I have been meaning to work on my knife sharpening skills for a while now, and I admit to being a little lazy about it. A few weeks ago I finally found my motivation. I bought a Survive knives GSO 5 last year, and I was initially unsure what I thought about it. It is a heavy knife, purposely so to cover a wide range of bushcrafting tasks. After using it a few times I was considering switching to a lighter 4" version and using a hatchet/tomahawk for heavier tasks. I was on the fence, so I decided to stick with the larger knife, carrying it summer while working my property, clearing some of the land, cutting back shrubs, splitting wood for kindling, hacking off tree limbs, etc. Over time I have grown to see the wisdom of the size and weight, and it is nice having a single blade that can be used for many things.
Of course, maintaining the blade is a necessity, and this knife presents a new challenge. The blade is made of extremely hard CPM-3v. The benefit is that it holds an edge for a long time, even after repeated use as a hacking tool. The downside is that it is more difficult and time consuming to sharpen. I have a Lansky sharpening kit that I like to use and a Worksharp belt sharpener that I use on occasion. After hitting the blade with the Lansky stones I found another issue. Survive puts an oddball 27° angle on the blade bevel. I like using the Lansky because it maintains angle for me, but I have to choose either 25° or 30° setting. I prefer the 25° option, but it also meant that I had to remove a good bit of material from the blade in order to change the angle. Not an easy task with CPM-3v steel. So I made a mistake - I decided to use the Worksharp first to remove material a little faster. The belt sharpener works great for this, but I didn't pay attention and slightly rounded off the point of the knife in the process.
Back to the drawing board. I did something I hated having to do - I used my large belt sander to re-profile the blade and shape it back to a nice point. Of course this puts a flat spot on the blade, so the job of sharpening the point got a bit more involved. Long story, I went back to the Lansky kit and slowly worked the blade and flat spotted point into a 25° bevel. I think this took me around 6 back to back episodes of True Detective. Certainly I learned a lot about proper sharpening on this one, but after putting in the time I am pleased with the results.
Here it is finished off with a good stropping on leather:
Of course, maintaining the blade is a necessity, and this knife presents a new challenge. The blade is made of extremely hard CPM-3v. The benefit is that it holds an edge for a long time, even after repeated use as a hacking tool. The downside is that it is more difficult and time consuming to sharpen. I have a Lansky sharpening kit that I like to use and a Worksharp belt sharpener that I use on occasion. After hitting the blade with the Lansky stones I found another issue. Survive puts an oddball 27° angle on the blade bevel. I like using the Lansky because it maintains angle for me, but I have to choose either 25° or 30° setting. I prefer the 25° option, but it also meant that I had to remove a good bit of material from the blade in order to change the angle. Not an easy task with CPM-3v steel. So I made a mistake - I decided to use the Worksharp first to remove material a little faster. The belt sharpener works great for this, but I didn't pay attention and slightly rounded off the point of the knife in the process.
Back to the drawing board. I did something I hated having to do - I used my large belt sander to re-profile the blade and shape it back to a nice point. Of course this puts a flat spot on the blade, so the job of sharpening the point got a bit more involved. Long story, I went back to the Lansky kit and slowly worked the blade and flat spotted point into a 25° bevel. I think this took me around 6 back to back episodes of True Detective. Certainly I learned a lot about proper sharpening on this one, but after putting in the time I am pleased with the results.
Here it is finished off with a good stropping on leather:
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