gave up on my D2 knife, It was never really sharp when I bought it and it just seemed to get worse when I tried to sharpen it.
Click to expand...

Do you still have it, as there are many makers like Krein and Wilson who could regrind it to greatly increase ease of sharpening.

-Cliff
 
Nope, I gave it away and bought an EKA knife.

Having it proffessionaly reground never even occurred to me.

//Jay
 
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