Now I am not an expert or a knife maker and am still learning a lot about what makes a good using knife. I use knives primarily for woodwork and am searching for the best blades and grinds for that job and have learned a lot particularly from some of the Scaninavian users on British Blades such as Edge Pal. There are folk there who have carried and used this sort of knife every day for 50 years.
During this learning process it has occurred to me that the standard sharpening method (Ray Mears style flat scandi hone following the existing bevel) on the standard cheap bushy knife (Frosts clipper/mora) may not be the best.
Here is a brand new clipper, angled so the light reflects off the bevel.
Now if we tilt it a little away from the light we see this.
See the tiny secondary bevel reflecting the light? Here it is close up.
When I measure the primary bevel I make it about 22 degrees, when I do the tilt to get the light reflecting off the secondary it feels like I am adding about 5 degrees which added each side gives a total edge angle of 32 degrees. This is a very strong edge but because of the thin blade and narrow 22 primary grind it still passes through what it is cutting with far less resistance than a 30 degree bevel scandi on a thick blade would. It makes it an ideal general purpose knife for a bit of food prep, at a push you could skin, gut fish, carve wood, batton to split knindling and the edge would hold up.
Now what happens when you follow Rays sharpening technique, put it on your waterstones and hone on the existing bevel? Well to start with you will actually be doing nothing at all to the edge, just polishing the primary bevel, the small secondary will keep the edge from touching the stone at all. Then when you have finally worn the big primary all the way down and start removing metal from the edge then go through the grits to hone that edge to a mirror polish what have you got? "Shaving sharp"? "Scary sharp"? Well what you have is a knife that was designed to hold a 32 edge with a 22 edge, it will shave the hairs off your arm and impress some people but it will not hold that edge any where near as long as the original.
Now perhaps folk think they know more than Frosts or think that Frosts are incapable of putting a proper scandi edge on a knife? No, that secondary is there by intention after an awful lot of research and testing, I know I have toured the factory and talked to the owners. This is a Frosts 106 sloyd knife grind out of the box.
The striations parallel to the blade are the oil coating, the blade is almost mirror polished with no secondary they could put that on the Clipper if they wanted. This knife is specifically designed for woodcarving, it is not a general purpose knife, the bevel is 25 and at 61 Rockwell the core is harder than the clipper to hold that fine edge.
So if Frosts wanted to have a scandi grind with no secondary on the clipper I suspect they would put it nearer 30 than 22. Of course if you do sharpen your knife to 22 it will briefly be scary sharp but if you use it much you will get a lot of sharpening practice. Have you removed the secondary on your clipper following the existing 22 bevel? how do you find it performs? How much work will it do before you need to touch it up?
During this learning process it has occurred to me that the standard sharpening method (Ray Mears style flat scandi hone following the existing bevel) on the standard cheap bushy knife (Frosts clipper/mora) may not be the best.
Here is a brand new clipper, angled so the light reflects off the bevel.
Now if we tilt it a little away from the light we see this.
See the tiny secondary bevel reflecting the light? Here it is close up.
When I measure the primary bevel I make it about 22 degrees, when I do the tilt to get the light reflecting off the secondary it feels like I am adding about 5 degrees which added each side gives a total edge angle of 32 degrees. This is a very strong edge but because of the thin blade and narrow 22 primary grind it still passes through what it is cutting with far less resistance than a 30 degree bevel scandi on a thick blade would. It makes it an ideal general purpose knife for a bit of food prep, at a push you could skin, gut fish, carve wood, batton to split knindling and the edge would hold up.
Now what happens when you follow Rays sharpening technique, put it on your waterstones and hone on the existing bevel? Well to start with you will actually be doing nothing at all to the edge, just polishing the primary bevel, the small secondary will keep the edge from touching the stone at all. Then when you have finally worn the big primary all the way down and start removing metal from the edge then go through the grits to hone that edge to a mirror polish what have you got? "Shaving sharp"? "Scary sharp"? Well what you have is a knife that was designed to hold a 32 edge with a 22 edge, it will shave the hairs off your arm and impress some people but it will not hold that edge any where near as long as the original.
Now perhaps folk think they know more than Frosts or think that Frosts are incapable of putting a proper scandi edge on a knife? No, that secondary is there by intention after an awful lot of research and testing, I know I have toured the factory and talked to the owners. This is a Frosts 106 sloyd knife grind out of the box.
The striations parallel to the blade are the oil coating, the blade is almost mirror polished with no secondary they could put that on the Clipper if they wanted. This knife is specifically designed for woodcarving, it is not a general purpose knife, the bevel is 25 and at 61 Rockwell the core is harder than the clipper to hold that fine edge.
So if Frosts wanted to have a scandi grind with no secondary on the clipper I suspect they would put it nearer 30 than 22. Of course if you do sharpen your knife to 22 it will briefly be scary sharp but if you use it much you will get a lot of sharpening practice. Have you removed the secondary on your clipper following the existing 22 bevel? how do you find it performs? How much work will it do before you need to touch it up?
