Sharpening Advice

[USN_Sam1385]

I have a nice benchmade knife that I have owned for about 3 years. It has served me well. I can get it sharp, sharp enough to leave a line on my fingernail when dragged across lightly (Japanese test). However, I can not for the life of me get it sharp enough to 'cut hair' and be razor sharp. I have a tri-hone arkansas stone with coarse, medium, and fine stones. I can spend 30 minutes on this knife, and for the life of me can not get it razor sharp.

Any advice?? I have an angle guide and everything. I know it is a high quality knife but just will not get as sharp as I want.  

[robtattoo]

TRY READING THIS

[LKH]

You sure it's not the steel?  

If you can do it with other knives, it may just be the metal and in that case, give up.  It sounds like you have it sharp enough for practical use.

[Recurve50 LBS]

USN I also have the same stone kit as you but I have trouble maintaining a consistant angle to get a good sharp edge. I currently use the knife sharpener from KME. With using the KME and then stropping on a piece of leather I now get my knives hair popping sharp. There are many posts here on the KME, check them out.

[straitera]

E-mail sent. Also second the KME. Good unit. Backed by the best in Ron.

[frank bullitt]

Benchmade knives are good, should'nt be a steel issue!

For sure, check out Rob's tutorial! When I was a young meat cutter in the grocery, I had a gentleman show me the same as Rob.

There is also an article in the current issue of TBM, that is a good read!

More than likely, if the knife has seen alot of use, you need to reastablish the edge angle, which will need some work with a coarse abrasive.

The Razor Edge book of Sharpening is good also!

[Jake]

USN,  If you can make it to the Trad Archers World Expo in Iowa I will be there with KME's and be glad to demo it for you.  There are several common mistakes we deal with everyday on the hotline.  Give us a call and we would be glad to help you any way we can.

[Rob W.]

I have tried everything out there and for some reason never could get the hang of sharpening anything. That is until someone on here suggested the Rada knife sharpener. I had two sitting in a drawer we got for our wedding I had never used. I can now sharpen knives and broadheads to scary sharp in seconds.