Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: Convex Edge Sharpening

Friday 23 October 2015

Convex Edge Sharpening

Howdy folks, thanks for being here.

Today I was faced with another challenge, sharpening a knife with a convex edge.

Now there are a few ways to do this, a few ways that I am aware of that is

1. A belt sander and use the slack in the belt;
2. Sandpaper on a mouse pad
3. Water Stones and free hand sharpening.

I ditched the idea of the belt sander, I don't like sharpening knives with one, I use one for repairs only but not sharpening.

I was always sceptical about the mouse pad thing, it sounds pretty gimmicky to me but I do happen to have some very nifty micro abrasives with adhesive backs in extremely high grits, so I had that in my back pocket. I went with the 3rd option of using my beloved water stones.

I watched a video by Murray Carter where he describes a rocking motion as you sharpen so I did this. I also paid extremely close attention to what I was doing, I did NOT want to change the grind on this knife, it is very special to the owner. This is the most convex convex edge I have ever seen.

I practised on a big Buck hunting knife I was given and was very pleasantly surprised at the results Holy buck, the abrasives that you see in the picture put a beautiful polish on the bevel and the knife got sharp very quickly.

The abrasives that you see in the picture put a beautiful polish on the bevel and the knife got sharp very quickly. Holy Buck.

So I went to work on the knife and used a combination of stones and abrasives on the pad, it turned out very well and is very sharp.

So if you want to sharpen a convex edged knife, it really isn't that hard and you don't really need the water stones, the Buck knife I did wasn't very sharp and the abrasives put a great edge on it.

Learn something every single day.