A new edge on an old knife

[kwakster]

Today one of my collegues handed me this older model SOG Autoclip, it was left by a customer for us to throw it away because he had never been able to put a good edge on it.
The edge was almost non-existant and it also had many nicks, so i put a new edge on it using my trusted Tormek T7 and brought it back to life.

The blade of this knife is made of BG42, a very pure steel made by Timken Latrobe.
It is widely used in the military among others for ball bearings on jet engines and the like, and was popularized by Bob Loveless who favoured this steel for his hunting knives.

SOG did two runs of their AutoClip model with a tanto shape using BG42, but there were chipping problems because of a hardness of 62 HRC.
So in their second batch the hardness was lowered to 60 HRC which solved the chipping problems.

In my opinion the steel is quite easy to sharpen, it just takes a little more effort do to it right.

Here are some pictures of the AutoClip with it's new edge, which is now able to shave hair above skinlevel (treetopping) 

[Benner]

That is one cracking looking blade. 

[Tarrodemierda]

 

man that looks like from factory,the edge.and damn fine knife indeed

[Gadget Guy]

Nice job!  I love BG42 blade steel. 

[jock1]

What a result mate good effort it's beautiful

[cgk]

Thats one solid looking blade.  I pulled out my knife to compare edges....yikes!  As usual, you do excellent work.

[RenHoek]

Another good case of dumpster diving paying off! Nice job! Too bad a Tormek T7 is out of my hobby-sized price range...
-RenHoek

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Fine edge work mate, very impressive

[Swiss Man]

I know someone that had a Gerber 3.0 and the blade steel was so soft that when you went to sharpen one side the edge was just roll over to the other.

What is a Tormek 17?

[kwakster]

This is the Tormek T7, the machine i do most of my sharpening with.



In effect a very slow turning grindstone that is saturated with water it picks up at the bottom from the black plastic container.
The water covers the complete stone in a thin film of water so there is no chance of overheating precious blades.

On the front of the machine is a removable device that is used to set up the exact sharpening angles that you want, but most of the time i use just the magic marker trick.

I used the guiding jig you see in the picture to sharpen the slanted portion of the AutoClip, the straight part was done with another.
On the left there is a leather stropping wheel, very important to remove burrs.

Knives on Leatherman tools and various smaller pocketknives are to narrow to fit in a jig, so these get sharpened freehanded.

[Freudian Frog]

I do everything my hand.

Reminds me I have to finish up my breacher bar...

[hawkchucker]

Nice work. I really like the machine also, looks like something else for the list!