New User

Welcome to the forum. I am a relatively new user also I purchased my W.E pro pack III in September. I read hunting knife around a 25 degree per side.  I have not sharpened any at that angle yet. I hope that helps. I am sure there will be others that will share information also. Don’t hesitate to ask questions. There are a lot of friendly knowledgeable folks here. Again welcome to W.E. and the forum.

David

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sksharp, Alan, Josh-L, Marc H

Welcome Josh-L!

Clay used to be a field guide and has sharpened a lot of hunting knives. You might check out his advice in this old thread. Here’s another one as well. Let us know how it works out.

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wickededge, sksharp, Josh-L, David, SalisburySam

I’m not familiar with the case skinning knife in particular. I think 20 to 22 degrees work pretty well for me. Once you get up to 50 degs. inclusive or so  I think you will find the edge will lose a little very quickly compared to an angle just a few degs. more acute. Now after that obtuse angle loses a little initially it will hold pretty well but will not stay real sharp very long and winds up needing touched up constantly.  Personally unless it’s a 1/4 inch wide survival knife, an axe, cleaver, something that will see exceptionally hard use, I won’t go much past 22 or 23 degrees.

I have a couple of inexpensive skinning knives, one at 20 degs. straight up and the other at 20/22 micro. and I can’t say which I like better at this point.  I do a lot of hunting knives and a few skinners for others and while some like a 15/17 edge, most seem to prefer 17 or 18/20 micro. or 20/22 micro.

I’ve used this example earlier, I did my brothers Chinese Buck hunting knife at 17/20 micro and asked him not to touch it up until I could look at it. I told him if it gets dull use one of the others I did for you until I can see it. This is the best way for me to determine what edge is going to work best for him. This is what he told me…”When I field dressed the first deer of the season (he has two son’s who hunt as well) this is the sharpest knife I’ve ever used on a deer and gave me a little trouble until I started letting the knife do the work. I didn’t notice ANY fall off in sharpness until the fourth deer. It was not as sharp doing the fifth and last deer of the year but was still sharper than anything I had used in the past.” I looked at the knife and there was no damage per say just slight rounding of the edge,  then with 10 or so passes with a steel and a quick strop the knife was back in shape and ready for next season.

Can’t say this strong enough, one of the most important variables is who is using the knife! Some guys USE there knifes. In other words it’s a tool and they wouldn’t have any reservation using the knife on almost anything, and these folks need a different edge than someone who just uses there knife to cut and peel apples. For me this is maybe the single biggest factor when I try to determine what I want to do for a particular knife for a particular person. Blade grind, thickness. shape and steel are some other factors to determine what the blade is capable of, but if you sharpen a blade to it’s limit and capability and hand it to someone who is going to USE it, the edge won’t hold and will most likely suffer damage and need resharpened to often. A little tougher edge, a little less refined and slightly more obtuse angle, and that same knife will go twice as long between touch ups and perform quite nicely.

I’ve found once I went past 22 deg. or so that the edge retention actually suffers on most knives. Once the cutting edge rounds just a tiny bit on a obtuse angle they loses sharpness very quickly but are very resistant to damage. It seemed backwards to me that a 17 deg. edge was actually capable of better edge retention that a 25 deg. edge was in all most every case as long as the knife was not being used for real hard use. There is always a trade off for sharpness vs toughness. With some of the premium steels today we can sharpen knives more acute than lesser steels of the past.

I do seem to gravitate toward 2 or 3 angle combinations most often but for me nothing is set in stone. Try some different combinations on different knives and then use and test them to determine what works best for you, then you will have a reference point from which to work to determine how to sharpen someone else’s knives.  18 to 20 deg. is a fairly safe angle that most knifes will take and work well, but there are exceptions to most rules.

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wickededge, Josh-L, Organic, David, Marc H

sksharp wrote:

It seemed backwards to me that a 17 deg. edge was actually capable of better edge retention that a 25 deg. edge was in all most every case

This is a great observation. We’ve done a lot of testing over the years to try to better understand what part angle and finish play in edge retention. Generally speaking, we found that lower angles, within the limits of the steel’s characteristics, helped with edge retention. A very simplified explanation of why goes something like this:

Force on the edge is the enemy of edge retention. Knives with narrower angles require less force to make a cut. Knives with wider angles require more force to make a cut. So, from the beginning, knives with wider angles are subjected to more force, meaning that they dull more quickly and that problem scales rapidly because as sharpness decreases, even more force is required to keep cutting.

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Josh-L, sksharp, David, Organic, Marc H