Just got a 2nd hand Rask. Beautiful knife, great action. But the blade is like butter knife sharp… very strange. It has a damasteel blade. The existing sharpening bevel is very small and dull. Will this be any different than other steels to sharpen. Any limits on sharpening angles?
I have sharpened Damasteel in the past. What I recall is that it’s stainless and behaves pretty normal for a stainless steel. So a little harder to sharpen than many carbon steels, but no problems. I didn’t record which angles I used, but in general I like to try to get my angles pretty low (perhaps with a microbevel) unless of course the edges cannot handle it. So I often start such knives at, say, 15 degrees per side and then see if they keep up. If they do, I may go even lower, if they don’t I apply a microbevel or increase the angle.
I couldn’t resist Googling Rask knives. And there are surely some very beautiful pieces. Here is one:
I’d be pretty careful if I got a knife like this, so maybe I’d start at 18 degrees. Have you got a picture of your knife?
Those are my thoughts as well. My knife has a similar blade but different handle. I think I will start with 18 dps and see how that looks, sharpens, and holds up. Then I might redo it at 17 dps then maybe 16. More than 16 will be taking too much away from the loook of the blade I think.