yesterday i spent a few hours modding a couple of peices of steel with my new 1x30" harbor frieght belt sander. it is certainly a very handy peice of equipment.
i was recently gifted the gerber steadfast, listed as 440 steel. it has takedown construction, with a screw through the butt cap into the beefy stick tang to hold everything together. very solid knife. i'm sure it would be great for deanimating people, which is what it looks to be designed for. i don't deanimate people, so i decided that the edge was far too thick for actual using. great for punching holes in car doors though. i would say it was probably 1/16" before the bevel, and the bevel was about 50 degrees inclusive. the stock is 1/4" thick, a very beefy knife.
i started up the belt sander and took the knife to it, using an 80 grit belt after i found the 120 too slow. after the sander i took it to a course stone to even out a couple of high spots. i made it into a scandi grind, the edge at about 30 degrees inclusive with no secondary bevel. the large scandi bevel is slightly convexed, very slightly. the edge is polished to 1200 grit and a strop.
it now cuts decently, but because of the double gaurd and the large coil it is a bit akward to use in my standard grip. i played with different grips until i found one that i liked, and the knife made some great fuzz sticks.
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i have a 24" (i think) corona machete, just a regular old hardware store machete. it was a poor chopper because of the large amount of flex in the blade, but it was great for hacking brush and vines around the property. i cut off the last 8.5 inches from the front of the machete, making a sort of seax blade shape. i sharpened up the edge on the sander and a medium grit stone. not it still hacks brush well (with slightly less reach) but it also has increased greatly in chopping ability, due to the increased stiffness of the shorter blade. the new tip also worked great for digging around the roots of saplings yesterday when i was hacking them down close to the ground.
i chopped this branch with the machete:
the machete with the gerber steadfast in sheath:
the gerber:
machete and gerber glamour pose:
i was recently gifted the gerber steadfast, listed as 440 steel. it has takedown construction, with a screw through the butt cap into the beefy stick tang to hold everything together. very solid knife. i'm sure it would be great for deanimating people, which is what it looks to be designed for. i don't deanimate people, so i decided that the edge was far too thick for actual using. great for punching holes in car doors though. i would say it was probably 1/16" before the bevel, and the bevel was about 50 degrees inclusive. the stock is 1/4" thick, a very beefy knife.
i started up the belt sander and took the knife to it, using an 80 grit belt after i found the 120 too slow. after the sander i took it to a course stone to even out a couple of high spots. i made it into a scandi grind, the edge at about 30 degrees inclusive with no secondary bevel. the large scandi bevel is slightly convexed, very slightly. the edge is polished to 1200 grit and a strop.
it now cuts decently, but because of the double gaurd and the large coil it is a bit akward to use in my standard grip. i played with different grips until i found one that i liked, and the knife made some great fuzz sticks.
****
i have a 24" (i think) corona machete, just a regular old hardware store machete. it was a poor chopper because of the large amount of flex in the blade, but it was great for hacking brush and vines around the property. i cut off the last 8.5 inches from the front of the machete, making a sort of seax blade shape. i sharpened up the edge on the sander and a medium grit stone. not it still hacks brush well (with slightly less reach) but it also has increased greatly in chopping ability, due to the increased stiffness of the shorter blade. the new tip also worked great for digging around the roots of saplings yesterday when i was hacking them down close to the ground.
i chopped this branch with the machete:
the machete with the gerber steadfast in sheath:
the gerber:
machete and gerber glamour pose: