A question on historical sharpening.

[Hammock Hamster]

What do you suppose was the factory bevel? 40 degrees?
Do the whole edge with one included bevel angle.
If duals had any true advantage, everybody would be doing it.

What a grunt! That's a loooooooong edge to revise. Good luck with it.
I'm so impatient that I'll hack down a 25 degree edge to approx 12 degrees with a chainsaw file.
Then do the finesse work.

Carpenter's & woodworking planes are usually 30 degrees, like many types of chisels.
Top quality, brand name wood carving gouges are all 20 degrees, like most good kitchen knives.
Dedicated wood carving knives are all in the 12 - 15 degree range.

If I had to pick one do-all total included bevel angle for a bush craft knife it would be maybe 25 degrees.
30 is a blunt angle to push wood open but there's enough steel behind it for the heavy bashing.
20 would make as many fine feather sticks as you might need but the edge will swear down more quickly.

I would say 40 degrees would be about right for the factory edge, I'm guessing they are made that way to be robust and not easily chipped. The bevel was also only about 2mm if not a bit less which combined with the blade thickness wasn't conducive to good cutting edge.

I decided on 30 as it should be plenty sharp enough for feather sticks and it has broadened the bevel to about 4mm.
I'm working on the basis this will be good enough for most cutting and simple carving tasks but not too delicate for chopping.


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