Sharpening advice please

[Highbinder]

Hey guys,

I've nicked the edge of one of my knives. This is the first time I've had to take it to sharpen, so far I've been able to keep a keen edge just with stropping. The nick is less than a 1mm deep, and the blade is CPM3V & convexed. Still paper shaving sharp but you can feel it snag, and it bugs me when I see the nick :yikes:

Can anyone suggest what grade of sandpaper to start off from? I have 400 up to 2000.

 

[robin wood]

If it is 1mm deep I would be starting with 120 grit 400 will take for ever.

 

[Highbinder]

It's really quite small. I've taken a few pics hopefully you see what I mean. My concern to sharpen out the nick I'll have to dull the knife and work it back to sharp which is something i've never had to do before with a convex blade.

 

[The Big Lebowski]

You wont go wrong with 1500/2000/2500 W+D.

Its surprising how abrasive 1500 is. I use it to take the smaller chips out of my axe, and did a reprofile of the mini-canadian recently.

May take a while (an hour at best on all 3 grades) but too little metal loss is better than too much, sometimes!

Longstrider on here is reasoable- or you could go down the BRKT warranty route, user error or not but postage/time/cost comes into it.

I would say go for it and get the hang of taking the edge back from scratch.

al.

 

[Highbinder]

Al, I miss the MC. Been thinking about getting a mikro canadian. Kinda put off by their 154cm stainless but the next run is in A2 woohoo. I'll give it a shot tomorrow and post the result.

 

[robin wood]

The important thing is you need to remove a fair bit of metal to get to the bottom of that nick before you start thinking about refining and creating a new edge. It will take a long time with fine grits and not long with coarse grits. You are going to loose the current edge anyway so there is no benefit doing all the work with fine grit. Get to the bottom of the nick fast with coarse grit then work down through the gits.Don't worry about it, a knife is a piece of steel which has been sharpened the worst that can happen is you end up with a poorly sharpened knife but it is part of the learning curve and can easily be put right either by further experimentation yourself or by getting someone else to show you.

 

[Xunil]

From the pictures it looks like you have a small nick a couple of mm in from the tip, and some additional micro-nicks just behind the main nick you highlighted as the problem (as you see it).

All of this can easily be rectified using simple materials but if the knife means anything to you at all (either personal or monetary value) then have someone show you rather than setting to it with good intentions alone.

If you don't already know how to do it you will only make more work for yourself or someone else later on.

CPM3V is very abrasion resistant and the majority of people often end up taking too much metal off at the tip, which will produce a slightly rounded tip instead of the nice point it currently is.

In short, this is no big deal if you already know how its done. If you don't, find out first or have someone do it for you and learn while the knife is away so you can do it yourself next time.

A magnifying glass or loupe would work wonders in establishing the full extent of the damage.

What were you doing with the knife when the blade dinged out ?

 

[Robbi]

+1 for the above, very good advice.

 

[Highbinder]

From the pictures it looks like you have a small nick a couple of mm in from the tip, and some additional micro-nicks just behind the main nick you highlighted as the problem (as you see it).

All of this can easily be rectified using simple materials but if the knife means anything to you at all (either personal or monetary value) then have someone show you rather than setting to it with good intentions alone.

If you don't already know how to do it you will only make more work for yourself or someone else later on.

CPM3V is very abrasion resistant and the majority of people often end up taking too much metal off at the tip, which will produce a slightly rounded tip instead of the nice point it currently is.

In short, this is no big deal if you already know how its done. If you don't, find out first or have someone do it for you and learn while the knife is away so you can do it yourself next time.

A magnifying glass or loupe would work wonders in establishing the full extent of the damage.

What were you doing with the knife when the blade dinged out ?

Many thanks. Not concerned with the micro nicks, I can deal with those But with the big one as Robin says means I'll have to go in far. I bought the knife with the intention of improving my own skills so I definately want to tackle this myself. If I make a mess I can always send it off I suppose.

I'm not sure exactly what caused it, it happened somewhere over the last weekend. I think the main nick was made whilst breaking up a stump for fatwood, and the smaller marks from grit perhaps?