I bet a lot of you have an everyday carry knife (EDC) in your pocket most days when you step out of the house. Have you considered how you sharpen this knife to be of much importance? Well I'm here to suggest that you should.
I keep my EDC with a very rough edge - 120-140x diamond - with only a light stropping on plain leather being my preferred edge quality.
Why so coarse? Because I've found myself in situations where a more refined edge won't cut what I want it to....quickly.
I've come to think of my EDC as a one time emergency use tool, something to help me get out of a jam and I've tailored my edge to suit this role. I figure that my knife might be called upon to cut jeans, a leather coat, a seat belt, or any number of tough hard to cut items. I want an edge that acts as a zipper to these items vs an edge that slides on contact.
So the edge on my EDC is ugly, won't cut paper worth a crap, but it'll tear at and open up almost anything very quickly and yeah it's not a pretty cut but I'm not looking for a prize, just hoping the knife is there to do it's job when I need it in an emergency.
I'd suggest that if you carry an EDC for emergency purposes that you do some test cutting on items that you expect to use the knife for and see how your current edge fairs. If it's not doing what you want then maybe try going coarser with the edge and see what you come up with, it just might save your bacon one day.
Dave
I keep my EDC with a very rough edge - 120-140x diamond - with only a light stropping on plain leather being my preferred edge quality.
Why so coarse? Because I've found myself in situations where a more refined edge won't cut what I want it to....quickly.
I've come to think of my EDC as a one time emergency use tool, something to help me get out of a jam and I've tailored my edge to suit this role. I figure that my knife might be called upon to cut jeans, a leather coat, a seat belt, or any number of tough hard to cut items. I want an edge that acts as a zipper to these items vs an edge that slides on contact.
So the edge on my EDC is ugly, won't cut paper worth a crap, but it'll tear at and open up almost anything very quickly and yeah it's not a pretty cut but I'm not looking for a prize, just hoping the knife is there to do it's job when I need it in an emergency.
I'd suggest that if you carry an EDC for emergency purposes that you do some test cutting on items that you expect to use the knife for and see how your current edge fairs. If it's not doing what you want then maybe try going coarser with the edge and see what you come up with, it just might save your bacon one day.
Dave