Swivel Knife

[Rabble]

Is the blade on a swivel knife supposed to be sharp enough to break (my) skin?  I just got a brand new tandy 8004-00 and even after stropping it a couple dozen times on a length of leather with jewelers rouge rubbed in, it leaves an indentation, but doesn't break the skin.  Is that how it's supposed to be?  

 

It has an adjustable length, and I've got it to the maximum.  Seems pretty comfortable as far as diameter of the barrel, but I don't have anything to compare it with.  Was on here yesterday and saw a conversation about the swivel knifes at Barry King Tools but it's a little hard to tell from their website details on how they would feel...  The length doesn't seem to be adjustable, they've got a lot of different barrel sizes, but hard to tell from a pic which would be best for me, I've got big hands...

Any insight or advise would be appreciated.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Rabble

[TacticallySharp]

I use Barry King knives and the blade does cut the skin (into the leather.) Never used a Tandy one. I have a couple of theirs that were given to me by family but, never opened them.

 

I'm very happy with the 3 BKs and 1 Midas I use regularly.

[Rabble]

The Tandy knife is cutting into the leather, I've just got nothing to compare it to, so don't know if it's as smooth and easy a cut as it should be or if it'd be worth it to move up to a Barry King.  Some of the videos I've watched make it look like the craftsman is putting quite a bit of pressure on the swivel knife, others not so much.  It kind of surprised me that the knife wasn't sharp enough to break the skin on my finger and I wanted to know if that was the way it should be or if that blade should be sharper than that...

I'm kind of methodical that way...  

I've been trying different ways of casing, latest is adding some saddle soap to the water I dip it in, then leaving it in a sealed "tupperware" type container overnight...  This is inexpensive to do.

I'm planning on buying some Herman Oak leather to see how that feels to tool.  I'll use the leather either way, so not wasteful of my dollars.

Buying a $50 knife just to see if it's a little sharper was something I'd wanted to avoid at this point.  I'm just getting started.

 

 

[electrathon]

Just buy the blade from Barry and put it in your knife.  Tell him what knife you will be using it in.  You can not sharpen a knife with a strop, you need a stone for that.  You can keep a knife sharp on a strop.  Many of the Tandy knives are not sharp when new.

[rejerome]

Before you spend another $25 on a blade....is your blade polished to a mirror finish or can you still see the factory grind marks in it?  If you still see grind marks then your blade is not sufficiently polished.  For a Tandy blade you'll need to do a bunch of stropping as the grind marks are usually pretty deep.  A couple dozen times will probably not get the job done.  You may actually need to sharpen it on a stone first to remove the deep factory grind marks.

Machine ground blades will have grind marks that are not parallel to the blade edge.  This causes the blade to drag when you use it.  It shouldn't drag, it should slide smoothly through the leather.

A properly sharpened Tandy swivel knife blade will carve leather just as well as the most expensive knife blade you can find.  It undoubtedly will not hold an edge as long, but it will work just as well as long as it is properly polished, and then maintained polished.  Every time you pick your swivel knife, strop it.  It's a good habit to get into.  Strop it frequently during use.  Bored, with nothing to do?  Strop your swivel knife!  LOL

When stropping you need to be sure you maintain the blade angle.  This means you hold the knife at the exact same angle though the entire stroke when you strop it.  You do not want to roll it.

Kevin does a good job of explaining sharpening and stropping.

Sharpen:

Stropping:

 

 

Edited November 7, 2016 by rejerome

[Rabble]

Thanks, good videos on how to do it, that was very helpful.

I've been checking out other videos on sharpening swivel knives to try and learn what grit of whetstone they're using (Kevin didn't specify), but none of them have said.  Amazon has 3 two-sided sharpening stones available.  1000/4000, 2000/5000, and 3000/8000.  Any advice or opinions?   

[rejerome]

Once you have the blade polished, and continue to strop it "properly" you'll rarely need to, or even want to use a stone on it unless you damage the edge.

If you drop it and nick the edge then you'll certainly need to take off more material than would be practical by stropping it to fix it.  In such an instance stones would be helpful.  Once you've removed damage you'll have to start the polishing process all over again.  With that in mind I'd probably opt for the finer grits.

I keep my knives in "holsters" when they're not in use to protect them.  The three blades that I use the most are 1/4" and 1/2" Barry King blades which are pretty good when you get them, and a very thin 1/4" blade that I got from Peter Main.  I have used them a ton and have yet to do anything other than strop any of them.

[Northmount]

There is another thread I read here recently about sharpening.  The poster reduces the pressure on the stone as he is sharpening rather than moving up to finer and finer grits.  Makes sense that your won't scratch as deep with less pressure against the stone.  I use some cheap diamond sharpening plates.  They never list the grit size, just coarse, medium and extra fine.  Once the blade is shaped and the deep machine marks are scrubbed off, should never need to go back to the coarse stone to sharpen.  After sharpening, I go through 2 levels of abrasive stropping.  If stropped regularly, you should rarely need to go back to even the extra fine stone.  Only if the knife is abused, should you need to go back to a stone to repair damage to the edge and faces.

Tom