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Have a lock blade Bench knife that has over time dulled out on me and can’t bring an edge out
Tried the ole stand by smith diamond sharpening stick several times
Then tried leather stropping with coarse diamond compound
No go
Then broke out the lansky diamond stones with the various pitch slots
Used the 20 degree pitch for hours
40 strokes each side
What the hell am I doing wrong ?
Never had this kind of problem before
Thanks , Kenneth

Model?
Year?
Steel?

Send it to Benchmade the will sharpen for free

S30V is what’s on the blade far as I can tell
Had the knife for 25 yrs give or take
Have used it and resharpened it many times , usually with diamond steel
But for some reason it is being stubborn as hell

Couple of other blades I carry in my back pack and have no problem sharpening them
Guess I will invest another hour or two on lock blade and if it doesn’t come around then may consider sending it back to Benchmade
The little case has been with me a long time and is a sweetheart to work with
But the Bark River and Bencmade fixed blade is pretty darn handy too
Kenneth

Ok , another hour or so and belt sharpener it’s back to normal
Kenneth

You can make sure you are sharpening the existing edge on your blade by using a marker to color the sharpened edge. Then vary your sharpening angle until you are making full contact on the colored marker edge of the blade. That wasn't a good description by me, but with a little imagination, you should be able to figure out what I'm trying to convey.

Thanks , good idea
Kenneth

The first rule is to make sure you are rolling up a burr before going to a finer grit.
Sounds like you needed to start the major resharp with a coarser grit, get the angle
right, roll a burr then go to finer grit. Holding a very consistent angle is quite important also.

Fully sympathize on keeping up with the pure flurry of steels dropped on the knife world the last couple of decades...but; S30V was introduced in 2001, 22 years ago, and Benchmade first used it on the Ritter Griptilian in 2004 - 19 years ago. From the catalogs I have your knife is a Grizzly Creek, that came out around 2008, 15 years ago. Again, I may be missing something but I have most of those year's catalogs. (And, frankly, am too damned lazy these days to look further, so could be TOTALLY wrong!!) And yes, Benchmade didn't have their [bleep] together on CPM steels at that time. Their listed hardness was 58-60.....and, they were the single biggest contributor to the "S30V chips" myth of that era.

All that said...whatever year, in those days, as said above Benchmade sucked in the proper hardening and overall QC departments.

And!: that was compounded in recurve blades!! The factory would get those laser cut machine ground blanks and a low paid employee would work soooo hard to put a beautiful even polished edge along the recurved profile...resulting in a work hardened burnt primary edge along much of the blade.

The fix being change the primary bevel angle down by a few degrees - say 15-17. Then, put two to three sharpenings on it to get past the factory burnt edges and one usually should be good to go.

I have 7 710s and 5 705s (all recurve profile) in 5 different steels and they all jumped in line after a minimum three sharpenings using the 15dps from the Sharpmaker...

Thanks for the history , couldn’t remember if I got the knife before or after devorce , guess it was afterwards
Originally broke the blade trying to open a sliding glass window on pick up I had locked the keys in , dufdnt take much pressure either
Sent it back and got a knew blade , have no idea of this time frame , but thinking it wasn’t long after purchase
That blade had served well till recently and it started taking longer to sharpen , suppose I must have had the angle wrong
Anyway , finally got it back to par and it’s pretty sharp now
But after several hours a day for a few days , it should be
I like the feel of the knife and it is handy
Kenneth

No man, thank you! It's cool as heck to see those old classic users...love it! Glad you got it back on track...

thread got me thinking about two older Benchmade folders I have. The larger is a 1995 model 401 with ATS34 steel. The other is a 1996 with Japanese G3 stainless. A couple of years ago I sent them back for a fluff and buff. They are both great carry knives.

Those AFCKs were great knives.

Sure were. I carried a mini in my pocket nearly every day from 1994 - 1998. Would have kept on if Bill McHenry and Jason Williams hadn't designed the 710/705 with the Axis lock. Best Benchmade's ever IMO.

Looking at BM's perceived quality and fit/finish issues today it's amazing to remember that they were winning the Manufacturer's Quality Award at BLADE during those years.

I had a pair of AFCK Benchmades. I still have the large one which is in M2 blade steel. I gave the small one in ATS-34 to my son years ago. Mine are those older liner lock knives. Later Benchmade made those with the Axis lock before dropping them for the 710 series.

A couple of guys at work gave me one of those just like the OPs picture when I retired this year. Haven't used enough to need sharpening yet.