Carbon steels

Stainless mainstream (e.g. kitchen & butcher knife)

High-end and tool steels

Ceramic

Folding knife >

Japanese single-bevel

Cleaver

Convex blade

Concave & Recurve blade

Straight edge, sheepsfoot

Serrated knife

Scissors

Hatchet, tomahawk & axe

Folding knife

We use a sequence of CBN wheels of progressive grits to edge your folder, followed by rock-hard felt or paper wheels loaded with fine diamonds, and thanks to all wheels having similar diameter, and precise angle control as the blade is worked on progressive grits and honed, we get crisp bevels and an exceptional hair-splitting edge (and hair-whittling where the blade is of a premium steel).

Bevels are checked with loupe each time before moving to the next step.

Edge apex sharpness (or rather keenness) is 0.025-0.05 micron - sharper than safety razors, tested and BESS certified.

Though we have polished the inner side of the zinc clamps to make sure no scratches are left on your blades, folder blades are additionally protected with a tough cloth tape.

Tormek knife jig out of the box (right) compared to ours.

Protect the blade from scratches at the site of clamping with a cloth tape.

Measure the existing edge angle with a laser protractor, if ordered to reproduce.

(Our default for folding knives is 30 degrees included, but you can specify any edge angle.)

Clamp in a jig matching the blade thickness.

Set the grinding angle using our computer software.

Grind the edge bevel on a 10” CBN wheel, grit 400 or 600.
(We do not use coarser grits on regular folders. Smaller folders we start with grit 1000.)

Set the edge (apex) on a 10” CBN wheel, grit 1000.

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Using our Frontal Vertical Base, polish the edge bevel away from the wheel on a 10” rock-hard felt wheel with 6 micron diamond spray (grit 3000).
The main advantage of felt is that thanks to its pliability it deburrs the edge simultaneously with polishing; in this sense, hard varieties of felt (rock-hard and flint-hard) stay in-between hones and strops.
Another advantage of diamond-loaded felt over fine stones is that though rock-hard the felt is still compressible, and imparts micro-convexity, strengthening the edge.

Continue to controlled-angle honing on a 10” slotted paper wheel with 2.5 micron diamond paste. Slots in the wheel cool the blade like a fan as it is honed.

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Finish with controlled-angle honing on a 10” slotted paper wheel with a mix of 0.5/0.25 micron diamond paste.

Test sharpness.

At Knife Grinders we check edge by two devices used together: a BESS PT50 edge sharpness tester plus Razor-Edge edge tester. While the BESS sharpness tester is spot sampling, the Razor-Edge edge tester checks condition along the length of the edge, and used together, they give pretty comprehensive idea of the whole edge quality, and this tandem is our QA method at the end of each sharpening session.