Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Field sharpening knives

I've used a tin can lid for scraping hides and for quartering critters. Just to do it. I've used decent steel like Chicago Cutlery, Camillus, Gerber etc and I have no doubt in my mind that the newer steels are far superior. I made my first blade out of D2 back in high school, and with good heat treatment and diamond stones it is a treat to use. With modern heat treatment and tempering it's one of the damn near competitive with anything. I don't want to go back to the quality of steel I used back in the fifties through seventies, I know better.

For people like you, who think average is good enough, just remember you have to be better than average at sharpening and resharpening them. You have to do it more often that average. You also get to spend more time than average on the work you do with them.

MILES58;
Thanks for the report on your VG10 experience and the link.....though I'm not sure I needed the link right yet if you know what I mean?

One of the folders in the photos I put up is a Spyderco Centofante III with a very thin VG10 blade. I've used it on a whole bunch of skinning and field dressing chores and like you came away with a very favorable impression of VG10 or at least the way Spyderco has heat treated it.

In any discussion about steel I've found that who has heat treated it and by extension how they do it makes a huge difference. Just like all steels, all heat treating facilities are not created equally.....

Thanks again sir and all the best to you for the remainder of our summer.

Dwayne

Look at a post around 934 AM this morning. LOL.

Thanks Dwayne, that seems to be what I'm experiencing too. The mirror edge shaves beautifully, but doesn't seem to cut quite as well as the slightly rougher edge when butchering. I believe it is probably superior in some instances, and I do all my broadheads that way, but I think I'll try your 1500 grit method. I used to have several glass plates with varying grits for sharpening chisels and the like, believe they got lost in the move though.

Might be I can use something like a paint stick to glue a piece and to and it should work ok to put in the camper and touch up knives while sitting around the fire at night. Also found a gizmo similar to what Steelhead posted, only mine has just the single slot with the ceramic rods. It does seem to help though. I'm going to see if I can find the dual slot one in town.

I've got a two week archery elk hunt coming up here in September, followed by moose season back here at home, so I'm collecting all my knives and trying to get them ready to go.

Think of a knife edge like saw blade, same idea in a way, only a lot smaller teeth. Honed to smooth and it will not cut some things as well as a tad rougher edge (larger teeth) will.

I've heard the "toothy" edge Dwayne mentions called a wire edge. Under a microscope it is a miniature saw compared to a shaving edge. Butchers prefer it. In the field I like the smooth shaving edge, but when cutting meat at home we use knives with slightly softer steel sharpened to a "toothy" edge.

Ah -- missed that post.

Steve.

Gee, I haven't spent 17 years harvesting kangaroos and field processing them for the chiller to earn my livelyhood, guess I didn't spend all those years cutting through ribs, briskets, hoppers, dirt and mud laden tails, arms, and smashed skulls and neck bones.

And I probably didn't spend a goodly number of those years harvesting pigs for the chiller either (not one or two for the fun of it).


F Dick, Swibo, Eicker, Vitorinox, and those Kiwi blades are what is used commercially.

You see...For people like you, 40 or 50 thousand carcases is probably outside your ken.

This was the first gut of the night, I shot and processed 74 that night, and 95 the next night...let me see your you-beaut stay sharp maintain that.

My brother posing for pic at Freshwater station NSW.

Have a nice day.

I think too many make it all too complicated. I have relatives that worked on the line at Morrell's processing pork. They use commercial quality knives of good steel but not the super knife steels. They do buy really good steels and steel constantly to keep the edge. When the edge is worn down they switch knifes and have it reground (not polished) by one of the guys that picks up a couple extra bucks that way. An uncle did that and always had work, he could grind a good working edge that held up longer. They can go through a couple knives a shift but that's cutting more meat than most of us ever will.

Right, except it isn't a "wire". That has to be removed. Something like a woodplane's iron has to be several orders of magnitude sharper to accomplish its task than a knife has to be to butcher a critter.

Rubbish...anyone working as a slaught in an abs uses a finely polished steel for touching up his meat knife, anything else drags in the meat and is too bloody hard on the wrists.

Most carry two steels, a slightly courser steel for bringing up a dulled edge, a fine polished steel to make that edge run.

A wire edge is a very weak edge and really isn't an edge at all. It needs to be removed, which is what stropping will do for you, and is why you need to go from coarse grit to finer grits to the leather strop with diamond paste or jeweler's rouge on it. A diamond stone will remove steel fastest of any method and I don't even use a coarse diamond plate. Unless the edge is like a butter knife, you don't need a coarse stone or diamond plate surface. Start with a DMT medium till it's sharp, then go to the DMT fine or ultra fine till it's really sharp, then go to the leather strop.

The diamond plate will never dish or wear out. And it's really fast. Use it dry, wash with soap and water, dry it and put it away. It'll outlast you.

I used Arkansas stones for a long time. Bought some really expensive ones. Thought I had the best of the best till I took that sharpening class and learned how the pros do it. Got the Arkansas stones boxed up now and will sell them if anyone needs old style sharpening. If you have not tried Diamond plates, then you haven't tried the good stuff. Get that DMT folder and put it in your hunting bag. Get the red/blue combo. Go to the Woodcraft website. They sell it and they sell the bigger diamond plates also. You want the Medium and the Ultra Fine. That's all you need.

The angle of the edge matters a lot. If you lay the blade flat on the stone, you can get a really finely angled edge. Probably will have a wire edge or close to it. Won't last, but it'll be really sharp for a very short time (think old style shaving razor). If you cut an edge that is at too big an angle it won't be really sharp, but it'll last forever (think Axe). What you want is to find the edge angle that suits what you need it to do - one that'll be both sharp and durable. Older steels will sharpen easily and quickly, but won't hold an edge long, but you can re-edge it easily and quickly. The newer steels can be harder to sharpen, but will hold an edge longer. As I've gradually become a more accomplished woodworker (and smarter) with chisels and hand planes, I've bought better and harder steels. To sharpen them, I really need those diamond plates. Some folks use sandpaper on granite and think that's pretty cool. I think it's pretty messy and less efficient. I need to sharpen a chisel or whatever, and get right back to the woodworking as fast and efficiently as I can. That's why I use diamond plates and that's why that DMT diamond plate folder is now in my bag for the hunting knife. It's what works best.

Exactly right on the two grades of steels. The fine steel gets the most use on the line. A cousin gave me a fine steel that someone lost, nicer than I would probably buy for home use. He said they were going for about $60 at the time.

If your cousin worked as a boner for any length of time I would bet London to a brick he has hands like a gorilla, thick wrists and forearms, is showing sign of arthritis in his wrists and shoulders, and has problems with varicose veins from standing on cold cement all day.

It is a bugger of a job.

I know it's quibbling but you do want a sharp edge on an axe. An axe that doesn't bite is dangerous, glancing and bouncing hither and yon. My grandfather used one for a living and you could just about shave with his axes. Touched up with a stone like a meat cutter with a steel.

BTW, he used a pedal powered wet wheel for everything but pocket knives, for that he used the fine side of his axe stone. Didn't like electric power wheels as part of his technique was controlling the speed of the wheel. His knives you could shave with. (though it wouldn't be fun with the not razor edge angle)

Don's dad got him jobs off the line pretty fast, and his brother too. Old Len had some of those problems and didn't want his kids to get them. My cousin has arthur in hands and back though. I'm pretty sure they have rubber mats on the line and a good cutting height. One place where the union does good work, until they get too political at least.

We have some different semantics working against us as to what we (and butchers we know) call it but what you are describing is exactly what I am. I will stick to my guns that no steel I've ever seen or heard of will put the kind of smooth shaving edge that a old time razor hone or the rim of a fine China ceramic cup will (which I have used a number of times to finish such an edge). The steel puts a micro toothy edge on the blade which cuts meat smoothly and superbly, as you say.

603country,

What I've heard called a wire edge is the edge AFTER the tiny weak strip is removed. Who knows who gets to define these terms? I'm OK with your definition.

To anyone interested: Clarifying what each of us means by the same word helps the conversation, and asking when it is not clear is usually more helpful than attacking before we find out.

The wire edge, also called a "burr" is a strand of weak metal that forms when the apex is ground. The big challenge in sharpening is getting rid of that. It is not the same as the micro teeth. A wire edge will snap off shortly after you start cutting with it, taking the teeth with it, and you will think your knife "won't hold an edge". I think a lot of guys will pull a wire edge on their coarse stone and then move on to the finer ones without getting rid of it and just polish and refine the burr.

You can shave with a burr and cut with it for a little while so a guy will think his knife is sharp. One obvious sign of a burr is a knife that will shave on one side of the bevel and not the other. That is why I prefer cutting phone book paper to shaving as a test of the quality of my edge. You won't be able to cut phone book paper but 4 or 5 slices before a burr starts failing and you start tearing the paper. Another trick is to cut a couple of slices in cardboard or maybe lightly whittle some soft wood. You should be able to still cut phone book paper after that if the edge is burr free. If not, the cardboard snapped off the burr and your knife was never really sharpened right.

I don't think a lot of non knife nuts understand this. A run of the mill knife will cut well a long time if it has a clean burr free edge at any given level of refinement...certainly long enough to skin and gut a deer.

Steel has pretty much been my life since shortly after puberty. I've worked with about all of them that anyone can mention and then some.

I'm also a bit of a knife nut and have the typical drawer full of knives in my dresser.

For the past few years I've developed a fondness for old school carbon steel blades,...typically 1095 hardened to about,...oh,..I don't know,...maybe Rockwell 56 or so.

It doesn't hold an edge like D2 or Vega will, but once you get your own bevel put on a piece of 1095 carbon steel, all it takes is a minute or two with a medium grit silicon carbide stone and it's back in business.

Green River knives are good, no nonsense carbon steel knives,..so are Old Hickory.

As for field sharpening, a 3X5X1/2" medium grit silicon carbide stone and a small bottle of light oil doesn't eat up much room in a backpack,...and compared to a quality Arkansas stone, they cost next to nothing.

http://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Norton-Crystolon-Bench-Stone-8-x-3-P24C5.aspx

For me, water seems to work better than oil unless the stone can be dipped in a oil bath. Oil to me at least tends to gum up the stone.
Once a stone has been used with oil water will never work well.