Alternative and cheap approach to sharpening serrations on MTs

Troels · **on:** March 05, 2017, 07:46:38 AM

The sharpening gear. A mug and two scavenged pieces of leather with sharpening compound.

My diamonds rods are too coarse for this job which the buttom part of this mug is not.

Stropping the larger serrations on the inner side on the egde of a table
I did not sharpening the smallest serrations on the inner side specificly with rods or similar. But they was touched up by the stropping (no burrs).

How it turned out - I stropped both side of the serrated blade.

In the end this approach does not maintain the geometry of the serrations which are smoothed out. It is however quite rare that I sharpening serrations so I do not worry and I am not really a fan of serrations anyway

allthough I do like non-pointy blade for some jobs. On the other hand the smoother blade slices much better and is now hair shaving sharp ... which I could not say about the factory sharpening.

I will post some cutting test soon.
How do you go about sharpening serrations on MTs?

Troels · **Reply #1 on:** March 05, 2017, 01:17:38 PM

Cutting test of some 2000kg polypropylene robe quadrupled

No issues pretty easy in one cut

8 strand of sisal robe (145kg, app. 8mm)

Tougher but still possible in one cut

One the other hand these tasks (e.g. 6 strand of sisal) was also possible with the plain egde. But I was also using more force to make sure to get in one cut

I could "feel" a difference between plain VS serrated in the force required for the cut when cutting the polypropylene robe with the blade at an slight angle while pulling away (smurfed up sentence

).
This was the setup were there was a clear difference in force required to do the cut between the plain vs serrated egde. I did it multiple times and the serrated blade was clearly better... as expected.

A setup that could measure the required newton meters would have been nice and maybe some test before sharpening

SteveC · **Reply #2 on:** March 05, 2017, 02:21:56 PM

Nice alt. method and great pictures

Aloha · **Reply #3 on:** March 05, 2017, 04:37:08 PM

Not bad idea. I quite like serrated blades. So far my VG10 Spyderco hasn't needed a sharpen but when it does I was thinking a thin rod with very fine sandpaper or leather charged with compound would do the trick.

Troels · **Reply #4 on:** March 05, 2017, 05:27:29 PM

Thanks Steve

Quote from: Aloha007 on March 05, 2017, 04:37:08 PM

Not bad idea. I quite like serrated blades. So far my VG10 Spyderco hasn't needed a sharpen but when it does I was thinking a thin rod with very fine sandpaper or leather charged with compound would do the trick.

Sounds like a good plan

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #5 on:** March 05, 2017, 06:43:38 PM

Nice job there!

I use a Lansky or Gatco dog bone type sharpener for serrations.

I have a few of those types, and I used the flats for plain edges and the corners for serrations. Luckily serrations don't need sharpening a lot and since I have a lot of tools, they don't get sharpened often.

It's a lot of bloody work to do it right!

Def