I was wondering if anyone had any advise on blade chipping.
1.25" from tip, tried resharpening 3 times and the chip keeps getting worse. Exact same spot.
The steel under 14x magnification looks different in and around the chip. Could this be a heat treating gone bad?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Could be anything. Has it always been your knife?
One thing you can do is grind the edge 90° to the stone until the chip is gone. (But you can’t just grind that area or you’ll end up with a recurve or dip). Once the chip is gone, you can sharpen in a new edge.
Alternatively, set the W.E. at the highest angle you can and sharpen the chip out that way… then sharpen in a new edge at whatever angle you want.
If it returns after either method… my guess is there is something wrong with the steel.
Not my knife, my brothers hunting knife. I did file it down 90 deg. with 400 stone and then resharpened again and the spot is almost gone. I called it a chip but the blade was actually falling apart from under the cutting edge. It was like a powder falling away as I sharpened. I can see a difference in the metal in and around the spot. The blade is ok now, not great with the micro chip that still existed but it push cut phone paper and doesn’t hang up slicing. I think it was from either the chromium in the steel or some other bad spot in the blade. Thank You cbwx34
I’d have to guess that there’s a bad spot in the blade steel - too hard or bad crystallization. What grit were you starting at, after the flat-filing?
Yesterday I sharpened a low-end SOG folder for my nephew. The fit & finish were poor enough that I thought it might be a fake copy, kind of a small Buck 110. There were a couple of severe chips and dents at the belly, so I filed off a good bit to rid the blade of the damage. After stoning for about 15 minutes with my 100/200 stones, I took mirroredge’s advise and took to my Worksharp belt sander. Only took a few minutes and the finish work on the WEPS went zip-zip-zip, finishing at 1000. I was thinking about giving my nephew the WorkSharp, but not anymore. There’s some evidence of the belt work, but if you’re not fussy over the bevel appearance, it worked great.
Was it easy to establish the correct angle on the Worksharp (Ken Onion?), Tom?
I think the worksharp has it’s place for some tools, but I don’t like it for knives [quote quote=38243]There’s some evidence of the belt work[/quote] for the reasons indicated. It’s too aggressive and I don’t trust the angles at all. However, for quick damage removal with intent, it works just fine. All of these tools have a place in the arsenal. Grind it on the work-sharp (With Blade Grinder Attachment) and refine it on the WE. I have chosen the AMK-75 to speed repair and to provide precise cutting angles. I then take it to the WE after all the evidence of the lower grits is removed. The different grit abrasives for the 1x30 are tremendous these days and you can swap the belts quickly on the AMK. They have structured abrasives, diamonds, felt and leather. This allows one to virtually eliminate any repair “Evidence” before putting on the WE. For me it’s become about the time I spend on each blade. I like the flexibility that these two systems offer. I can burn through my work quickly with outstanding results or I can slow down, take my time with the WE without the need for power. I needed to add; Sharpening is a different “animal” than blade repair (Grinding bolsters, Tip Damage, major edge defects, re-profile work, etc.). I use both of these systems for different procedures. Blade repair AMK, fine edges and shiny edges WE. The combo is just amazing. 
Thanks for you help T C,
I filed or took the cutting edge off with the 400 grit stone, almost the whole bevel so I could get below the bad steel.
Then re-profiled by making a few passes with the 50(very lightly), same with 80 grit, then before I got to the apex I went to 100-200.
I did this because I wanted to see if it was something I was doing or a bad spot in the steel.
I’ve only sharpened about 50 knives so far with my WEPS so I had to know. Had not had this happen before.
It was definitely the steel. I got below the bad steel and the knife came out pretty good.
I know it’s a buck knife, and I like buck, but the knife was manufactured in Taiwan, SO…
Thanks again TC
I also see the advantage of the work sharp for profiling (ie: damage control) and I will be purchasing one in the future.
I’m not familiar with the AMK-75.
Where can I take a look at that system and what’s the price tag?
Advanced Manufacturing Koncepts (Click Here).
Nice!
Just took a quick look and that looks like a great tool.
Do you worry about heating up the cutting edge with the belt? I know that a powered sharpener can heat the cutting edge VERY quickly.
Nope, Not at all. That is the most common response I see. Almost every knife edge on the market was “birthed” on a belt grinder. The adjustable speed offered and modern structured abrasives available reduce the risk of heating up the blade enough to destroy the temper. Of course, if one wants to destroy a blade, they could do it pretty quickly on any of these machines. The blade never gets hot enough that I can’t touch it.
Good to know, I will keep that info in mind when it comes time to consider something of this type of system.
I noticed the variable speed on the link you sent. Imagine speed would help control the heat.
Thanks for letting me pick at your expertise Sir.
Look forward to chatting in the future.
Hi Mark: The WorkSharp produces a convex edge, so M1rrorEdge is right on that count. His AMK-75 seems to be a much better fit as a means of rapid stock removal at an accurate bevel angle, but I’m not ready to put out that much money. My priority right now is to find a metal band saw for cutting out blade blanks.
The SOG knife I did had a very awkward shape to it, which made it difficult to hold the angle accurately, but removing most of the convex portion went very quickly. There are still some grind marks all along the shoulder of the bevel where the belt wrapped the bevel area. It would have required a lot of steel removal to eliminate those grind marks. It seems to me that the WorkSharp ought to have a stiffer belt tensioning spring to reduce the amount of wrap.