Sharpening a Scandi Grind Knife
Sharpening a Scandi Grind Knife is the EASIEST style of knife to sharpen. So, on top of being a super tough knife grind style for hard use applications, they are easy to maintain out in the field or touch up when you get home. Don’t let your buddy ruin your knife, learn how to do it yourself. This blog entry is meant to be a supplemental to our video at the bottom of this blog, so if you want to Tarantino this thing, skip to watch the video at the end and then come back and read this. Otherwise, let’s get started!
KNIFE ANGLES
In brief since this has been covered in previous blogs, sharpening a knife relies on you knowing what angle the blade was ground to when it was made. This can be difficult to do with a non-Scandi Grind knife. In many cases, it makes for such a difficult situation that you end up dulling the knife more than when you started… or worse, grinding a new angle into the entire blade. Since a Scandi Grind Knife’s blade angle is the angle you see cut into the steel, this leaves ZERO guess work on that angle. The nice thing is this angle is the same along the whole blade edge. This allows for an easy consistent pull while going through any curved portion of the knife. Not so easy on a knife that is not a Scandi Grind.
SHAPRENING STONES
There are many types of stones, but my favorite for manual sharpening are the Diamond Infused stones. My set is made by DMT (2 of which are pictured above in the red and the green, fine and extra-fine grits respectively) and the 4-piece kit cost me a little over 100 bucks. This is pricey, but once you get your technique down, they make quick work out of any sharpening task while at home.
That being said, I learned on a set of 2 less expensive Japanese Whetstones I had brought back from a work trip in Japan. Neither of those are pictured above. They are more expensive buying them here for sure, so getting a set of whetstones locally or a set of Arkansas Stones is the way to go if you’re just starting out. Either way, a set of stones with medium and fine or fine and extra-fine grits are excellent starters and will last most people their entire lives unless you’re doing a lot of sharpening. Just look into how they are used before you use them, as some require you to submerge them in water before use.
Another nice thing with stones that are not infused with diamond is they will cut the steel slower, so there’s less a risk of ruining your knife since it’s removing less material. That makes for a great way to learn as you can take your time. Then once you get better, you might want to switch to a diamond infused one, but again that is NOT required. Get what you like to use, and if you don’t have to spend more money, then don’t! You’ll see that sharpening a Scandi Grind is quick on any stone you choose.
On a last note, I have also seen Scandi Grind Knives sharpened using a flat river rock. Think of a rock that you’d grab to skip on the water. That is the rock you want. The flatter and more surface area the better. All you’re doing is imitating what a sharpening stone would do. Keep this idea in the back of your mind if you’re in a pinch and need to sharpen out in the field. Or if you’re out hiking and you stumble across a sweet rock, bring it home and use that as an au naturel (and free!) option!
SHARPENING
The act of sharpening any knife is an ART, for sure, there is no denying that. The nice thing is that mastering the art of sharpening a Scandi Grind knife is much easier than any other knife. It’s like learning how to do an oil painting with Bob Ross instead of Michealangelo. You will still get a sharp knife in the end, but it takes significantly less practice.
So first, get your Scav Eng Scandi Grind knife and lay it on your sharpening stone of choice. Tilt the knife until the blade’s edge rests flat on the sharpening stone. Then begin a slicing motion such that the blade edge makes contact with the stone from one end to the other. Just ensure to keep that blade angle flat to the stone the entire time. DO NOT tilt the blade beyond that blade edge angle as you would on a normal knife, this will create another bevel and make the process difficult again. Just keep it flat like the above or below image.
Wherever on the curve of the blade you are, just ensure to keep that blade edge flat to the surface of the sharpening stone. Can’t stress this enough.
The great thing is you have many options here; you can do a slicing motion, you can do a pulling motion, you can do a push/pull motion, as long as you keep that blade angle flat to the stone and get full coverage of that entire blade edge, you are doing it correctly.
Once you do that a few times on the same side, the blade edge will start to get polished, and you’ll sometimes see a small burr or slivers of metal on the very edge of the knife. This is called the burr. This can be hard to see sometimes, so if you see a good polish all along that blade edge, you likely have a burr going. Once this is there along the whole edge, you can flip the knife over and do the other side. With a stone, you should see this within about 10 or 20 strokes on the stone. This will happen sooner on a diamond stone, DON’T OVER DO IT! Once the burr forms, flip it over and do the other side. Once you’ve completed both sides, move on to your finer grit.
Small slivers of steel at about 500X magnification forming the “Burr” circled in RED. They are normally parallel to the blade edge, but these are perpendicular since I was using a back and forth motion to sharpen.
The finer the grit, the harder it is to see burr, so keep that in mind. I typically watch how polished the edge is getting when I get into the really fine grits. Lastly, the finer your grits are, the more polished that edge gets, and the sharper your edge will be. So if you want a super sharp blade, make sure to use your finest grits.
Lastly to finish it off, if you have a piece of leather including a belt, just drag the blade edge along the belt at the same angle you’ve been doing it at as if this was just a very very very fine grit sharpening stone. DO NOT go forward with the knife on the leather, just drag away from the edge. All this does is remove any remaining burrs and gives you that razor edge.
Keep your knife at the same angle on the leather strop as you did on the stones: Flat to the blade edge. This leather has a green finishing polish rubbed into the suede making it polish even better and turning the leather one of our favorite colors.
After that, oil your blade and you’re done! Go shave some hair or split some wood!