Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Angle of cutting edge bevel

Survey just for giggles and such.

What angle do you prefer for a flat ground cutting edge bevel????
----Not for convex or concave final bevel or for the primary bevel.


First note blade thickness, width, length, steel type and Rc????

Then cutting edge angle you prefer and for what primary use????

How long do you expect the edge to hold up before strop and before resharpen????

For meat cutting, ie not wood/cardboard/rope/wire etc, I like RC 60 or better, 15 degrees and tough steel.

No preference on blade thickness for the most part, but what I use some blades for requires a little more thickness or a softer blade.

I don't know as I can say how long I expect to go between sharpenings. I guess that if I needed a resharpening with a stone after one deer for the knife that gutted skinned and broke down the carcass, that wouldn't be enough, but I have had some deer that were covered in mud that were awful hard on a blade. I took a 6 inch Japanese VG-10 blade RC, 61-62, had it ground to common boning knife shape and when It comes to shaving off muddy meat, that blade does it exceptionally well and stays sharper than any other I own, but that seems to me to be more an accidental function of design than anything else.

I also use my knives well and take care of them to a degree. I wash them myself and none have ever been in a dishwasher.

Well, I just resharpened a couple knives from 21 degrees to 18 degrees.
Hopefully I will get to use them end of the week. Deer season opens the 15th

Both are from the CPM M4 3rd run.
One is the Gentleman Hunter model.
One is a one-off short 1 1/2" wide blade skinner

I have several requests now to drop to a 17-15 degree sharpen bevel.
I have never gone that low, so going to see how I like 18 degrees.

Tim

Tim,

Thanks for doing this. Good luck in your deer hunt. Looking forward to your report.

bludog

Thick blades = 2 edges or a bevel

Thinner blades = 15 degrees, 16 or 17 on smaller really thin knives for skull areas

20° works for me on thicker steel. I don’t buy many really thin blades, but there I want a bit less. 18° is fine.

MRK,

Which stones/tapes do you use on your edge pro?

Jeff

I’ve never really checked the angles of knives I’ve had made.

I like thin. .090 or so.

With deer, i debone hanging. No brisket splitting.

j_elky
Starting with a new, never sharpened blade with .015-.020" width cutting edge I carefully
take some of the material with a fresh 120 grit belt on small belt sander.
Then I get the angle set and rolling a burr with 120 griton Edge Pro.
Then 220 grit and finish with 600 grit.
Then to a leather strop impregnated with Semi Chrome.

If you want to go with a finer grit to finish you can, but not sure why you would need a blade
any sharper than what the above procedure gives me.

I have not shot anything yet to use the knives I did at 18 degrees yet, but they sure work around the house.

Tim

Thanks Tim.....appreciate it.

By the way...that loveless style blade you did for longarm is Fantastic!!

On a couple old Case skinner type knives we use 20 on our lanskys. They are marked 223-5.

On a model 7-4 Randall it’s been sharpened at 20 also and did a good job gutting.

On a factory sharpened 3-5 Randall, it gutted four deer so far this season and doesn’t seem to have lost its edge yet.

Thick blades as above but hunting with thin stock this season.

Knives this season are at 17.6 - had to measure it. The edge doesn't seem to hold up as long but is still plenty sharp after a completed deer - field dressed through boned out. I do know if I'm rough and in a hurry I can knock the edge off boning out a deer. Maybe that is the real reason I see an edge durability difference. Sure zips through hide without resistance when she first comes out. Since I always have two blades durability isn't that big of a deal.

[quote=michiganroadki

I have several requests now to drop to a 17-15 degree sharpen bevel.
I have never gone that low, so going to see how I like 18 degrees.

Tim[/quote]

Been playing with several old Gerbers made of M2 steel and a 15 degree bevel works well as long as you stay away from bone. These are very thin blades. Like you said about the M4 I think the M2 likes a toothy edge. Been trying different things but think polishing them and then back dragging on 1000 grit paper or stone is working well followed by a minimal amount of stropping. I am liking the 1 micron diamond powder on the rough side of the strop and 0.5 or 0.25 micron on the smooth side.

Geometry cuts.

Steel
Heat Treat
Finish
Yada yada yada
Determines how long.

I would agree with this. Based on the toughness and edge retention M4 is purported to have at the higher HT Tim is using, it would seem that anything in the 15-21 degree per side range would make a heckuva knife for use on deer and other game. With an edge that is resistant to chipping and lasts for more than one deer. That's what I'm hoping for in Tim's latest M4 batch.