whats the best degree to sharpen to?

oh yeah,
whats a good sharpener to get? i have a lansky with five stones that suits my needs ok but was wondering what the collectors use.
 
rms51 said:
whats the best degree to sharpen a camping knife to?
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On the one hand, I'd say no one could answer that in a meaningful way without you first explaining what knife it is that you have, and what you typically do with it when you're out camping. On the other hand, my stock answer of "no more than 30 degrees total, and if your knife can't handle that, get a better one" probably applies.
 
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The Lansky is a fine system. If it suits your needs and you are able to get good edges w/ it then there is no need to look further.

I agree w/ walleyeguy7, 40* (20* per side) is good for a camp knife. For edc folders w/ good quality steel such as 154cm, VG-10, S30V, etc I tend to go w/ 30* total (15* per side).
 
I would ask what you are going to use the knife for and what knife is it?

I use different angles depending on the use and the type of knife.
 
Of the quality sharpening systems, I think the Sharpmaker is the easiest to use. It gives you two preset angles: 40 degrees and 30 degrees inclusive. For regular knives with good steel (camping or EDC), I'd profile the edge to 30 degrees so you can match the angle of your edge to the angle of the stone.

For choppers, I'd use the 40 degree angle.

When your knives have edges profiled to match one of the two Sharpmaker angles, they are a snap to keep sharp.

If you don't have a high-quality steel, get a new knife that does.
 
I agree with Joe, from choppers to thin folders I don't think I have a single one over 15 per side.
 
thanks everyone, dont have any good steel at this point but am on the hunt for a busse, rat or crk to use as an all around camper. any thoughts? it will be used and i want it to last if im going to spend upwards of 500 bucks and dont want to have to sharpen often. dont plan on brutal use or prying but i want a knife that can take it if needed.
 
If you really know what you're doing and you know your steel, you can get away with 30 degrees or less on a chopper. Personally, I've found that it's too easy to roll an edge on a hidden knot or cross grain when chopping branches. So I don't like to go below 40 degrees for a chopper, but I ain't no Knifenut1013 or a Joe Talmadge, either.

If you're still new to this, you might want to give yourself a little margin.
 
rms51 said:
thanks everyone, dont have any good steel at this point but am on the hunt for a busse, rat or crk to use as an all around camper. any thoughts? it will be used and i want it to last if im going to spend upwards of 500 bucks and dont want to have to sharpen often. dont plan on brutal use or prying but i want a knife that can take it if needed.
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Busse: Yes
Rat: Yes
CRK: Yes

But the secret is to sharpen often just to keep the edge touched up. If you let it get dull, than resharpening is a bear.
 
Firstly, a Busse or similar high end production are fine knives, especially if unlimited warranty is a deal breaker, but a good blade can be had for less than $500.

What do you have now? Are there any negatives/things you would change about it? If you can answer these question I'm sure there will be plenty of fine suggestions for your new camp knife. And also plenty of experience with sharpening angles on a given choice.
 
I agree with the above posters: 30 degrees for a chopper and 20-25 degrees for cutter. If you're getting rolled edges then increase to 40 degrees but performance declines.
 
Sorry for the stupid question - I'm also pretty new to this sickness. I have the lansky 3 stone sharpener - it has preset angles of 17,20,25 and 30. I find myself using the 25 mostly - is this 25 per side or 25 in total? For everyday EDC's like benchmade 550HG and CRKT M21, is this a good angle?
 
Mike, generally the way this works is, the bigger the angle, the more metal there is behind the edge, and that makes the edge stronger. On the downside, the more metal behind the edge, the harder it is to push that metal through the material you're cutting -- that is, the lower the performance. The sharpening angle you choose should therefore be the lowest angle possible (for highest cutting performance), but not so low that the edge becomes too weak and gets damaged. How weak is too weak? Well that depends on the blade itself, and what you're doing with it.

So, how much performance can be realized by lowering the edge angle? Quite a bit. Years ago, I wrote a post (it might be stickied around here somewhere) about a Benchmade 710 that I performance-tested out-of-the-box, then re-sharpened it by hand. The results? My hand-sharpening resulted in a 1-to-9 performance gain, that is, what took me nine cuts to do out-of-the-box, I could do in one after sharpening it properly (and that included drastically lowering the edge angle).

Your Lansky's preset angles are per-side. 25 degrees per side is maybe what I put on my axe. For a fixed blade or folder, way WAY too obtuse, you're leaving a ton of performance on the table. Realize that now that you've sharpened to that angle, it might take a while to re-profile all that steel away to get to a higher-performing edge.
 
I usually do 20* inclusive, but have gone as low as 12. I like super thin slicers, but you have to be mindful of what you cut.

Joe has sound advice.
 
Hey thanks for the excellrnt advice Joe. The lowest angel I have is 17 - I've been trying to sharpen one of my blades at this angle for the last 15 minutes. It was at 25 before. Is it gonna take a while??
 
Yup, probably! For serious reprofiling jobs, especially on modern high carbide steels, I use an x-coarse diamond hone. I think it's worth it for you to do this one by hand just to see how long it takes, but if you have lots of other knives to do and it takes a while, consider picking up a coarse or x-coarse synthetic or diamond hone.
 
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