Thread: Hunter Element knife

Originally Posted by Eat Meater

Sharpening a Svord is harder. With the convex edge a steel is useless,

you say WHAT????? the job of a steel is to straighten the feather edge..thats it...nothing else.... picture if you will a hand saws cutty bits in miniture,ir the ginsu2000 with its serated edge..your razor sharp hunting knife is just like that in minature. its the tiny serrations on edge that help with cutting...when you touch something hard,you bend or fold the wee teeth over,the job of the steel is to realign them straight....or take off the ones sticking out to the side..this is why you can only steel for so long before you need to put blade back on a stone..to put wee serations back on and remove the "shoulder" you have created with steel and use... picture the flashing on ridge of iron roof if you will,it has small rounded bit right at apex...re stoning blade takes that "rounded off" bit back to being pointy again......endlessly repeated until yo ueither loose knife or its ground down to a tiny sliver too small for fook all.

All a steel does is straighten the edge. You can't sharpen a knife with it. Well; I suppose you technically could if your knife was completely buggered and you used the course steel that comes with many skinning knives etc. I always use as fine a steel as possible. And have often used super fine wet and dry sandpaper to make my steel even smoother.

As an aside; I worked with a butcher (the boss's son) who sharpened his knife with a coarse rat-tailed file.... When he was boning it sounded like he was using a wood rasp on the bone! Well; being the boss's son, he was a complete jerk. I can still remember the day I got back to work after my lunch to see the other apprentice using the son's knife to cut through the concrete back step in retribution for something that had gone down. Funny thing is that the son never noticed any difference to his knife's sharpness!

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

If svord won't hold edge for the OP a Vickyknicker won't either

My Svord peasant went from razor sharp to dull half way through skinning a rabbit

That's what the warranty card says. Don't use a steel but an oil stone. Makes sense - if the edge is actually the point where a continuous curve terminates, using a steel in the usual way will remove the rounded parts leading to the edge before doing anything to feathering

Identify your target beyond all doubt because you never miss (right?) and I'll be missed.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

you say WHAT????? the job of a steel is to straighten the feather edge..thats it...nothing else.... picture if you will a hand saws cutty bits in miniture,ir the ginsu2000 with its serated edge..your razor sharp hunting knife is just like that in minature. its the tiny serrations on edge that help with cutting...when you touch something hard,you bend or fold the wee teeth over,the job of the steel is to realign them straight....or take off the ones sticking out to the side..this is why you can only steel for so long before you need to put blade back on a stone..to put wee serations back on and remove the "shoulder" you have created with steel and use... picture the flashing on ridge of iron roof if you will,it has small rounded bit right at apex...re stoning blade takes that "rounded off" bit back to being pointy again......endlessly repeated until yo ueither loose knife or its ground down to a tiny sliver too small for fook all.

This is a (very) common misconception

While straightening of the edge is one function of honing, rolled edges aren't usually the main form of blunting, and straightening them isn't generally what restores the sharpness.

Those small serations you mention actually tend to shear off, chip or abrade out during use rather than rolling. Even if you get a roll on something hard, much of that roll will actually abrade off when steeling the edge to restore it.

The main sharpening mechanic of a steel is actually still just abrasion, same as any other honing/sharpening method. A small amount but abrasion none the less. The steel abrades away enough to create a small microbevel and reset the apex geometry. This is why they don't work well on harder knife steels, they simply can not abrade material fast enough to restore the edge.

Good article here if you want to learn more
https://scienceofsharp.com/2018/08/2...ing-do-part-1/

Originally Posted by Eat Meater

That's what the warranty card says. Don't use a steel but an oil stone. Makes sense - if the edge is actually the point where a continuous curve terminates, using a steel in the usual way will remove the rounded parts leading to the edge before doing anything to feathering

Identify your target beyond all doubt because you never miss (right?) and I'll be missed.

Just use a strop, although while not truly convex a steel will work fine to establish a microbevel. You won't notice any practical difference in use.