Sharpening serrations

[alick]

OK - they're little if any use for bushcraft, but there are quite a few knives out there with wholly or part serrated blades for cutting ropes and fibres.

I spotted a brilliant tip on the spyderco forum yesterday for honing these serrations.

Just get a leather / rawhide bootlace, rub into this rouge, honing powder, metal polish whatever, then with the lace pulled taught you hone each serration individually. You can clamp the knife or (say) hold the lace with your foot and teeth to leave your hands free.

So obvious, why didn't I think of it !

Cheers

 

[tenbears10]

The stakie sharp has instructions to fold the leather and do the same. Hold the knife and do each seration in turn. Haven't tried it yet but sounds like it will work well.

Bill

 

[JakeR]

I was gonna say that

 

[tomtom]

i tryed it with folding the starkie as my leatherman has a few serrations near the base of the bade but they are very small and the folded sarkie is too fat to use on them, it takes them off if anything... so i will give this a try.. thanks for the info

 

[Stew]

tomtom - what about trying the edge of your strop? Might be thin enough.

 

[tomtom]

yeh i made a half hearted attempt at that.. but the knife needs to be clamped and didnt have the means at the time!

 

[dchinell]

Wayne Goddard, a well-respected American custom knife maker, sharpens the serrated portions of production knives just the same as the plain portions. It's as if the serrations weren't there.

In effect, he only sharpens the very outer tips of the serrations, not the valleys. In the process, the tips get sharpened off (converted from points to squares).

He argues that it's the tips that get the most use and get dullest. It's a rather radical approach, but I certainly like the simplicity of it.

I'm not advocating this as the best approach. (The best approach is to avoid serrations if you want to sharpen your own stuff.) Just more grist for the mill. Might be better than nothing in an emergency.

Bear

 

[alick]

It's not a bad approach Bear, certainly better than nothing and what I did for a long time (years) with one of my knives until I was able to borrow a spyderco sharpmaker which has triangular rods fine enough to track the serrations.

After a while though, the scalloped edges of the serrations do begin to wear and although the blade still works it gets less effective.

I liked the simplicity of this and after trying it last night, I think it helps.

Interesting comment though - thanks :biggthump