I processed two home raised (not by me) chickens with the 4 today. Their bones are so much harder than the ones of the factory raised ones. Also prepared two trouts for cooking with it. It now has some love marks by the bones.
New acquisition.. Esee 4 clip point. Came with the green and black scales but eh, prefer the orange and black look.
In my worst Steve Irwin voice.. Well look at this little beauty. You don't see too many of these out in the wild and you have to be very careful not to get too close, they pack one heck of a bite..
Maintenance Monday. This Gerber is a pain. While the grind was pretty even, it's at a 30-35 degree angle. Not even my Lansky course diamond was getting anywhere. I took a small dremel sanding drum to it and it's a little better. Then a good friend of mine, Harold, and I were going to trade, one of my tools for his esee 4. Well he brought the 4 and told me to keep it, no trade needed. He'll get the tool whether he likes it or not though lol. A deal is a deal.
I have the same gerber along side the version with the diamond pattern grip. Both edges were horrible from the factory. Spent so much time trying to get them nice..
I snapped some Bad pics for yall. This is 1 of my 4's and gerbers. This is the gerber I spent a stupid amount of time on sharpening to my liking. Not done but nothing like when it was new. It looked liked it was sharpened on a cinder block by a toddler when it was new. I cut the grooves on the 4's handles for a little traction. May not be pretty but it added a ton of traction as intended. This knifes is special since it was my first Esee
My Gerber is still in the lansky clamp, after over a week? I never knew 420hc was so difficult. Even using a course diamond bit, it's still takes forever to reprofile. The grind on mine was 30-35 degrees, each side. Just horrible.
I say I've worked on it about 3 or 4 hours trying to reprofile the Gerber and you can still see the black from the sharpie. Definitely nothing compared to an esee. It better have really good friggin edge retention or it's getting sold lol. I also moved the edge back as much as I could closer to the handle.
I only have 2 sharpeners. The small worksharp 1 that has the diamond and ceramic rod and then a large Arkansas ceramic stick. I used the diamond side to reprofile mine. Then the ceramic to clean that up. Used 400-600-800-1000 paper on a small block to polish it. I probably spent like 5hrs on it total but it looks great IMHO. Doesn't look free hand sharpened so I guess it's cool.. I need to get some proper sharpening equipment. Not that it didn't work with what I had but I feel like it took way to long lol. I guess spending 12hr days welding gave me a pretty controlled and consistent hand. I have no idea how it will hold up as I just finished mine and havnt used it yet. Hopefully well
I have the lansky sharpening system and it's usually been good. Never had an issue with 1095 but this 420... I can't free hand for anything so that's not even a choice for me, but it's getting close to the 5 hour mark for me as well, and that's using a system. I should be going out to my spot Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to test it.
My process is kinda like how I seen Gibson do in a video.. I lay the knife down and use whatever I am using as the moving part. That helped me out a ton in keeping things steady. Especially since I use a table edge or something solid so the knife cannot move. There is no right way, only the way that works for you imo.
@Drew RedBear the Gerber has very soft steel, it's sharpened on a huge angle, so it can hold some edge. Thinning it out would make edge retention suck big time. At least it did it with my Strongarm.
That's probably close to what mine is also. Guess we will find out together how well it holds up. It sure didn't dull easily on the factory edge and it didn't sharpen like it was to soft so I'm hopeful. You can hear and feel a difference in steels when sharpening and it seemed pretty decent?
It was a pain in the butt to sharpen. Took about 6 hours just to reprofile it. After that it was maybe an hour to finish and strop it. Not happy with the looks of it, but if it works that's all that matters. They shouldn't have had it at 30-35 degrees either though.
